Buyer Beware on B2B Bookings

[pauon]

For several months we have been trying to access our booking, make dinner reservations and update our travel information for our upcoming B2B 30 day cruise on the Oceania website.  All it says is  :"Error..... Back to Back or combo reservations cannot be managed online while we upgrade our online system. Please contact your travel agent or Oceania Cruises for assistance. We apologize for any inconvenience".

 

After contacting customer service, our TA, and their website service requests for answers this is the answer we we got:

 

Thank you for contacting the Special Services desk at Oceania Cruises.

 Kindly be advised that due to your Combo Bookings updating can only be done with our Reservations Department.  Our website is unable to handle these types of bookings.

 Please contact our Call Center at 1-800-531-5658 and any Cruise Specialist will be able to assist you.

 Thank you for choosing Oceania Cruises and we look forward to welcoming you onboard.

 

Sad and unacceptable.  

[pinotlover]

I’d give all the information to my TA and let her ( in our case) deal with it.

 

It was great, back in the recent past, when the O IT manager would come and explain the issues and what’s being done to resolve the problems. Real shame that no longer occurs!

Edited January 16, 2019 by pinotlover

[LHT28]

36 minutes ago, pauon said:

After contacting customer service, our TA, and their website service requests for answers this is the answer we we got:

 

Thank you for contacting the Special Services desk at Oceania Cruises.

 Kindly be advised that due to your Combo Bookings updating can only be done with our Reservations Department.  Our website is unable to handle these types of bookings.

 Please contact our Call Center at 1-800-531-5658 and any Cruise Specialist will be able to assist you.

 Thank you for choosing Oceania Cruises and we look forward to welcoming you onboard.

 

Sad and unacceptable.  

 

Can you not call Oceania  as suggested ??

It is not ideal  but  at least you can get the reservations taken care of

 

 

[pauon]

That is what we have been doing.  

[pauon]

Also, you don't get the 25% discount for excursions on the second cruise, even though you booked enough of them to qualify for it on the first leg.  They are truly separate cruises to Oceania, well except for being able to access it under "My Account" or under "My Reservation".

[Paulchili]

11 minutes ago, pauon said:

Also, you don't get the 25% discount for excursions on the second cruise, even though you booked enough of them to qualify for it on the first leg.  They are truly separate cruises to Oceania, well except for being able to access it under "My Account" or under "My Reservation".

If they are B2B then by definition they are separate cruises and there is no reason one should get a 25% discount on the second cruise as it is separate from the first cruise.

You would get that discount on a cruise booked as a grand voyage that could have also been booked as a B2B but is booked as a single grand voyage.

We had this just last Oct/Nov when we first booked a 14 day cruise but later changed it to a B2B two 7 day cruises. In our case this worked out far better as a B2B vs a grand voyage.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Paulchili

[LHT28]

When is your cruise?

Is it the June 19th sailing  you are trying to book reservations for  or do you have an earlier sailing?

Do you have 1  or 2 booking numbers?

[Mura]

We had a B2B in May on Riviera -- two one week cruises.  We were in an OC so got nice presents on each leg (a pair of bath towels with visors and Oceania hats) -- I would have expected just one set, instead we got two.  We got the 6 bottles of wine/booze on each leg.  And so on.

 

BUT when I tried to book specialty reservations for the second leg, it was never possible to do it.  It didn't matter to us since we didn't want that many specialty reservations anyway.  But it did seem odd.

 

Mura

 

I nearly forgot -- we also were delayed in receiving the Blue Book.  Apparently the problem was because they published the book for each leg separately, and we had to wait until the second one was ready to get the first one.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Mura

[LHT28]

5 minutes ago, Mura said:

We had a B2B in May on Riviera -- two one week cruises.  We were in an OC so got nice presents on each leg (a pair of bath towels with visors and Oceania hats) -- I would have expected just one set, instead we got two.  We got the 6 bottles of wine/booze on each leg.  And so on.

 

BUT when I tried to book specialty reservations for the second leg, it was never possible to do it.  It didn't matter to us since we didn't want that many specialty reservations anyway.  But it did seem odd.

 

 

I think it is a known IT issue  for the past several months  for those with B2B  or GV cruises

But you also  have to be paid in full & book within the parameters   your cabin cat allows 😉

 

[Mura]

19 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

I think it is a known IT issue  for the past several months  for those with B2B  or GV cruises

But you also  have to be paid in full & book within the parameters   your cabin cat allows 😉

 

For the record, we had already paid in full.  We got what we needed (or wanted) from our butler when we boarded.  I think we ended up dining in the room from the various restaurants when we wanted to.  That's a benefit we had that not all cabin levels have, of course.  I had no problem booking 3 restaurants (and La Reserve) for the first week.

 

Now that I think of it ... I'd booked La Reserve to the first week but got a call that the evening had been cancelled and they booked us for a dinner during the second week.  That was fine with us.  BUT... the ship lost our reservation.  We didn't realize the problem until our butler heard us say we were going to La Reserve that night and so he took it upon himself to double check because he was sure that we were NOT on the guest list that night.  He got it all fixed for us.  Fortunately I had brought with me a printout of our invoice that showed our La Reserve booking. Because of the -- er -- problem (I was going to use another word) they replaced our Bourgeois menu with the Connoisseur at no extra charge, so we had no complaints!  But many kudos to our butler.

 

Mura

 

Mura

[pauon]

On 1/16/2019 at 4:48 PM, LHT28 said:

I think it is a known IT issue  for the past several months  for those with B2B  or GV cruises

But you also  have to be paid in full & book within the parameters   your cabin cat allows 😉

 

How was this a "known IT issue"?  We booked this almost a year ago and the only way we knew was from error messages on the website.   Our TA is almost as frustrated as we are and she is a TA listed with Oceania.  If it was talked about on CC, please let me know where, I have looked.   Like I said above "Sad and unacceptable".  

By the way; onebooking number and paid in full.

[LHT28]

11 minutes ago, pauon said:

How was this a "known IT issue"?  We booked this almost a year ago and the only way we knew was from error messages on the website.   Our TA is almost as frustrated as we are and she is a TA listed with Oceania.  If it was talked about on CC, please let me know where, I have looked.   Like I said above "Sad and unacceptable".  

By the way; onebooking number and paid in full.

 

sorry it is known here as it has been discussed before

Is your sailing in June ?  is that the cruise you are trying to make reservations for ?

Unless you are in a top suite like OS, OC, or VS    you cannot book before  75 days out or what ever cabin cat  you are in

I am surprised your TA  would not know this

 

• Owner’s Suite, Vista Suite and Oceania Suite 
  Advance reservations may be made on the date final payment is due and has been received until 7 days prior to sailing, which varies between 90 and 150 days, depending on length of sailing. 
• Penthouse Suite 
  Reservations may be made 75-7 days prior to sailing, if the booking is paid in full.
• Concierge Level Veranda 
  Reservations may be made 60-7 days prior to sailing, if the booking is paid in full. 

All Other Categories 
Reservations may be made 45-7 days prior to sailing, if the booking is paid in full. 

https://oceaniacruises.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005477713-When-can-I-make-reservations-in-the-specialty-restaurant-

 

[LHT28]

45 minutes ago, pauon said:

 If it was talked about on CC, please let me know where, I have looked.   Like I said above "Sad and unacceptable".  

By the way; onebooking number and paid in full.

Here you go  from June 2018

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2551903-dinner-reservations-btob-cruise/?tab=comments#comment-55020663

 

I beleive there were other threads   you can do a search for them

[pauon]

After multiple phones calls and being on hold, everything is now booked.  I hope this helps someone who has been frustrated with the error message.

[pauon]

That was very helpful, thank you.   Now you have the latest update as well.

[pauon]

I am not working on the June trip yet.  Our first B2B sailing is on the Marina in March thru April.  The second part of this B2B is a transatlantic.

[Paulchili]

pauon,

You keep referring to your cruise as a B2B. As you have only 1 booking number (per your post) it is NOT a B2B but rather an extended or grand voyage.

Rules for these are different than those for B2B - such as only 1 set of benefits for extended voyage vs 2 sets of benefits for B2B, etc, etc

For example, I had a true B2B cruise with 2 separate booking numbers and received 2 sets of benefits (Plat. OBC & spa credit, etc). In addition, the price for the second cruise went down and I was able to get that reduction as it was a separate booking number. Had it all been under one booking number, as yours appears to be, I couldn’t benefit from that reduction; nor would I get 2 sets of Plat benefits.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Paulchili

[Mura]

Then I guess they were wrong to give us double benefits on Riviera this past May because we had one booking number.  As I said above I couldn't book specialty reservations online for the second leg of our cruise, but we got everything else ... I'm not complaining!

[pauon]

3 minutes ago, Paulchili said:

pauon,

You keep referring to your cruise as a B2B. As you have only 1 booking number (per your post) it is NOT a B2B but rather an extended or grand voyage.

Rules for these are different than those for B2B - such as only 1 set of benefits for extended voyage vs 2 sets of benefits for B2B, etc, etc

See error message in my original post.  It refers to it as a B2B or combo reservation.   Thanks for you input.

[Paulchili]

22 minutes ago, Mura said:

Then I guess they were wrong to give us double benefits on Riviera this past May because we had one booking number.  As I said above I couldn't book specialty reservations online for the second leg of our cruise, but we got everything else ... I'm not complaining!

Some benefits remained the same - we would have gotten 8 excursions on a 14 day extended cruise and we got 4 excursions per cruise as a B2B - the same amount. That was the case for specialty restaurant reservations as well - no change.

OTOH, we got credit for 2 cruises vs only one; we got $600 Plat OBC X2 vs only once, 2 spa credits for each cruise (total of 4)  vs only 2 on a 14 day cruise. Also, as I said before, we were able to get a lowered price for second segment which we couldn’t if it was booked as a single cruise. In adddition, our TA had a group booking for the second cruise so we got PPG from him (which we get in full amount as refundable OBC).

All in all, we did much better by changing this 14 day cruise into a B2B cruise 7 days each.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Paulchili

[Aloha 1]

On 1/16/2019 at 5:20 PM, Paulchili said:

If they are B2B then by definition they are separate cruises and there is no reason one should get a 25% discount on the second cruise as it is separate from the first cruise.

You would get that discount on a cruise booked as a grand voyage that could have also been booked as a B2B but is booked as a single grand voyage.

We had this just last Oct/Nov when we first booked a 14 day cruise but later changed it to a B2B two 7 day cruises. In our case this worked out far better as a B2B vs a grand voyage.

Paul; A couple years ago, we booked B2B for the Baltic/ booked as separate cruises and O combined them as a Grand Voyage. So, instead of getting 2 cruise credits we only got one. Has this policy changed?

[Paulchili]

6 minutes ago, Aloha 1 said:

Paul; A couple years ago, we booked B2B for the Baltic/ booked as separate cruises and O combined them as a Grand Voyage. So, instead of getting 2 cruise credits we only got one. Has this policy changed?

I don’t know the answer to this.

All I know is what we did. This was a 14 day Med. cruise last Oct/Nov that we first booked as a 14 day cruise and later changed to a B2B 7 day segments. All this would have been a year or a year 1/2 before the cruise (just judging by how we usually book cruises).

I don’t know what the current policy on this is.

[roothy123]

I may be wrong, but I thought the cruise credits were based on number of nights (or possibly days) of your cruise.  If that's the case, would you get the same number of credits for a B2B as you would for booking 2 separate cruises?  Not sure, though...

[rallydave]

1 minute ago, roothy123 said:

I may be wrong, but I thought the cruise credits were based on number of nights (or possibly days) of your cruise.  If that's the case, would you get the same number of credits for a B2B as you would for booking 2 separate cruises?  Not sure, though...

Believe O only provides a single point per cruise so if truly a B2B you would get 2 credits but, if the cruises are combined only one.

[ORV]

7 minutes ago, rallydave said:

Believe O only provides a single point per cruise so if truly a B2B you would get 2 credits but, if the cruises are combined only one.

No, Roothy is  correct. It's based on number of days. Here's the breakdown

 

• Cruises up to 24 days will receive one cruise credit
• Cruises 25-34 days will receive two cruise credits
• Cruises 35-44 days will receive three cruise credits
• Cruises 45-54 days will receive four cruise credits
• Cruises 55-64 days will receive five cruise credits
• Cruises 65-99 days will receive seven cruise credits
• Cruises 100-157 days will receive ten cruise credits
• Cruises 158 + days will receive fifteen cruise credits