The nightmare continues

[Alg63]

As I have posted previously, I have had ongoing issues with the 6 cabins I have booked for us Celeb Equinox Nov 5. These are from minute 1 of the booking (Choice Air $200 credit promo not showing even though confirmed that it was valid) to payments not being processed, items purchased not being shown (insurance), agents not knowing how to "tag" reservations together, information changed online not showing on agents screen, not being able to view invoices / payments online on SOME of the reservations, Choice Air telling me no flights matching my criteria available until I GAVE them the specific flight numbers when "suddenly" they could find them, Choice Air wanting to charge me extra for phone booking even though the the relevant flights did not show on their online system, only on "their" system when calling in ..

 

So yesterday my party gets their reminders of final payment. Most are correct. One invoice shows we have OVERPAID by $3300 ... I call Celebrity and without mentioning what their invoice shows - I ask how much is owed. I am told $1800+. This is not correct, I know it's around $1000. The agent is very nice but tells me she cannot figure it out and has to take it to a supervisor. I advise that I will call back. I call back 4 hours later and am told we owe approx $1300. No, this is not correct I say. Agent tells me that "this is what has been calculated." I do not agree. He sends me over to resolutions. She tells me the amount owed is just over $1100. This is now correct. Why did I have to point out the error and why does it take 3 people to get it right. (Customer service .. first stop resolution ....)

 

I very nicely explain to "Myala" - the rudest person I have worked with, that I think they need to know they sent an invoice with a very big credit balance. I am sure we are not the only one who received this. This means that people think they are "paid" (Overpaid) and will not call in to make additional payment. Then next week Celebrity will cancel all the bookings for non payment. She is disinterested. There is no "thank you for letting us know" (basic customer service".

 

I also had asked this same person if the Choice Air Credit had been processed. She tells me the booking was not eligible. Yes, it was eligible, I had confirmed this with them on booking, I had confirmed this with Choice Air. I had several conversations with them because the "code" that the Celebrity system should have sent to Choice was not transmitted (this had happened on more than one res but had been resolved). No she says "I" (as in me) "booked the wrong code". Hmm I booked a Balcony Gtee with Choice Air promo confirmed. Then she tells me the booking was not eligible but she "suddenly" sees that they done a "courtesy" (manual) credit, still insisting the booking was never eligible. No I say, it was not a "courtesy" it was because your system had not done what it was supposed to have done, and that's why it was done manually.

 

I keep thinking there is nothing else that can go wrong ....

[PatriciaF]

Good luck with no further problems.

 

Perhaps you need to switch from Celebrity to a TA?

[NelleS]

Boy, this could be a cautionary tale for NOT booking directly with Celebrity!

[teajak]

Thank heaven for my wonderful TA that would have fixed all of the above.!!!!!!

[Kevnzworld]

Good luck with no further problems.

 

Perhaps you need to switch from Celebrity to a TA?

 

It isn't any easier with a TA. They talk to the same people at Celebrity. It gets dicey if you get into special promotions, upgrades and discounts. Every sales consultant has a different understanding/ interpretation of the pricing, and rules, policies and procedures.

If you don't like the answer, ask for the resolution department.

[Alg63]

Good luck with no further problems.

 

Perhaps you need to switch from Celebrity to a TA?

 

Thanks Patricia, I am a very experienced travel booker, I used to do travel bookings for others and trust me had I not done this all on my own I probably would never have found out that there were problems, it was only because I "questioned" them that the issues came up. I may have been saved some of the frustration but I would have been trying to sort out these problems either on board or after I got back. Whether I had called to pay for the insurance (for example) or the TA had called, AND the payment had been processed, had I not "asked later" about it, neither I nor a TA would have known that it was "not showing up". Whether a TA or myself had called to prepay gratuities specifically asking for Select dining (and the payment processed except in one case where they "forgot" even through I gave them my cc number .. had I not 'asked later" I never would have known that although they processed the payment they "forgot" to change some to select dining. This is just inefficient customer service. Period. "All calls are recorded for quality assurance". I told them to listen to the calls again, they would have heard each transaction and each change I made.

[Alg63]

It isn't any easier with a TA. They talk to the same people at Celebrity. It gets dicey if you get into special promotions, upgrades and discounts. Every sales consultant has a different understanding/ interpretation of the pricing, and rules, policies and procedures.

If you don't like the answer, ask for the resolution department.

 

Sadly the person from the res dept who finally came on line WAS THE WORST OF THE LOT! At least the others were pleasant. She was flat out rude.

[Cpamomma]

Alg63, we are on your cruise. I hope things get better for you. FYI, we also booked our air through Choice Air and we have a Guarantee Balcony, so those were both available on this cruise. We used a TA for our booking, but didn't feel that we got a lot of service and have been thinking about booking direct next time. Maybe we will rethink that...

[wwcruisers]

Boy, this could be a cautionary tale for NOT booking directly with Celebrity!

 

Or maybe, just avoid booking through Celebrity's nightmare of a website! (I think the OP mentioned on another thread that he/she originally booked online). :eek: We've always booked by phone with the X reps -- and received written confirmation (e-mail) within 24 hours. So far, we've never had any serious problems. Of course, we haven't used ChoiceAir, either -- so that could be a complicating factor, as well.

 

IMHO -- a good travel agent would probably have avoided this mess altogether (or fixed it in a timely manner). On the other hand, a bad travel agent would just make matters worse -- preventing the OP from even being able to deal directly with X to fix the problem. :rolleyes:

 

To the OP -- hope you can get this mess straightened out, so you and your family can finally enjoy your cruise! :cool:

[Alg63]

Remember, that Travel Agents get commissions - why would Celebrity possibly want "direct bookers" who save them having to pay comm, switching to Travel Agents just because their CS is inefficient ???

[Alg63]

Alg63, we are on your cruise. I hope things get better for you. FYI, we also booked our air through Choice Air and we have a Guarantee Balcony, so those were both available on this cruise. We used a TA for our booking, but didn't feel that we got a lot of service and have been thinking about booking direct next time. Maybe we will rethink that...

 

Great! Did you sign up for the connections party?

[johhnnyt]

like any other customer service group, they have good ones and not so good ones. I always know which flights I want, OBC I'm entitled too, etc before I initially call. Never had a problem when traveled as one cabin or booking a s part of a group. Just a word of advice, don't look at the view invoices / payments online, its really not much help and lags to actual transactions.

I think only time I did have an issue, the Hotel Director onboard straightened it out before it even made it to my credit card

[firemanbobswife]

Without reliving the torturous time I had before my cruise last year (if anyone cares to know just look up my thread history), I can say that I feel your pain. Never did Choice Air, but with all that time spent going back and forth if you did have a TA it would be twice as long. Once while you explained it to them, then they Called Celebrity, then they call you back and it becomes a whole she said she said she said thing.

 

I'm in no way saying you shouldn't have a TA. She was able to get a little further with Celebrity than I could've. I hated bothering her even though it was her job and she said not to worry about calling her anytime.

 

It all boils down to Celebrity needs to get their junk together. For such a wonderful onboard experience, the CS end of it feels like a three ringed circus. Never know what hoops you're going to have to jump through and if they're going to be on fire until you've already made the leap.

[Cpamomma]

Great! Did you sign up for the connections party?

 

I sure did. I look forward to meeting you :)

[gold1953]

I had an issue when I booked with Choice Air . My final payment cost jumped. We figured out that even though the tax for the flight was added on to the flight, Celebrity added it on again to the total of the already taxed flight and cruise. They said it was a glitch they are aware of . It took a couple of phone calls to figure out why my price had jumped and it was a 'process' to correct it

[sarafinadh]

Boy, this could be a cautionary tale for NOT booking directly with Celebrity!

 

A TA, one that the Folks have dealt with for a number of cruises and been very happy with, did us no good at all.

 

InterCruise and Celebrity had our 6 linked cabins and the seapass info and the precruise package so messed up, and she knew nothing about it.

 

Which left her in the VERY unhappy position of having to be on the phone with me while I told her what was going on/wrong, and what needed to be "fixed".

 

She was horrified, but the screwups didn't show in her system so the reservations all looked fine from her screen... Mean while we were packing and moving from one hotel to another...

 

And telling her what hotel it was going to be...

 

TA's are at the mercy of the same sucky system as the rest of us and all the experience in the world can't fix that.

[nycruiser80]

 

TA's are at the mercy of the same sucky system as the rest of us and all the experience in the world can't fix that.

 

It is true that many times TA's are at the mercy of ineffective call center/reservation staff. I was a TA and had many res agents at cruise lines mess things up for me. I learned you have to triple check everything. There are times travel agents can get a bit of extra help. Travel agents do have district sales managers. These are "local" reps that act as a "go between" the cruise line headquarters and local travel agencies. If an agency District Sales Manager is great then they can get a lot of tough situations ironed out. Of course if they don't have the correct personality then they will not get anything done. In my days of working in travel I had a few excellent district sales managers that were able to get MANY things done for us. So sometimes travel agents do have an extra pull. I will say that I left travel in 2007 so things may have changed since then.

[Hlitner]

We are following this thread with some interest. We recently booked back to back cruises with X and did it through a good TA to take advantage to some promotional rates. X would not link the the two reservations since they each had separate promotions which meant we could not keep the same cabin for both cruises (a minior issue). But since the promotion included air credits it forced us to deal with Choice Air. We told Choice Air the specific flights we wanted, they checked both of our cruise reservations and quickly booked the flights. A few days later when I checked the airline reservation (on the airline web site) I noticed that X had booked our return flight 10 days early which meant we were flying home in the middle of a cruise (when we would be 2000 miles from the airport). Celebrity at first tried to blame us for the snafu until they realized that their agent had both of our cruise reservations in hand when they booked the wrong dates. After some grief they finally fixed the airline reservation and had to eat the additonal cost (the airfare had increased) plus penalties for changing the reservation.

 

What is really disturbing is that this was only fixed because we found the error in time. Celebrity, who made the error, had no clue until we pointed out the errors. I asked them what would have happened if we did not notice the screw-up in air reservations until we were in Euope and they said "no problem...you could have always called us." I just picture us at the airport in Rome finally realizing the air reservations were wrong (they had booked the date 07 instead of 17) and trying to get Celebrity on the phone in the middle of the night! All this just proves the basic point that travelers need to carefully check all their own reservations and not depend on TAs or cruise lines to get it right.

 

Hank

[Alg63]

I had an issue when I booked with Choice Air . My final payment cost jumped. We figured out that even though the tax for the flight was added on to the flight, Celebrity added it on again to the total of the already taxed flight and cruise. They said it was a glitch they are aware of . It took a couple of phone calls to figure out why my price had jumped and it was a 'process' to correct it

 

Yes!! This happened on one of my reservations. Immediately after booking the air, the Celebrity system "auto assigned" a cabin since we had booked "Balcony Guarantee". I just "happened to" check the online invoice (again this would have happened whether it was a TA or me, and who knows whether the TA would have caught it as early as I did) I saw that the price had almost doubled. I called CS and the agent told me it was because I (as in "me" .. again) had "chosen a higher class Balcony cabin" than what I had paid for when I booked "Balcony guarantee. I explained that I had NEVER "chosen" a cabin, (in fact when you book balcony guarantee you do not get the choice) and that the system had auto assigned it after I booked the air. He managed to insist for a while that it was my fault, but finally I got someone else who "got it" and corrected THEIR error ...

[GranthamMommy]

I'm 5 months out from my first X cruise. Booked with an on-line TA. I think I'm going to follow up on all tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up!

[gold1953]

Yes!! This happened on one of my reservations. Immediately after booking the air, the Celebrity system "auto assigned" a cabin since we had booked "Balcony Guarantee". I just "happened to" check the online invoice (again this would have happened whether it was a TA or me, and who knows whether the TA would have caught it as early as I did) I saw that the price had almost doubled. I called CS and the agent told me it was because I (as in "me" .. again) had "chosen a higher class Balcony cabin" than what I had paid for when I booked "Balcony guarantee. I explained that I had NEVER "chosen" a cabin, (in fact when you book balcony guarantee you do not get the choice) and that the system had auto assigned it after I booked the air. He managed to insist for a while that it was my fault, but finally I got someone else who "got it" and corrected THEIR error ...

 

I had a CC guarantee in this cruise as well when the price jumped . all was fixed in the end. I used a TA for the next cruise and they sent my invoice for the price before the promotions and said not to worry as the price on paper was not what I was paying . It would take a week for the adjustment to come on my email. 3 months later and almost final payment date I am still calling and asking for ' my price' on paper. I got it the day before final paymnet . Not impressed. Sticking with Celebrity!!

[Alg63]

I should add that I managed a central reservations department for a group of hotels, was intl ops manger for an Internet travel site and installed and supported the hotel systems at Disney PAis, including managing AR for all TA's and tour ops,..was a reservations/sales trainer within the hospitality/travel ndustry. So it's not like I don't know how to make bookings... Or how CS issues should be handled / addressed / resolved. I would be more than happy to come "on board" (well land based) to document and report issues ...

[ChrisRoo]

You guys are making me a little nervous, where online does it show you how much OBC you have? Looked throughout our booking and do not see it. Will this only show up on paper work or should I just relax?

[Andy]

You guys are making me a little nervous, where online does it show you how much OBC you have? Looked throughout our booking and do not see it. Will this only show up on paper work or should I just relax?

 

Hi Chris Roo,

 

You will not see OBC online. I suggest asking your Travel Agent to request a "Booking Confirmation - Guest Copy", and you should be able to see the OBC on this document. If you booked direct, you can request this document from Celebrity.

 

Most of the time, things go well, so please try not to worry. Besides, once you have this document, you will be able to confirm that all is well with your booking.

 

I hope this helps, and enjoy your Cruise !

[ChrisRoo]

Thank you for answering Host Andy. I have already poured over all of the paperwork our TA had given us....will have to call her on Monday to understand where it is.

 

Thanks again, I am going to relax and forget about this (or try) until Monday.