Advice for not having all my credit tied up

[Mississippian]

Whenever I've taken a Princess cruise, they've always done several authorizations on my credit card. Then at the end of the cruise they charge my card without matching the charge to any of the authorizations. So if I have $1,500 in cruise charges they will effectively tie up an additional $1,500 in credit for about a week or 10 days until the authorizations expire.

 

Any thoughts on how to avoid this? I was thinking about prepaying some of my charges on the website before cruising. Any other thoughts?

[afcruiser]

Whenever I've taken a Princess cruise, they've always done several authorizations on my credit card. Then at the end of the cruise they charge my card without matching the charge to any of the authorizations. So if I have $1,500 in cruise charges they will effectively tie up an additional $1,500 in credit for about a week or 10 days until the authorizations expire.

 

Any thoughts on how to avoid this? I was thinking about prepaying some of my charges on the website before cruising. Any other thoughts?

 

We always cruise with 2-3 different credit cards just for this reason. Car rentals do the same. We found out the hard way.

 

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[Kamloops50]

Whenever I've taken a Princess cruise, they've always done several authorizations on my credit card. Then at the end of the cruise they charge my card without matching the charge to any of the authorizations. So if I have $1,500 in cruise charges they will effectively tie up an additional $1,500 in credit for about a week or 10 days until the authorizations expire.

 

Any thoughts on how to avoid this? I was thinking about prepaying some of my charges on the website before cruising. Any other thoughts?

 

I usually buy OBC to cover expenses and pre pay our gratuities for the cruise . This saves me worrying about any holds or delays.

[dandonna]

I usually buy OBC to cover expenses and pre pay our gratuities for the cruise . This saves me worrying about any holds or delays.

 

My wife and I pre-purchase a $1000 on board credit so we are good to go.

Just make sure you do this at least 2 weeks before the cruise.

Have a great trip!

[Loonbeam]

Your best bet is to just have a separate credit card to use for onboard charges, keep your main card free for shopping, etc.

[cherylandtk]

In addition to the several good options noted above you can also use a cash account onboard instead of your card or prepay your credit card balance with the bank. Lastly, the length of time that the holds last is determined by your credit card bank, not Princess. You could try to get them to release the daily holds faster once the actual final charge is applied.

[icat2000]

When you board pop down to guest services and put some cash on your account. If its in credit they don't do the holds. Well thats what I have found. And if I go into a negative balance they just charge the rest to credit card.

[Pam in CA]

As long as you have a credit on your folio, a "hold" on your credit card won't be made. Whether you do this by putting cash down or sending yourself OBC is up to you.

[skynight]

Whenever I've taken a Princess cruise, they've always done several authorizations on my credit card. Then at the end of the cruise they charge my card without matching the charge to any of the authorizations. So if I have $1,500 in cruise charges they will effectively tie up an additional $1,500 in credit for about a week or 10 days until the authorizations expire.

Any thoughts on how to avoid this? I was thinking about prepaying some of my charges on the website before cruising. Any other thoughts?

 

It may help you to know how the Princess accounting system works. There is no pre-hold placed on your cc. Each overnight Princess adds up all your charges for that day, for example $200. Princess then places a hold on your cc for that amount. On a 7 night cruise this will happen 7 times. Therefore, the cc hold will match exactly to your on board purchases. On the final night the actual charge is put through to the bank, in your example $1500, and replaces the 7 nights of holds. It is your bank that fails to relieve the hold for ten days. You would have to query the bank to see why this is. Good luck, probably those you are able to speak with don't really know the answer. To avoid or minimize this problem you can:

1) deposit cash at the beginning of the cruise, thus on each overnight you should have a credit balance and no holds will be sent to your bank. Any over payments will be refunded to you. You can collect the extra cash on the last day. There will be lines.

2) use a separate cc just for the cruise, one that it doesn't matter if the bank doesn't remove your hold right away.

[Loonbeam]

Having more time, I'll expand on my earlier answer - even if you do cash, the reason I prefer a separate card is Princess makes mistakes sometimes. There was a lady on one cruise who had a very large medical charge of some kind made to her cabin. It was quickly rectified and due to a simple transposition of numbers, but in the time it was processed resulted in a large CC hold, which caused problems onshore.

 

I always use one card for ship/hotel, another for incidentals and keep a 3rd in the safe for emergencies such as lost or compromised card (also a reason to have a separate card on file, if your card gets compromised while shopping ashore, etc you could end up having to deal with your onboard bill)

[cb at sea]

We do the same....1 card for shipboard account, another card for incidentals off the ship. Just makes life easier. We also make sure that our cards have the full amount of credit remaining...we pay off cards monthly.

[janetz]

We set up our account when boarding with cash. :)

[deborahjo]

We always use a cash account. Then we have no problems.

 

 

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[HUNKY]

Thankfully not concerned with tying up my credit, but I always use a card that has "closed" for the month a day or two prior to the end of the cruise.

 

I then have almost two months to withdraw funds from the kid's college accounts and pay the card off!