Who should I contact at HAL?

[Lizzie68]

I must say that really makes me feel uneasy, that would divulge so much information to someone who simply asked for it.

[Boatdrill]

I would like advice on who I should direct my complaint to and the best way to send the complaint.

 

This may seem off the beaten path, but may I suggest contacting both of these departments:

 

Ombudsman: Ombudsman@HollandAmerica.com

For inquiries and issues that have not been resolved through normal channels.

 

Guest Relations: GuestRelations@HollandAmerica.com

phone 800-599-8256

For inquiries, compliments and complaints on current or past sailings

[Desdemona01]

We just found out this past weekend that our adult son called HAL to gift us with future OBC, and HAL gave him info on upcoming cruises we have booked. He didn't even ask! He just said he wanted to give us OBC and they volunteered that we have two cruises booked, gave him the dates and the ships! Yes, his gesture was sweet and thoughtful but the people at HAL should have just awarded us OBC without divulging our future plans. We had not shared our future bookings with our adult children as of yet so I did not appreciate them giving out our information. How did they know he was our son? It could have been anyone who knows we cruise with HAL and had less than honest motives (robbery comes to mind, knowing when we're gone).

 

I will be contacting HAL.

 

Des

[CowPrincess]

OP thank you for escalating this with HAL. I hope they take your concerns seriously.

[sugarlipz]

IMHO this is a stunning breach of privacy. Please let us know what HAL's reponse is.

[csmjfmbe]

I obviously do not know which country the OP is from, but in the UK this would certainly breach the Data Protection Act as well as the right to privacy under the Human Rights Act.

Under the UK Data Protection Act, companies must register who information can be shared with, without the OPs consent, this would only apply to law enforcement agencies who had a lawful reason for the information to be released.

The post by the OP also begs the regular question, why does anyone share any details with someone over the internet that they have never met. I am not surprised the OPs husband said, No Way.

As a previous poster has said, this may be an operative who has not followed company policy.

Another poster wrote about an adult son trying to give on board credit. Cruise companies are there to make money and obviously part of the ethos is trying to make every cruise memorable.

I can only speak from personal experience, on our first ever cruise, my sister tried to book a speciality restaurant on board as a treat for my birthday as a surprise, obviously, as my sister she knew every detail about me, but NCL refused, I have to admit that I was a bit upset ( more for my sister ) but NCL followed the law.

By the way, we are going on our first cruise with HAL in May.

Cheers

Mike

[jaspersmycat]

I obviously do not know which country the OP is from, but in the UK this would certainly breach the Data Protection Act as well as the right to privacy under the Human Rights Act.

Under the UK Data Protection Act, companies must register who information can be shared with, without the OPs consent, this would only apply to law enforcement agencies who had a lawful reason for the information to be released.

The post by the OP also begs the regular question, why does anyone share any details with someone over the internet that they have never met. I am not surprised the OPs husband said, No Way.

As a previous poster has said, this may be an operative who has not followed company policy.

Another poster wrote about an adult son trying to give on board credit. Cruise companies are there to make money and obviously part of the ethos is trying to make every cruise memorable.

I can only speak from personal experience, on our first ever cruise, my sister tried to book a speciality restaurant on board as a treat for my birthday as a surprise, obviously, as my sister she knew every detail about me, but NCL refused, I have to admit that I was a bit upset ( more for my sister ) but NCL followed the law.

By the way, we are going on our first cruise with HAL in May.

Cheers

Mike

I am the OP. I don't know where you got the impression that my husband ever said No Way. My husband passed away 2 years ago which is why I travel solo. You must be referring to another poster.

[sail7seas]

I am the OP. I don't know where you got the impression that my husband ever said No Way. My husband passed away 2 years ago which is why I travel solo. You must be referring to another poster.

 

 

The poster was referring to the post I made stating HAL had violated our privacy as well.

 

In the interest of brevity, I did not give every minute detail of the story but the person who refererenced did not know my interaction with this 'internet acquaintance moved from a bulletin board to private e-mails. Happily, I did not share any information with her I would regret as too private or personal. The fact we had booked a particular cruise did not then nor does it now seem out of bounds.

 

DH knew our acquaintance was only through our computers and not live and in person.

 

Had I shared more information than would be considered casual, I might have regretted it. ;) Good lesson in there somewhere. :) I listened to my inner voice.

 

Edited March 12, 2014 by sail7seas

[serendipity1499]

We just found out this past weekend that our adult son called HAL to gift us with future OBC, and HAL gave him info on upcoming cruises we have booked. He didn't even ask! He just said he wanted to give us OBC and they volunteered that we have two cruises booked, gave him the dates and the ships! Yes, his gesture was sweet and thoughtful but the people at HAL should have just awarded us OBC without divulging our future plans. We had not shared our future bookings with our adult children as of yet so I did not appreciate them giving out our information. How did they know he was our son? It could have been anyone who knows we cruise with HAL and had less than honest motives (robbery comes to mind, knowing when we're gone).

 

I will be contacting HAL.

 

Des

 

Oh My...I'm shocked again!:(:( What an invasion of Privacy this is!

 

In my opinion you should phone the Office of the President in addition to sending a written complaint to them..

 

You might also want to refer to this thread, because everyone here is as upset about this as you & Jaspermycat are..

 

Actually what HAL should have told your Son was that he must get the booking Number from you & call them back with it.. We never were permitted to even confirm that someone was flying on our airline..They should not even have taken the OBC request from him as that was actually confirming you are on one of their cruises, which they have no right to do!:(

 

Betty

[candbgirl]

We just found out this past weekend that our adult son called HAL to gift us with future OBC, and HAL gave him info on upcoming cruises we have booked. He didn't even ask! He just said he wanted to give us OBC and they volunteered that we have two cruises booked, gave him the dates and the ships! Yes, his gesture was sweet and thoughtful but the people at HAL should have just awarded us OBC without divulging our future plans. We had not shared our future bookings with our adult children as of yet so I did not appreciate them giving out our information. How did they know he was our son? It could have been anyone who knows we cruise with HAL and had less than honest motives (robbery comes to mind, knowing when we're gone).

 

I will be contacting HAL.

 

Des

 

 

This isn't anything new. My sister frequently cruises HAL and I like to surprise her and her husband with wine or a dinner in the Pinnacle etc. I always call HAL directly and tell them what I want. I give the last name and they give me everything else. It never occurred to me that there could be severe safety concerns. How dumb am I? :confused:

 

I have tried to do it on Celebrity and Oceania and no way would they proceed without the reservation number. And I was mad about that. :lol:

Edited March 12, 2014 by candbgirl

[runnergirl71]

This isn't anything new. My sister frequently cruises HAL and I like to surprise her and her husband with wine or a dinner in the Pinnacle etc. I always call HAL directly and tell them what I want. I give the last name and they give me everything else. It never occurred to me that there could be severe safety concerns. How dumb am I? :confused:

 

I have tried to do it on Celebrity and Oceania and no way would they proceed without the reservation number. And I was mad about that. :lol:

 

I called HAL last week to see what information my parents would need IF they decided to give me OBC for my birthday (it's a week before my cruise) and I was told that while the booking number would help, all they would need was my name, the ship name, and embarkation date. I didn't think anything of it at the time as I would be giving them my reservation number as they're my parents and I know they aren't coming on the cruise, but now... Sheesh! Not cool!

[pms4104]

What a terrible violation of one's privacy!

 

HAL reps should not be sharing the details of anyone's booking with anyone at all!. Things are not always as they seem ... and HAL really has no idea who they're talking with. Sadly, the OP's complaint doesn 't seem unique, as others here have run into the very same breach of privacy and trust.

 

Perhaps HAL needs to mandate some retraining of their telereps ... and, just to make it interesting, a rep from the corporate legal dept should address the group.

 

Now that the wine issue seems settled, this should give Christine Ferris something to fill her days IF enough people express their displeasure to Seattle

[jaspersmycat]

UPDATE to original post:

 

Today I got a letter from the Office of The President. They apologized for the "disappointment you experienced".

 

They misunderstood my complaint. They thought I was just upset that my friend had linked to my reservation.

 

I have sent them a letter in response pointing out that my problem is that anyone can link to a reservation by giving a name and phone number. I feel that HAL policy should be that a booking number should be required for any linking of reservations.

 

Only time will tell if anything changes.

[Watson's aunt]

Hi

wow that you scare me off from crusing. As a solo cruiser I would not want someone reading these boards to link to me during a cruise. This is very uopsetting. Do we have to put a warning on our reservations now.

 

Mary

[pms4104]

UPDATE to original post:

 

Today I got a letter from the Office of The President. They apologized for the "disappointment you experienced".

 

They misunderstood my complaint. They thought I was just upset that my friend had linked to my reservation.

 

I have sent them a letter in response pointing out that my problem is that anyone can link to a reservation by giving a name and phone number. I feel that HAL policy should be that a booking number should be required for any linking of reservations.

 

Only time will tell if anything changes.

I am not entirely surprised by the response you received. I had an issue a couple of years ago and got a response from the Office of the President that, like your letter, did not address my concerns. It was then that I realized these letters are not individually " written" and tailored to respond to particular concerns. Rather, these letters are assembled from a menu of pre-approved paragraphs. So much for personal attention to your issue.

 

Adding: I am sorry that HAL is treating your concern so casually, as tho you were complaining about a stain on your cabin carpeting.

Edited March 22, 2014 by pms4104

[sppunk]

This is awful.

 

We had this exact same happen to us on Princess with some friends. I too was livid. Good luck!

[Mtn2Sea]

First, let me say I totally agree with OP. She has a very valid complaint that HAL needs to address. All this reminds me of when my wife and her three siblings & spouses booked a Thanksgiving cruise back in 2008. We were the first to book and took the lead in coordinating everything. When we originally booked the cruise while on a ship a year ahead of time, we asked for a table for eight. When we got back home, we gave the others our booking number so they could join our table. Turns our when others started booking, no tables of eight were available. I called HAL in an effort to resolve things. Even though I had everyone's booking number, the agent wouldn't let me ask for table assignments on behalf of my brother-in-laws. I then called the other couples to let them know they would have to call. Two couples had no problem linking with us, but one couldn't get linked to us. So I called again; turns out they no longer had any tables for eight! After speaking to a supervisor, I was able to get that resolved, although the table was in a very busy area of the dining room. I still couldn't get the last couple linked because I was again told my brother-in-law had to call. His wife was in my office listening to my end of a very long conversation and, when I asked that she get my brother-in-law to call again, she asked that I call and represent myself as my brother-in-law. Without going into any details, let me just say we got it worked out. This was the most frustrating experience I've ever had with HAL.

[TiogaCruiser]

UPDATE to original post:

 

Today I got a letter from the Office of The President. They apologized for the "disappointment you experienced".

 

They misunderstood my complaint. They thought I was just upset that my friend had linked to my reservation.

 

Wow, that's on the insulting side to call it "disappointment" and it sounds like someone didn't read what you wrote (regarding a very serious subject).

 

I'm glad you're following up in writing. I'd be tempted to reply to that email with "HAL's Customer Service Needs Improvement" in the subject line. Did that once when I kept getting irritating canned/cut and paste messages that totally missed the point that I had not received the product the major retailer supposedly mailed had not arrived. The next reply was from a Sup and the situation got fixed.

Edited March 22, 2014 by TiogaCruiser