Why is it so hard to get a refund?

[Cruise Junky]

They can't be this incompetent can they?  cancelled a cruise on November 20th. TA passed on to me Azamara said you're lucky, they'll be no cancellation fee as they hadn't actually processed your deposit yet.  Hmmm wrong. sent her a screen print of the $1,400 cdn Amex Charge.  She phoned them three times before she got a call back.  The apologized and said they would process it right away.  November 30th...still no refund. TA follows up with them AGAIN.  This time they said sorry, they'd cancelled it but didn't process a refund as they later found the money sitting under a group?? no idea what that even means.   They were going to process it this time but said it would be 7 working days to see the refund. It's now 9 days and nothing.  She's following up AGAIN.  And for this they have the nerve to charge me a cancellation fee.    They have three more days before I have to start paying interest on that deposit.  So not impressed and yes, I'm just venting. 

[Mr. Click]

Just take it to AMEX.  Tell your TA thank you for the effort, you really appreciate it and then let AMEX handle Azamara.

[Cruise Junky]

I was about to.  This is absolute craziness.  She got through to a Supervisor today and they were taking care of it immediately.  It still hadn't been processed even though they say they have 3 times.  I have no idea how they stay in business with that kind of backroom operation.  I'm certainly not the first to comment here about the back office incompetence.  If it's not remedied by Monday, I'll go to AMEX.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Cruise Junky

[Zwaantje]

Similar Problem for me. I've canceled an excurcion for a March cruise. Payed by Master Card. After two weeks - no refund. I've write to the organisation in Germany. After another week No answer, no refund.

Any tipp whom I could contact to get my money back? Or is it the normal duration?

Thanks for any advise.

[Mr. Click]

Your best bet at this point is to file a dispute with Master Card, that will force the merchant to respond.  You should get a temporary credit from Master Card and they will file a charge back with the merchant.

[rallydave]

1 hour ago, Mr. Click said:

Your best bet at this point is to file a dispute with Master Card, that will force the merchant to respond.  You should get a temporary credit from Master Card and they will file a charge back with the merchant.

+1000   Always best to file with credit card company as soon as you have billing/refund issues.  No reason to wait and let the cruise line drad out the process as you will always get a temporary credit for the amount until the cruise line responds.

[Ithikan]

9 hours ago, Zwaantje said:

Similar Problem for me. I've canceled an excurcion for a March cruise. Payed by Master Card. After two weeks - no refund. I've write to the organisation in Germany. After another week No answer, no refund.

Any tipp whom I could contact to get my money back? Or is it the normal duration?

Thanks for any advise.

I'm sorry to hear of this problem, Zwaantje, and to answer your question - I have cancelled numerous excursions prior to sailing, and have always received the cancellation notice and refund promptly (immediate CA notification; refund within one week).  Good luck, I hope you hear soon from your bank regarding the refund. 

[BBMacLaird]

Cruise Junky, sorry to hear you're having trouble getting a prompt refund. And sorry to hear you've cancelled your cruise with us. I know you've been on the forum for a long time, but you've still not sailed! How can this be? Why are you cancelling, if I may ask?

[Cruise Junky]

6 hours ago, BBMacLaird said:

Cruise Junky, sorry to hear you're having trouble getting a prompt refund. And sorry to hear you've cancelled your cruise with us. I know you've been on the forum for a long time, but you've still not sailed! How can this be? Why are you cancelling, if I may ask?

Of course you can ask. It probably came down to price to be honest. Basic balcony we were paying $5,500 cdn for 7 nights. Our focus was Seville which was the appeal of your specific itinerary as you actually went into Seville rather than Cadiz. Because of a TA promo, our cruise came with $900 OBC.  Upon looking at your shore excursions, we noticed that a lot of what we wanted ie Alhambra from either Malaga or Almeria wasn’t even offered. So then, we were going to be paying $5,500 cdn plus our preferred excursions weren’t going to be covered by the OBC they were going to be extra. At that point we started looking at a land trip to get what we wanted. 

 

We ended up with a 15 day land trip for $500 more total than Azamara’s cruise price for 7 days. We were able to book awesome hotels ie W in Barcelona, tripadvisors 2nd ranked hotel in Seville and truly much more time in depth in the areas that were important to us at half the price of the cruise even though you offered a balcony for an inside price, a past passenger discount, etc. The value vs a land trip just wasn’t there.

 

So in summary, we have 3 nights in London, complete with Hamilton tickets, 5 nights in Seville, 3 nights at the W in Barcelona and 4 nights in St Paul de Vence in the South Of France for $800 cdn or about $600 US more than the price of a V3 balcony for 7 nights on Azamara. 

 

Ps. Your new promo for this cruise puts it over $7,000 cdn for 7 nights...ouch 

Edited December 15, 2018 by Cruise Junky

[Grandma Cruising]

Sounds a wonderful land tour. You’ll love Seville, it’s beautiful, and Barcelona is our favourite European city.

[Cruise Junky]

3 hours ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

Sounds a wonderful land tour. You’ll love Seville, it’s beautiful, and Barcelona is our favourite European city.

Thank you, we’ve been to Barcelona before but not Seville and with 5 days there we can venture out for some day trips ie Córdoba. Really looking forward to it and very happy to have been able to grab Hamilton Tickets for London 

[Grandma Cruising]

We were in Seville for the Feria which was wonderful. We saw lots of people dressed up in national dress, lots of people on horseback. Here’s a few photos from that trip.

[Cruise Junky]

Just an update...still no refund. It's being turned over to AMEX today.

 

Cruise cancelled on November 19th.  Followed up on November 30th, December 4th and December 13th.  And now the 19th and nothing. Totally disgusted. 

[rallydave]

1 hour ago, Cruise Junky said:

Just an update...still no refund. It's being turned over to AMEX today.

 

Cruise cancelled on November 19th.  Followed up on November 30th, December 4th and December 13th.  And now the 19th and nothing. Totally disgusted. 

 

You are a lot more patient than most of us would be.  Because of problems like this think it always best to put the charges in dispute immediately with your credit card company.  That way you have the credit immediately and once the company finally gets in gear and does the right thing the credit simply replaces the dispute and you are good to go and have the credit to spend elsewhere until the actual credit comes thru and if the credit doesn't come thru you've got it thru your credit card company.

 

Amex is probably the best at solving issues like this.  Really too bad Azamara doesn't understand how delays like this simply continue the dislike of Azamara as a company and will cost them much more in the long run then simply doing the right thing.  Unfortunately things like this are a common occurrence and Azamara so called management continues to stick their heads in the sand like Ostriches and will have to bear the poorer earnings.

[Cruise Junky]

you honestly can't make this stuff up... today's story from my TA...

 

Ok, here’s todays story. The person on the 13^th did not properly handle this and has been off work, so they promised that the refund will be done today, you should see it by next week.

[Baynanno1]

Different scenario, but similar story :

 

Made a reservation and payment via phone (not with Azamara) and after two weeks with no email confirmation, we followed up and got an almost identical response  "the person responsible has been off work . . . . ."

Followed up with words to the effect "It will be o.k., just arrive at the hotel (for a 3 night pre-cruise stay) and it will all be good."

 

Needless to say we insisted on (and now have) written confirmation prior to arriving in a foreign country.

 

[Mr. Click]

just proves you really cannot fix stupid.......meaning them, not you Cruise Junky.  You are far more patient than I am.  I would have  been talking to AMEX after 7 days, max

[Shawnino]

We're dealing with a similar mess.

The new promotion would actually end up saving us a lot of money on a B2B.

We had originally booked with a TA and he was in Hawai'i for a couple weeks.

Azamara wouldn't adjust our reservation on our say-so, only on his.

Fine.

 

But then came the hard sell about how while the promotion was on until February, today's price proper could not be guaranteed--we really should book a second set of rooms to lock the price in.

Fine.

 

Now the TA is back and I've told him cancel one-or-the-other and somehow Azamara has kept both front legs and cancelled both back legs of the B2B. Chaos.

We have 10 months to sort it out but it's been three weeks already.

If it's not sorted by early in the New Year, I'm binning the whole thing.

We are trying Azamara on the TA's recommendation. If the ship is anything like shoreside, we're in for a disaster, and there are plenty of other ships in the sea.

 

 

[Grandma Cruising]

The ship is nothing like shoreside! You’ll see that once you get onboard!

Edited December 22, 2018 by Host Grandma Cruising

[Cruise Junky]

23 minutes ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

The ship is nothing like shoreside! You’ll see that once you get onboard!

People keep saying that but who wants to go through this garbage to find out? 

[rallydave]

44 minutes ago, Cruise Junky said:

People keep saying that but who wants to go through this garbage to find out? 

You've got that correct.  You can join many of us who while we loved the onboard experience are NOT going to put up with the absolute garbage pre and post cruise poop that comes from the inept/incompetent so called management and staff and have found a better cruise line with a competent home office and even better onboard amenities at a lower price than the current exorbitant pricing as well as gimmick pricing that is deceptive and misleading.

[Grandma Cruising]

Cruise Junky, once you’ve been aboard, you will be able to make your own decision about Azamara. We’ve not found another cruise line that suits us as well as Azamara does in terms of size and onboard experience. 

[stcroixguy]

My wife and I were on the verge of booking an Alaska cruise with Azamara for next July, and had contacted our TA to set it up.  After reading so many negative comments, we did not book it and went with Viking instead.  I am sure the ships are wonderful, but in our mind there is no reason we need to take the risk and put up with poor customer service.

 

[Shawnino]

48 minutes ago, stcroixguy said:

My wife and I were on the verge of booking an Alaska cruise with Azamara for next July, and had contacted our TA to set it up.  After reading so many negative comments, we did not book it and went with Viking instead.  I am sure the ships are wonderful, but in our mind there is no reason we need to take the risk and put up with poor customer service.

 

 

Well, this is the thing isn't it.

We just got off a B2B with O. Not a perfect cruise, but good enough, and painless to arrange. 

2019 offers us no O itinerary that we want with accessible cabins. (I continue to slowly rehab a broken leg.)

So this Azamara B2B looks OK (BCN=>Lisboa=>Rio) and the accessible cabin lines up on Pursuit but now I'm staring at two front legs and no back legs, and no clear indication of the status of deposits. 

I'm at the point where I'd be ready to chuck it all in on Monday, but I'm mindful that the Holidays can delay things at the best of times.

These are not the best of times.

We'll have to figure out something by early January, because I don't want to miss the better deals on flights. It's expensive to fly in/out of where I live full stop, and it also looks expensive to get out of Rio.

[Mr. Click]

We sail in 32 days for Cuba so I guess we will find out of the onboard experience is better than the shore side experience.  Their Cuba itineraries were the best I could find in what they offered and in cost so I booked it.  More than once I have had second thoughts on this one but we are committed now.  If the onboard experience blows us away that will be great but for now I am having my doubts.