Lost my cabin-bummer

[TeriG2]

Hi all! OK please no bashing..... I am a travel agent. You should go after the agent in this case!! If I treated people's vacation plans that way, I wouldn't have customers!! Not to mention if that happened to me, I would be furious!! But one note: our vendors (Royal Caribbean, Carnival etc) will NOT accept checks from our clients, they will only accept checks from our agency written out of the company bank account (although our agency puts payments like that on our company credit card). Now, if you booked your cruise directly with the cruiseline, they WILL accept your personal check, although they prefer Credit Cards because they protect both the cruiseline and the passengers, not to mention if you have to cancel your trip credit cards make a refund happen alot faster than if you paid by check. Now, that's not to say there aren't agencies out there that won't try to push a check through. Some agencies will break the rules and get away with it and some won't. For instance: Royal Caribbean and Celebrity have new policies that went into affect last year(Carnival has a similiar new policy). Here's the scoop: Travel Agents used to give up part of their commission to give clients better, competitive rates and of course to get the booking. The above cruiselines are no longer allowing this practice. They say, other than specials they run, past guest discounts, and group rates, there are NO discounts to be given! Although there are still agencies out there defying the policy, RCL is taking those agencies out 1 by 1. So, if you want great rates, talk to your TA about booking a group cruise. Another FYI - If you are a past guest and book a group cruise, you can still use your past guest discounts! Another benefit of planning a group, is you have the option of cruising for the cost of port charges only (usually around 200.00)! Also, always check the BBB when choosing an agency, as well as these boards.

 

OK - please no bashing :0)

Teri

[1corona4u]

Maybe I'm confused. Can someone please explain why you would use a TA to book a cruise when you can book it, make payments, etc. yourself on almost every cruiseline's website? Is there an advantage, especially with RCI, where the pricing is almost the same, or the same.:confused:

 

I guess I trust no one, LOL............:D

 

Yeah, I'd be plenty mad if this happened to me, and would go after the TA.:mad:

[templed]

The only reason that I went with a TA this time... and my last cruise for that matter... was that I knew the agent personally.

 

The guy that I booked my next cruise from, I see daily on my morning and afternoon commute, and if he screws me... I know where he lives...

 

;)

 

 

In all seriousness... I booked through him, cause it helped him out. I trust him. Would I book through a stranger? no.

[TXRoo]

Elaine&John, can you please update us??? What happened?

[Elaine&John]

Here's the latest on our saga after spending time with a new agent and the office manager yesterday. The manager is trying to find out where the problem was (agent, technical, RCCL) The agent I used was unavailable yesterday for comment. Our original room 1388 is being held by "special group services" at RCCL for someone who has until this Friday, April 1st to pay or lose. They are contacting RCCL on this hold. I expressed my point that I had the room first and under the circumstances (since no deposits been made) with the travel agency I should be allowed the room. No answer yet. But all is not lost. I lucked out and have an E1 aft corner #7388 (just 2 of us so space is no big deal and love the pics/reviews on the balcony) on reserve for the same date if I lose the other. I still plan on negotiating down on the E1 if they can't fill the 1388 or try to get to a JS for the same price.

 

No sense in leaning hard on the travel agency at this time. They know I'm not happy. The office manager has been nice and has not said no to my requests, just not a yes due to not knowing what room we'll ultimately get. She expects that some consideration is due to us no matter the outcome. I expect it will be resolved one way or another on Friday. Thanks to all for the input and own experiences.

[2oc cruiser's]

Elaineandjohn , last year we booked another cruise while on board got an aft jr suite deck 7 went to make a payment last month and RCCL said no that they canceled it for non payment we had a booking number after they said it was there mistake they wanted to give us another jr suite but we said no we wanted same cabin wasn't our fault held out and we got a grand suite for same price as a jr suite.

[TeriG2]

Before I became a travel agent my reason for booking with an agency versus directly with the cruiseline is we got better rates with agencies. Now that I am a TA, I would say book with an agent because we go to "bat" with the cruiselines and usually get better results when there is a problem. We also know the "ins and outs". The cruiselines set aside a certain number of cabins specifically for groups. These cabins are not released until 2 months before the sail date. So, even if the sailing is "sold out" There are agencies that still have available cabins. I hope this next phrase doesn't violate cruise critic rules, but if there is a sailing you want that is sold out, go to *****.com chances are there will be an agent that has space left from a group that they booked. There are also other sites that compare to *****.com I just don't know the links.

 

 

Teri

[katiel53]

I am a former travel agent. When I worked at the agency, I would ALWAYS tell clients to pay with a credit card instead of a check made out to the agency. The owner was, shall I say it nicely, a "bit suspect." He never sent in the payments until he thought the cruiseline/tour company would cancel the reservation. He would personally call the company and give a check number, but still he didn't send it for a few days. I never wanted anyone I knew to lose a trip, that they didn't even know they lost, because of him. I told people, just in case the cruiseline, airline or tour company folds you can always dispute it with your credit card company. Now, when I book a cruise onboard, I have the booking go to my agent. She always sends me wine at least so I am not losing anything. I do, however, check to see if prices go down, just in case she doesn't notice them. I have gotten reductions even after final payment on RCCL and Celebrity, but never on CCL. If you book with the cruiseline itself, and then find a better deal on the net, or with someone else, you can transfer your booking to that agent. For example, if you book with the cruiseline and you see there is a credit card promotion, you may still get that from an agent, but not necessarily from the cruiseline. Same goes with wine or insurance etc. Agents can't rebate as they did previously, but they still can do some things for us. I will almost always book with the cruiseline first, then see what's available over time. If something looks really good to me, I transfer the booking. The worst that can happen is you get what you agreed to pay the cruiseline for.

 

Katie

[island lady]

Maybe I'm confused. Can someone please explain why you would use a TA to book a cruise when you can book it, make payments, etc. yourself on almost every cruiseline's website? Is there an advantage, especially with RCI, where the pricing is almost the same, or the same.:confused:

 

I guess I trust no one, LOL............:D

 

Yeah, I'd be plenty mad if this happened to me, and would go after the TA.:mad:

 

Before RCI took away the deep discounts a few months ago, the rates for my online TA were FAR cheaper than booking direct with RCI. Now it is pretty evened out. Though I saved about a grand, luckily, by doing it ahead of the change.

 

Cheers

[Elaine&John]

Just heard from the agent who took my booking. She claims that she called it into RCCL on time, has who she spoke to(no longer works for RCCL) and the date and time. RCCL claims no record of that call. Don't they record all conversations? So now I have a she says-they say. At first I thought RCCL was innocent but not so sure especially if my agent involved someone at RCCL who left shortly after being involved. They wanted to put me on a waiting list, says these (1388/1688) cabins often become available which I doubt due to what I reasearched and the limited quantity (2). I told them it must be resolved within 7 days(Monday, April 4th). I feel like it shouldn't take longer then this. Any thoughts on whether I should negotiate now for a JS upgrade (have told them it would be acceptable) or the 7388 corner aft (they put a deposit down to show goodwill on the waiting list) that they reserved for me or any other ideas? I love these message boards. So much help.

[setsail]

From your post it sounds as if all your info is second hand through a ta that I would have serious doubts about. My input would be for you to start a dialouge with Rccl asap ( in a nice way) and get their story from them and ask what can YOU do to resolve this with them. I doubt that you will get any kind of freebe or upgrade if they have no record of the ta calling ( if they had it would be in the computer and paperwork would have been generated for the payment).Good luck.

[dc-snoopy]

If anyone gives you compensation, it should be the TA. Despite the fact that the TA has a name and date/time that she called it in, she still was negligent. RCI sends out confirmation information either electronically or faxed for all reservations. If she didn't get such confirmation within a reasonable amount of time, she should have followed up with RCI and gotten said confirmation. Many posters here will tell you that their TA will forward a copy of RCI confirmation information to the customer when the TA receives it. I know that my on-line discount cruise broker did this. In this case, whether it was RCI or the TA that miscommunicated, the TA should have kept track of whether or not confirmation was received. This is one of the reasons to *USE* the TA instead of booking yourself. A TA is supposed to facilitate all of the travel arrangements for the client and in this case, she didn't. You are working with your TA's manager and I think you need to point out that this is one of the reasons that you are using the TA, she failed to fulfill that portion of her job and that you expect that you will get the cabin or some compensation. If RCI will not book you in the requested cabin that was available when you booked with the TA (as opposed to booking yourself with RCI) then it is up to the TA's agency to ensure that you get at least as good a deal. I would stipulate that I wanted an aft cabin of that level or a larger cabin and it is up to the TA agency to fulfill the request since their error resulted in losing the original cabin. At a minimum, they can provide you with a non-aft cabin of the same class and provide some other form of compensation (and believe me, they are used to providing complimentary champagne in cabins, shipboard credits, and other cabin gifts to many customers so this should be easy for them and a way to "let them off cheap")

[cruizinTigger]

I'm so sorry to hear you are having such a horrid time because of the travel agent!!! If it makes you feel any better, my hubby and I had an experience with Expedia.com Cruise Bookings and will NEVER use them again.

I had called and found a cruise in September that we wanted to take, booked it through Expedia for a GREAT price which I was told was a room with a balcony.

When I got my confirmation, it was a lower level room with NO view (painted picture where the porthole window would have been on an upper level room)!!!! We were soooooo sad - and already had $200 charged as a non-refundable deposit on our credit card!

When i called Expedia, they said it was their agent who screwed up ... but the best they could do was to book us on a cruise in May for a room with a balcony - but it would cost us a few more hundred dollars.

My hubby and I agreed to this, but in order to make it fair - Expedia kicked in $200 of shipboard credits and waived the booking fee, as well as paying the port fees for us to Royal Caribbean.

We will never use the Expedia.com service again as all of this took a week and 5 different employees to straighten it out - not to mention that the balance amount due on our cruise for September had originally been due in July - but for the new cruise in May we had 5 days to pay the balance after they finally rebooked us and straightened out the mess!!!

Oh well, our Junior Suite and balcony on the 10th floor for a week will make up for the hassles!!! :)