Ponant cancelled cruise

[gogo65]

We have just been notified our cruise on the new Le Champlain has been cancelled, Iceland to Quebec, to say we are devastated is an understatement, we booked this cruise 18 months ago, for august next year, we have our flights booked,one way to Europe and one way home from New York (we are Sydney based), and all they can offer is a refund of our deposit and 15% off another cruise + $250 OBC, really?? The cruise and airfare alone is over $40000, any cruise available has limited cabins available, and at a price premium. The closest cruise they have available is over $6000pp more than what we paid.(including the 15% discount)

Ive previously sailed with Ponant and sung their praises, but no longer, surely they should be trying to help their customers?

Anyone else affected?

 

[cruising cockroach]

That is pretty awful, and you had just bought air tickets too.  Any reason for the cancellation? Looks like the ship disappears (presumably for a charter) early June through early August and then does weekly Iceland-based cruises until it heads to Québec (and the Great Lakes) at the end of August and that's the one you're on and it's full.  I am guessing they must have chartered the ship.  I notice it isn't on the Summer 2019 brochure.

 

I'd call and ask to be put on a similar cruise (if any) but YMMV depending on the rep and country.  Did you book through a TA or direct?  I am not saying the U.S.-based (presumably) staff are any better but you might want to call Ponant in the U.S. (877-975-4035) and ask.  Let them know you pre-purchased air tickets (more leverage if they didn't offer any air travel arrangements). Gentle remind of your past patronage too.

 

My cruse is just 4 1/2 months away.  Hope they don't change route on me.

 

[gogo65]

Hi cruising cockroach,

Yep its pretty awful, particularly when its a once a year cruise, its not like they offer the itinerary on a regular basis.

Apparently the ship has been chartered.

We have been given an opportunity to move onto a cruise 2 weeks earlier that does Greenland, however their is a $6000pp price difference, although 13 nights instead of 14, and on Le Boreal instead of the new Le Champlain. Also leaves from Paris, instead of Iceland (we’ve also booked an Iceland tour).

Our flights are business class, if we swapped over to their option, we would either fly home directly from Europe and miss the 2 weeks we planned to spend through Nova Scotia and Maine, or we will need to pay for a flight to get us to the Quebec (our final port).

We booked through a TA, so hopefully she’ll push Ponant to do the right thing.

 

[gogo65]

So it hasn’t got any better.

PONANT have been terrible to deal with.

They refuse to change us onto the cruse they recommended unless we pay the $14000 difference (as it has charter flights as part of the fare)

Weve asked if they will pay for us to change our flights to/from Europe to do any other cruise, answer is NO (we booked on points so cant just change flights without paying cash, and considering they are business class flights the price will be expensive)

We’ve asked for them to pay our airfare from Iceland (or anywhere in Europe)  to Quebec or NYC, as they were meant to be transporting us there, and now we have two one way flights, answer still no.

They think they’ve done enough by offering 20% off a cruise and increased the OBC from $250 to $300.

So annoyed (that’s the nicest word I can think of, most of the words coming from my mouth aren’t as nice!).

WE booked this cruise 16months ago, they’ve had our substantial deposit all that time, apparently 8months is plenty of time to make changes/cancel.😡

 

lesson learnt dont ever book with Ponant....

[cruising cockroach]

Sorry to hear about it.  Makes your blood boil when they (any cruiseco) do things like that.  I'd be ever so wary of booking long ahead (understand why you had to to get premium miles-paid flights) just in case the cruise does get chartered or whatever.  Loyalty is a 2 way street and I guess as long as cruisecos get more new punters....

 

Makes me glad I'm booking their cruise at well under $200 pp pd a/i.

[Host Jazzbeau]

This stinks.  Cancelling >11 months out is one thing, but doing it after people have started booking flights is really bad.  And then not offering to pay your damages – a good way to lose customers for life!

 

We're on the cruise before yours (Circumnavigation of Iceland Aug. 22-29) but booked though Backroads – because of that partial charter I'm hoping they wouldn't even consider cancelling the cruise [they do a lot of business with Backroads].  But we had considered adding your cruise as an unofficial b2b – glad we didn't follow through...

[cruising cockroach]

Before you go and cancel things that cost money and rebook anything that costs money, I would give writing a factual and succinct registered letter to the[url=http://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/news-headlines/ponant-acquired-by-artemis-holding-company-of-the-pinault-family.html?print=1&tmpl=component] CEO[/url] and [url=https://www.cma-cgm.com/the-group/management/veronique-saade]deputy CEO[/url] of Ponant.

 

Outline the fact that you had made non-refundable travel arrangements.

 

May not get you anywhere but at least you've brought it to the attention of the top people.

Edited November 8, 2018 by cruising cockroach

[Lameduck15]

Hi, I have just suffered a similar fate to you, Ponant rang 3 days before Christmas to cancel our second cruise (btb) in the Aegean / Greek Islands which is due to disembark on the 17th of June 2019. In favour of a charter. Like you we paid our deposit in Feb last year and have flights and other tours dovetailed to fit in with this second cruise. I am just wondering what the other 200 or so passengers are doing, unless of course it is only the non-French passengers that have been treated so badly? I asked for a cabin upgrade on the cruise we still have booked, prior to the 17th of June, not realising that as an 'Admiral' in the Ponant Yacht Club I am supposed to get this anyway. The cabin we were offered was no bigger and in my opinion not really an upgrade at all. Prior to this occurrence I also would have sung the praises of Ponant based on my three previous trips. But no longer, I am disgusted and dismayed at there cavalier approach and abysmal client service. I was actually wondering if anyone was considering a class action?

[cruising cockroach]

That definitely is not very nice, or a good business practice.  Given Ponant's current ownership (French collector of luxury brands), you think they'd want to do better.

 

To those who got bounced, did you keep an eye on how booked the trips were?  I would think they might charter out less-booked up cruises but not so close to sailing.

 

I've seen Ponant release cabins (and made the cruise available to the general public) when the charter has not taken them up (Le Soléal in Asia and Alaska early this spring through summer).

 

Doesn't inspire much in confidence in making far advance bookings (I only made mine ~5 months in advance)

[gogo65]

Our cruise was completely sold out within weeks of it being released.

We booked the week they were released and couldn’t get two cabins next to each other.

So it certainly wasn’t due to low sales.

Lameduck, how much compensation were you offered? I fought them to put us onto a similar cruise leaving the week before (just Greenland), for no additional cost, the cruise thousands of dollars more expensive, but they wouldn’t budge, they increased their offer from 15% to 20% discount and increase dour OBC from $250 pp to $300 pp. that’s it. 

We finally cancelled everything last week, Ponant have already refunded over 10k to us, just waiting on our flights and accomodation to be reimbursed now.

Ive just booked a trip to Switzerland for Xmas with the family instead.

Lameduck i doubt there would be a class action, unfortunately this practice happens more often than we would like to think, they are well within their rights to do it, as long as we are refunded all monies.

 

[cruising cockroach]

I was going to ask what progress you have made.

 

If they're refunding you your airfare and hotel outlays, it'd look like whoever chartered is paying a hefty price.  Too bad they just won't expense customer goodwill.  And it is not as if they're trying to maintain earnings growth either.

 

Factually true and undeniable bad publicity is what they need.

[gogo65]

It’s interesting that they have agreed to pay all cancellation costs, yet when we wanted them to swap us to the other cruise (for no additional cost), they wouldn’t do it. The Baffin Bay secrets cruise that they wanted us to swap too, still has a 25% bonus and lots of cabins available.

It would have been cheaper for them to foot the bill and change us onto the other cruise, than pay out the thousands in cancellation costs and we would have seen it as a good will offer, and we probably would have walked away from this with a much more positive outlook on Ponant.

[Host Jazzbeau]

1 hour ago, gogo65 said:

It’s interesting that they have agreed to pay all cancellation costs, yet when we wanted them to swap us to the other cruise (for no additional cost), they wouldn’t do it. The Baffin Bay secrets cruise that they wanted us to swap too, still has a 25% bonus and lots of cabins available.

It would have been cheaper for them to foot the bill and change us onto the other cruise, than pay out the thousands in cancellation costs and we would have seen it as a good will offer, and we probably would have walked away from this with a much more positive outlook on Ponant.

 

It may be that their contract with the charter provides that they are held harmless for costs of cancelling passengers – so it costs them nothing to refund all your money, but it would cost them (potential) profit to give you too good a deal on the other cruise you want.

[cruising cockroach]

In a way, it's a (large-ish) French company so customer service in this kind of case isn't a forté, even for premium products.  They probably haven't even thought of or considered a move over.  The other issue may be who's in charge.  Ponant was owned by CMA-CGM before being sold twice.  I wonder if there is some animosity by the Saadé (family that owns CMA-CGM) who is head of Ponant towards... whoever, or it's just because they're French.

 

I'm looking at some French sites and it doesn't appear they treat French speakers much better.  I haven't seen any referrals to your and the other posters cruses.

 

 

[schnapperin]

Did they offered the 15% /20% discount only on the earlier Baffin Bay cruise and was it on the already price with the 25% bonus or the "catalog price"? 

[gogo65]

On 1/23/2019 at 7:24 PM, schnapperin said:

Did they offered the 15% /20% discount only on the earlier Baffin Bay cruise and was it on the already price with the 25% bonus or the "catalog price"? 

The offer is 15%/20% discount on top of any bonus they currently have. Valid for any booking made by end of this year.

[lynn-in-nc]

What a horrible story and very bad business.  😡 I'm so sorry. 

[Lameduck15]

We were offered a 20% discount on another Ponant cruise, including the cruise preceding the btw cruise we were jettisoned from and 800 euro (initially 500 euro).

According to our Consumer Affairs company called CHOICE, the Ponant document TOC clause 11.9 states the following: "no compensation shall be payable to the Traveller who shall have a choice between the following options i.e. 

1) a full refund of the price of the contract

2) another service at an identical price, or

3) a service at a lower price and the refund of the difference in price between the two Services on the basis of published prices.

As were not provided with the opportunity to select our own remedy, they suggested that we write a formal letter of complaint and if not satisfied to complain to our State Office of Fair Trading.

Due to the time of notification (Christmas / New Year and a prolonged holiday season during this time in Australia) and the close proximity to the departure date, it has taken us more than two months to find an alternative to the Greek Island cruise that Ponant kicked us off. In fact we could not find an available cruise and have had to settle for catamaran ferries and island accommodation which has amounted to twice the expense of the Ponant cruise. 

I truly regret signing up for these two cruises with Ponant.

[gogo65]

I haven’t checked in here for a while.

Thats very interesting about choice.

We also weren’t given a choice, in fact I pushed for them to allow us to do the Baffin Bay secrets cruse without success.

Lameduck do you plan on putting in a formal complaint? I may consider it, now I have read your post.

Sorry to hear you haven’t been able to find a replacement cruise.

We cancelled ours as we also couldn’t find a cruise to work with dates and budget, however last week Silverseas had an awesome offer and we have booked another Arctic cruise with them albeit 6 weeks earlier than our original cruise. 

As we’ve previously done Ponant to Antarctica we will be able to compare both polar expedition cruises.

Hopefully you’ll still have a wonderful holiday, Ill be in the Greek islands in May/June too