HELP! Azamara is trying to cancel my trip because of their mistake! Horrible Cruise!

[Cruise Junky]

14 minutes ago, PatG2 said:

Thanks Cruise Junky. I appreciate your story. Seems like Princess made the right call. I already like them better for it. Question, did you say anything in particular to get them to honor it? In other words, did you have to fight it and if so what helped your case?

My TA fought for it but honestly I don’t think she had to try very hard. They set her group rate wrong. They knew it was their error. 

[hubofhockey]

On 6/9/2019 at 2:00 PM, PatG2 said:

 

 

Please help! How can Azamara cancel my trip after I've: Paid in Full, Recieved Multiple Verbal and Emailed Confirmations, Even Printed my Boarding Pass!?! If a customer makes a mistake, you better believe the cruise line still going to take their money. What can I do to make them honor what they sold me?

 

 

I don't think anyone can really help you.  It's not worth the legal fees to use a lawyer and the trip is only a couple of months away in any case.  I'm not crazy about Azamara's back office and they can be frustrating.  

 

It sounds as if you didn't get trip insurance, which surely would have made you whole on the flights.  

 

This kind of puts you in a workout situation.  Your options are: (1) Accept Azamara's offer, (2) Try to negotiate a better deal, maybe up to a balcony cabin, (3) Restructure your vacation to a land vacation, (4) eat your flight tickets.  

 

To be honest, I am skeptical that the price wasn't an obvious gross error because they only offered the Oceanview and not even a balcony.  I guess I'm a bit curious as to the price and the cruise itinerary.  

[Baynanno1]

" I booked two suites, 1 through a 3rd party site and the other directly through Azamara."

 

Doubtless I will receive some flack, but I have wondered since reading the original post . . .

Why?

Why not book both at the same time with a single agent?

[hubofhockey]

6 hours ago, Baynanno1 said:

" I booked two suites, 1 through a 3rd party site and the other directly through Azamara."

 

Doubtless I will receive some flack, but I have wondered since reading the original post . . .

Why?

Why not book both at the same time with a single agent?

 

There is more than one hole to this story.  From Azamara's side, it sounds as if they confirmed the reservation, which had been made, but the price glitch had not been reviewed.  The reason the OP has not disclosed the price is that it's an obvious glitch and no reasonable person would believe that the price was the real price.  I would assume right now that is the reason OP won't post price of the suite and itinerary.  Based on the limited facts presented here, it looks as if even an Oceanview at that price is a great deal.  If the OP wants to fight further, maybe they can get a couple of balcony cabins.  

[rallydave]

Pat, suggest you stop putting the name of the agency you booked with in your posts and simply a TA as it is against CC rules to mention any TA by name.   All post that mention a specific TA are eventually deleted and your posting privileges can be removed by violating CC rules.  I have not quoted you as my post would be deleted as well if I quoted your post that violates CC rules 

 

Good luck with getting your cruises at the price you booked.  Not the first time Azamara has screwed up and sure won't be the last.  Posts come extremely often with Azamara failing to be fair and we are only looking at about 5 to 10% of their customers so imagine what is going on with the other 90+% who simply accept the inept/incompetent home office shenanigans??

[PatG2]

3 minutes ago, rallydave said:

Pat, suggest you stop putting the name of the agency you booked with in your posts and simply a TA as it is against CC rules to mention any TA by name.   All post that mention a specific TA are eventually deleted and your posting privileges can be removed by violating CC rules.  I have not quoted you as my post would be deleted as well if I quoted your post that violates CC rules 

 

Good luck with getting your cruises at the price you booked.  Not the first time Azamara has screwed up and sure won't be the last.  Posts come extremely often with Azamara failing to be fair and we are only looking at about 5 to 10% of their customers so imagine what is going on with the other 90+% who simply accept the inept/incompetent home office shenanigans??

 

Thanks Dave. I will stop using TA name, I didn't know. Set an appointment yesterday for their supervisor to call me at 8:30 am est this morning. 1 hour later, still no call. Tried calling him directly three times and no answer. I might be nitpicking at this point but just another example of their customer service.

[LHT28]

44 minutes ago, PatG2 said:

 

Thanks Dave. I will stop using TA name, I didn't know. Set an appointment yesterday for their supervisor to call me at 8:30 am est this morning. 1 hour later, still no call. Tried calling him directly three times and no answer. I might be nitpicking at this point but just another example of their customer service.

been following your saga

 Just curious  did they cancel your bookings ?

I might have missed that  in previous ports

hope all works out for you & your friends

[laurieb]

19 hours ago, PatG2 said:

I think all he was getting at is that they operate on small margins and don't have the best IT. They don't charge $10,,000 a ticket like Azamara so margins are smaller. It would be very easy for IT to implement a warning pop-up if an employee list a price for 50% less than their standard price. Maybe make it so a manager has to approve it.

 

That's all irrelevant anyways. At the end of the day, Azamara made a "mistake" on the price, and they continued to mistake after mistake every time they confirmed it. If it was an obvious error, than it should have been caught during the 3 verbal confirmations and 6 email confirmations. How many times can they make a "mistake" before they have to honor something?

If a customer books a cruise for $10,000 when they thought they were booking a $1,000 cruise, Azamara isn't going to refund them if they are within the refund deadline. That customer is out of luck. Maybe if the customer called within 24 hours but definitely not after multiple confirmations and emails. 

Were these confirmations over a matter of hours, days, or weeks?

[need2bespoiled]

As someone said, there is more to this than one side. My guess is two sites were used because each site would only allow one cabin.  Of course I could be wrong. 

 

Nevertheless, and knowing full well these boards are monitored (Hi Bonnie), my advice is to not trash a business you are negotiating with. I’ve been an “influencer” here and elsewhere and would never publicly trash an organization I’m wanting something from. After the fact I would certainly share my story publicly and objectively as possible.

 

I don’t have much experience with Azamara but I have my fair share with Celebrity whey gets many of the same complaints as in this thread and have found them always reasonable and accommodating when something wasn’t right. So far Azamara has been similarly accommodating including recent itinerary changes and accommodations they made before Cuba was cancelled. 

 

Regards,

Jenna    

[Host Jazzbeau]

The fact that Bonnie hasn't chimed in on this thread suggests to me that there is more to this than we have been told.  Normally she would have posted that she will look into it – my guess is that she has no need to look into it because she has already been briefed.

[PatG2]

2 hours ago, LHT28 said:

been following your saga

 Just curious  did they cancel your bookings ?

I might have missed that  in previous ports

hope all works out for you & your friends

Thanks for following LHT. I'm waiting to hear back from them today! I will keep everyone update.

[PatG2]

3 hours ago, laurieb said:

Were these confirmations over a matter of hours, days, or weeks?

Hi Laurie, I called to confirm immediately after booking with my TA. They verbally confirmed and sent me confirmation email. I told them, "are you sure everything went through because I'm going to book my flights?" They said, "yes, go ahead and book your flight". The next day I spoke to Azamara directly who also confirmed both my suites. Over the next 3-4 days I received 6 confirmation emails, 3 verbal confirmations, checked in, paid in full, printed my tickets. They told me on day 4 or 5 that it wasn't happening.

Keep in mind, the cruise was also 2 months away when I booked so I had to move fast.

Edited June 11, 2019 by PatG2

[PatG2]

1 hour ago, need2bespoiled said:

As someone said, there is more to this than one side. My guess is two sites were used because each site would only allow one cabin.  Of course I could be wrong. 

 

Nevertheless, and knowing full well these boards are monitored (Hi Bonnie), my advice is to not trash a business you are negotiating with. I’ve been an “influencer” here and elsewhere and would never publicly trash an organization I’m wanting something from. After the fact I would certainly share my story publicly and objectively as possible.

 

I don’t have much experience with Azamara but I have my fair share with Celebrity whey gets many of the same complaints as in this thread and have found them always reasonable and accommodating when something wasn’t right. So far Azamara has been similarly accommodating including recent itinerary changes and accommodations they made before Cuba was cancelled. 

 

Regards,

Jenna    

Thanks for sharing need2bespoiled. I'm going to actually agree with you on this one and say that I shouldn't have put "horrible cruise" in the title of the article. I was very frustrated and emotional (I think justifiably so) when I posted this thread. I shouldn't have said anything negative about them, however, everything I have said so far are facts. When I felt like I did everything I could and didn't come to a satisfactory agreement, this felt like the right outlet. However, they still have time to fix this and I should have held off on some of the negativity until I know for sure they aren't going to offer anything else. Thanks for your post.

[dabear]

Even though PatG2 will not disclose the price she paid, she also must have known that the price was a gross error. Why else would she repeatedly contact A asking for multiple conformations, written & oral & buy 2 cabins from different sources. 

[laurieb]

23 minutes ago, PatG2 said:

Hi Laurie, I called to confirm immediately after booking with my TA. They verbally confirmed and sent me confirmation email. I told them, "are you sure everything went through because I'm going to book my flights?" They said, "yes, go ahead and book your flight". The next day I spoke to Azamara directly who also confirmed both my suites. Over the next 3-4 days I received 6 confirmation emails, 3 verbal confirmations, checked in, paid in full, printed my tickets. They told me on day 4 or 5 that it wasn't happening.

Keep in mind, the cruise was also 2 months away when I booked so I had to move fast.

Did you book on a weekend?

[hiccups]

1 hour ago, dabear said:

Even though PatG2 will not disclose the price she paid, she also must have known that the price was a gross error. Why else would she repeatedly contact A asking for multiple conformations, written & oral & buy 2 cabins from different sources. 

Why should the poster (who mentioned "my wife and I") have to reveal the price?  

I'm really surprised by the number of posters trying to lay fault at OP's feet.  Azamara took the bookings and payment in full.  Considering one booking was made through a TA and one through Azamara at the same price, it certainly doesn't seem to me that OP should have suspected anything was wrong--we've all seen the fire sale prices. 

Some of you act as though OP should have said, "Hey, Azamara, certainly the price you've posted isn't correct.... would you check and see if you should be charging me a higher rate?"  How many of you would do that?

I feel once Azamara has taken the money and sent the confirmation, it's on them to make this right in some manner.  Maybe they don't have the cabins on that cruise, but they certainly ought to be offering something in light of the situation, such as a transfer to another cruise in the future.

While I would never rely on "verbal confirmations" for anything, OP has email confirmations.

Edited June 11, 2019 by hiccups

[rallydave]

4 minutes ago, hiccups said:

Why should the poster (who mentioned "my wife and I") have to reveal the price?  

I'm really surprised by the number of posters trying to lay fault at OP's feet.  Azamara took the bookings and payment in full.  Considering one booking was made through a TA and one through Azamara at the same price, it certainly doesn't seem to me that OP should have suspected anything was wrong--we've all seen the fire sale prices. 

Some of you act as though OP should have said, "Hey, Azamara, certainly the price you've posted isn't correct.... would you check and see if you should be charging me a higher rate?"  How many of you would do that?

I feel once Azamara has taken the money and sent the confirmation, it's on them to make this right in some manner.  Maybe they don't have the cabins on that cruise, but they certainly ought to be offering something in light of the situation, such as a transfer to another cruise in the future.

While I would never rely on "verbal confirmations" for anything, OP has email confirmations.

Completely agree hiccups.  In addition, and I am not a lawyer, the OP has a contract and by the law of contracts, it is a valid contract.  Offer, acceptance, and consideration.  Having the contract broken by Azamara opens Azamara to a law suit.  The problem with suing cruise lines though is extremely difficult as law suits have to be filed where a company is registered or with their registered agent and that is is almost in a country other than the US. 

[donaldsc]

6 minutes ago, rallydave said:

Completely agree hiccups.  In addition, and I am not a lawyer, the OP has a contract and by the law of contracts, it is a valid contract.  Offer, acceptance, and consideration.  Having the contract broken by Azamara opens Azamara to a law suit.  The problem with suing cruise lines though is extremely difficult as law suits have to be filed where a company is registered or with their registered agent and that is is almost in a country other than the US. 

 

Also, the cost of the lawyers would far far exceed any money that you might exceed.

 

DON

[dabear]

You do not have a valid contract if there was not a true meeting of the minds. If someone offered to sell you a new Mercedes for $100, you would try to buy it but it would not be enforceable. If she paid $100 or even a $1,000 for a suite on a 10 day (?) or more cruise, do you think it was a mistake? Come on now. A lot of holes in this story.

[rallydave]

5 minutes ago, dabear said:

You do not have a valid contract if there was not a true meeting of the minds. If someone offered to sell you a new Mercedes for $100, you would try to buy it but it would not be enforceable. If she paid $100 or even a $1,000 for a suite on a 10 day (?) or more cruise, do you think it was a mistake? Come on now. A lot of holes in this story.

You might have a valid point if this were a verbal contract however,  the offer was in writing on the website,  the acceptance is in writing via the confirmation and the consideration was paid by the OP.

 

Meeting of the minds would generally be for verbal contracts where one or both of the parties cannot agree but, in writing it is all there on paper or on the website.   And, by rule of law any ambiguity in the contract is construed against the writer and in this case Azamara is the writer of the Terms and Conditions which constitute the Contract.

 

A mistake by either of the parties does not negate a written contract.  Your Mercedes example is faulty  because it is try and not a contract and your cruise example is just like this one and only enforceable after the three requirements are met and in this case without any other information, they have been met and in writing.

[hubofhockey]

22 minutes ago, rallydave said:

You might have a valid point if this were a verbal contract however,  the offer was in writing on the website,  the acceptance is in writing via the confirmation and the consideration was paid by the OP.

 

Meeting of the minds would generally be for verbal contracts where one or both of the parties cannot agree but, in writing it is all there on paper or on the website.   And, by rule of law any ambiguity in the contract is construed against the writer and in this case Azamara is the writer of the Terms and Conditions which constitute the Contract.

 

A mistake by either of the parties does not negate a written contract.  Your Mercedes example is faulty  because it is try and not a contract and your cruise example is just like this one and only enforceable after the three requirements are met and in this case without any other information, they have been met and in writing.

 

I disagree with your analysis.  The offer was the result of a mistake and maybe an obvious mistake to a reasonable person.  If the OP could show that Azamara made similar offers to the once accepted, than that would be great evidence.  This on sounds like an offer meant to be a guaranteed inside was mistakenly listed as a suite.  Cruise lines like Carnival which depend on alcohol sales and specialty restaurants.  That's why lines like Azamara don't give away inclusive cabins.  OP won't even post price and itinerary because OP knows the offer was a clear and obvious electronic error.  

[hiccups]

55 minutes ago, dabear said:

You do not have a valid contract if there was not a true meeting of the minds. If someone offered to sell you a new Mercedes for $100, you would try to buy it but it would not be enforceable. If she paid $100 or even a $1,000 for a suite on a 10 day (?) or more cruise, do you think it was a mistake? Come on now. A lot of holes in this story.

Apples and oranges with "offered to sell and tried to buy."  OP BOUGHT the cruise when Azamara TOOK the money.  The contract was executed.

 

[hiccups]

1 minute ago, hubofhockey said:

 

I disagree with your analysis.  The offer was the result of a mistake and maybe an obvious mistake to a reasonable person.  If the OP could show that Azamara made similar offers to the once accepted, than that would be great evidence.  This on sounds like an offer meant to be a guaranteed inside was mistakenly listed as a suite.  Cruise lines like Carnival which depend on alcohol sales and specialty restaurants.  That's why lines like Azamara don't give away inclusive cabins.  OP won't even post price and itinerary because OP knows the offer was a clear and obvious electronic error.  

OP secured two bookings through two different sources (TA and Azamara) at the same price.  If the person working FOR Azamara didn't hit "pause" on that booking when he/she saw that price, that's on Azamara.

Again, I'll tell the story when several years ago, RCI listed grand suites on a Caribbean cruise at less than half their typical going rate.  Someone posted about it on the RCI board and a bunch of cruisers (myself included) booked them.  I'm pretty sure that was not the price RCI wanted to sell those suites at, but they honored the bookings.

[laurieb]

1 hour ago, hiccups said:

Why should the poster (who mentioned "my wife and I") have to reveal the price?  

I'm really surprised by the number of posters trying to lay fault at OP's feet.  Azamara took the bookings and payment in full.  Considering one booking was made through a TA and one through Azamara at the same price, it certainly doesn't seem to me that OP should have suspected anything was wrong--we've all seen the fire sale prices. 

Some of you act as though OP should have said, "Hey, Azamara, certainly the price you've posted isn't correct.... would you check and see if you should be charging me a higher rate?"  How many of you would do that?

I feel once Azamara has taken the money and sent the confirmation, it's on them to make this right in some manner.  Maybe they don't have the cabins on that cruise, but they certainly ought to be offering something in light of the situation, such as a transfer to another cruise in the future.

While I would never rely on "verbal confirmations" for anything, OP has email confirmations.

I have to disagree with much of what you are saying here; I believe the OP knew very well that the price was in error and that is why he was getting everything done so quickly.  May even have been booking both suites at the same time thus needing to use two different booking avenues.  We won't know and don't need to know.

I absolutely would question the price if it was too good to be true; I wouldn't want to have the possibility of having my cruise cancelled because of an error ( and for me personally it wouldn't feel right).

If these were booked over a Sunday when Azamara is closed, they wouldn't be able to verify anything until a few days after booking.  The bean counters aren't there on Saturdays either.  Confirmations can be emailed and printed, payments can be made online, a booking can be verified as been made, without the actual details being verified by Azamara once their offices are open again on Monday.  Just my 2 cents

And shame on the TA for not following up on the price too, if it was that low; they should know to check!

Edited June 11, 2019 by laurieb

[hubofhockey]

3 minutes ago, hiccups said:

Apples and oranges with "offered to sell and tried to buy."  OP BOUGHT the cruise when Azamara TOOK the money.  The contract was executed.

 

 

Executed contracts can be rescinded.  Of course, Azamara may be liable for air tickets purchased by OP.  

17 minutes ago, hiccups said:

OP secured two bookings through two different sources (TA and Azamara) at the same price.  If the person working FOR Azamara didn't hit "pause" on that booking when he/she saw that price, that's on Azamara.

Again, I'll tell the story when several years ago, RCI listed grand suites on a Caribbean cruise at less than half their typical going rate.  Someone posted about it on the RCI board and a bunch of cruisers (myself included) booked them.  I'm pretty sure that was not the price RCI wanted to sell those suites at, but they honored the bookings.

 

I bet you this is closer to 25% price than 50% price.  OP will give you no details though.