Royal Caribbean (UK) Customer Loyalty or Not

[brownianr]

My wife and I have used RCI for many years. And have always used the Loyalty Ambassador onboard to book further cruises.

 

In January of this year whilst onboard "Brilliance of the Seas" (Dubai) we booked an 18 night Australia/New Zealand the price quoted included £235 onboard discount and $200 USD onboard credit. Upon return to UK the booking was transferred to our travel agent who managed to get a further £500 discount.

 

Approx 6 weeks before final payment I just happened to go online and noticed that there was a difference in the price of £2000.00. Further enquiries revealed that that I had not been given the over 55's discount. I then thought has this been the case since 2007.

 

Our travel agent contacted RCI (UK) and their operative rechecked the figures and confirmed that the discount had been missed off. However to get this price we would have to cancel the current booking incuring a cancellation fee of £300 and also the onboard discount. This we did. In connection with previous bookings back to 2007, the RCI operative stated that they could not check back that far, but felt that if there was a discount she felt it would have been applied.

 

I emailed RCI (UK) customer relations (this is a generic email address). I advised that we had been loyal to RCI for many years (Diamond Plus) to ask why I had to lose money to get the lower price and could they check their systems back to 2007. I even cut and pasted all of the previous cruises in to the email. All I asked was that they treated this in a fair and reasonable manner as they had with previous complaints, but was it right that I had to pay £535.00 cancellation and loose the onboard $200 credit

 

A Rachel Edwards replied and advised they could not check back that far. But offered $100 onboard credit. Why not $200.00 ?

 

Also Miss Edwards stated that prices fluctuated and the new price was only offered within the last 6-8 weeks prior to final payment. The reinstatement of the $200 onboard credit would have taken the sting out of the tail of paying the cancellation fees.

 

From talking to other persons it would appear that RCI have different rules for US citizens and UK citizens. In US if price drops before final payment you get the difference. In UK no. Also in UK RCI will not refund deposit if you cancel.

 

It would appear that the onboard discount is not worth anything. Therefore it gives the impression that "Customer Loyalty" is not really worth anything.

 

 

Although we are looking forward to Australia, we feel that RCI have not made any effort to retain our loyalty.

 

:mad:

[oddjob26]

Contact Adam Goldstein in the Miami office, I have done in the past and it filters back to the UK office, but they become far more personable after your query has been seen by head office.

 

Each Mail: AGoldstein@rccl.com

 

If you require any other info or a copy of my own e mail to Mr Goldstein, feel free to personal message me.

 

Regards

 

Rob

[brownianr]

Contact Adam Goldstein in the Miami office, I have done in the past and it filters back to the UK office, but they become far more personable after your query has been seen by head office.

 

Each Mail: AGoldstein@rccl.com

 

If you require any other info or a copy of my own e mail to Mr Goldstein, feel free to personal message me.

 

Regards

 

Rob

 

Rob

 

Many thanks for the email address. Have cut and pasted and now sent to Adam Goldstein. Will keep you posted

 

Ian:)

[oddjob26]

Ian,

 

Cheers, I hope you get a positive response. It took roughly 2-3 weeks to get a response as it filters back to the UK resolution department, hopefully the Miami office will suggest correcting some of your issues.

 

Good luck :)

 

Regards

 

Rob

[kimberley]

My wife and I have used RCI for many years. And have always used the Loyalty Ambassador onboard to book further cruises.

 

In January of this year whilst onboard "Brilliance of the Seas" (Dubai) we booked an 18 night Australia/New Zealand the price quoted included £235 onboard discount and $200 USD onboard credit. Upon return to UK the booking was transferred to our travel agent who managed to get a further £500 discount.

 

Approx 6 weeks before final payment I just happened to go online and noticed that there was a difference in the price of £2000.00. Further enquiries revealed that that I had not been given the over 55's discount. I then thought has this been the case since 2007.

 

Our travel agent contacted RCI (UK) and their operative rechecked the figures and confirmed that the discount had been missed off. However to get this price we would have to cancel the current booking incuring a cancellation fee of £300 and also the onboard discount. This we did. In connection with previous bookings back to 2007, the RCI operative stated that they could not check back that far, but felt that if there was a discount she felt it would have been applied.

 

I emailed RCI (UK) customer relations (this is a generic email address). I advised that we had been loyal to RCI for many years (Diamond Plus) to ask why I had to lose money to get the lower price and could they check their systems back to 2007. I even cut and pasted all of the previous cruises in to the email. All I asked was that they treated this in a fair and reasonable manner as they had with previous complaints, but was it right that I had to pay £535.00 cancellation and loose the onboard $200 credit

 

A Rachel Edwards replied and advised they could not check back that far. But offered $100 onboard credit. Why not $200.00 ?

 

Also Miss Edwards stated that prices fluctuated and the new price was only offered within the last 6-8 weeks prior to final payment. The reinstatement of the $200 onboard credit would have taken the sting out of the tail of paying the cancellation fees.

 

From talking to other persons it would appear that RCI have different rules for US citizens and UK citizens. In US if price drops before final payment you get the difference. In UK no. Also in UK RCI will not refund deposit if you cancel.

 

It would appear that the onboard discount is not worth anything. Therefore it gives the impression that "Customer Loyalty" is not really worth anything.

 

 

Although we are looking forward to Australia, we feel that RCI have not made any effort to retain our loyalty.

 

:mad:

Hi Ian,

Do you remember me from the Brillance and the Jewel?

Kimberley

[brownianr]

Hullo Kimberley.

 

Is Ian counting the days?. Have now been a civvie since 25th May and loving it

Everybody keeps saying how relaxed I look.

 

How are you ? Did you become and Olympics widow.

 

Sandra not to bad although had a couple of admissions to hospital due the heart problem

 

If I can find your card will give you a ring

 

Cheers for now:)

[brownianr]

Ian,

 

Cheers, I hope you get a positive response. It took roughly 2-3 weeks to get a response as it filters back to the UK resolution department, hopefully the Miami office will suggest correcting some of your issues.

 

Good luck :)

 

Regards

 

Rob

 

Hi Rob,

 

Had phone call within the last hour from secretary to Adam Goldstein. She advised that the email had been reviewed also all of the other correspondence with RCI (UK). Rachel Edwards was correct in what she was saying however as a gesture of goodwill the offer of $100 onboard credit has now been increased to $400, which I am more than satisfied as it equates to approx 80% of the cancellation that we had to pay in changing the booking to the lower price.:)

 

 

Cheers

 

Ian

[Gordo]

Good for you. It is nice to see that the extra contact worked in your favor. Enjoy.

[ticktoneer]

We had problems with our first 3 RCI cruises and via our travel and then contact from ourselves, RCI UK did nothing to assist us. They seemed to put barriers up at every contact and request. The UK office staff are slow, unfriendly and totally unhelpful.

We now book through a US travel agent or onboard and link it to our US travel agent so we can get our deposit back if we cancel, we can get prices matches before final payment date and no admin fees for things like cruise changes, name changes etc.

I'm going to keep e mailing Adam Goldstein in mind though. well done for getting your OBC upped to $400.

[brownianr]

We had problems with our first 3 RCI cruises and via our travel and then contact from ourselves, RCI UK did nothing to assist us. They seemed to put barriers up at every contact and request. The UK office staff are slow, unfriendly and totally unhelpful.

We now book through a US travel agent or onboard and link it to our US travel agent so we can get our deposit back if we cancel, we can get prices matches before final payment date and no admin fees for things like cruise changes, name changes etc.

I'm going to keep e mailing Adam Goldstein in mind though. well done for getting your OBC upped to $400.

 

 

Hi and thanks for your reply.

 

Obviously having CEO's email address did help.

 

Do you find that having US travel agent helps with price allowing for exchange rate?. Are there any other benefits over a UK travel agent?.

 

Could you let me know address of agent want to book another cruise . Like everybody we always want the best price

 

Thanks

 

 

Ian:D

[Pushka]

Goodness we have never received over 55 discount, it doesn't seem to exist in Australia. Hardly fair if you are saying it meant a £2000 difference in fare.

[ollienbertsmum]

We have not received the over 55 discount even though I have ticked that box when booking. I assumed that it only applied to certain cruises.

 

I am confused about you having to rebook to get the price lowered if it was just the case of the discount - was it actually a full price drop on the cruise?

 

We have had this discussion on the board before and there seems to be no way around this problem of uk bookers losing their deposit on cancellation in order to get a price drop.

 

However I am interested by Goldstein's offer - he is in effect acknowledging that we are being treated unfairly. why else would he offer you the compensation????

 

Inhave never booked with a loyalty ambassador on board - it never sounds as if they are being very loyal to me.

I have found a us travel agent who is willing to take my bookings. So far we have got no further than asking for quotes. We are not allowed to share tins info on the forum, you just have to try googling and seeing what you come up with

[The_Big_M]

Goodness we have never received over 55 discount, it doesn't seem to exist in Australia. Hardly fair if you are saying it meant a £2000 difference in fare.

 

No, it exists in Australia the same as in other countries. As ollienburtsmum said, it only applies to selected cruises each time though - not because of the cruise itself, but it's a type of special they will put through when they need to increase sale, so will only occur for a limited time. And sometimes when sales are really bad, I've seen the general special price has been better then the over 55 sale price.

[Pushka]

Guess I must select popular cruises then. :(. I click on that age question and the price doesn't change.

[NorbertsNiece]

One way to see what cruises are currently on offer with this discount is to do a search with this option only. Just go to the RCCL homepage and where it has the box to select ship / date / port just only tick the box 55+. There are currently 90 cruises on the UK site with this offer.

[The_Big_M]

One way to see what cruises are currently on offer with this discount is to do a search with this option only. Just go to the RCCL homepage and where it has the box to select ship / date / port just only tick the box 55+. There are currently 90 cruises on the UK site with this offer.

 

By comparison, searching without the tick brings up 634 cruises... so you can see a rough approximation is that only 10-15% of cruises have these discounts, which is why you won't see them so often.