Princess non-refundable deposits

[Iamcruzin]

This all sounds good in theory but when the share holders see that bookings are down, watch how fast they run the $1 deposit promotion. Royal Caribbean and Celebrity are already offering two prices for RD and NRD. Royal Caribbean is very sneaky about it as you have to go through the entire booking process to see how much more a refundable deposit will be. NRD is the default.  Newbies fall into the trap and then find Cruise Critic to complain when they cancel and are penalized. I'm still part of the working world so planning 18months plus out won't work for me with a NRD. I will wait for the fire sales or the special deposit offers before I commit to anything. In reality I'm sure that it's only a remote few who follow cruise critic that book a dozen cruises at a time. The average person doesn't have time to keep track of mass bookings unless they are at TA.  Celebrity's formula of offering NRD and no perks while offering a refundable deposit with two perks that most don't want doesn't seem to working. I have been receiving more last minute fire sale adds than ever before. 

[Capt Krunch]

You bring up some very interesting points.  We have been cruising for nearly 50 years and have never booked with a NRD.

The Future Cruise Deposits that you can buy while on board the cruise that are refundable has made it easier to book a cruise in advance.  Without the FCD's, we would only book one cruise at a time but now with the FCD's we have as many as three cruises booked in the future.  But we would not book them if the deposits were non refundable or non-transferable.  We like cruising but there are many other options for vacations that are less expensive and just as enjoyable as a cruise.  If the cruise lines require a "guest" to make a non-refundable deposit, I think it will reduce their bookings.

[Daniel A]

On ‎8‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 8:16 AM, ontheweb said:

I read in a previous thread that they will allow you to book more than one cruise that will be at the same time. I replied that this will lead to more non-refundable deposits for cruises. That seems to be the best way to discourage folks from booking cruises that they do not intend to take.

It seems to me that the PAX who makes a booking with a non refundable deposit is making a commitment to sailing on that cruise.  They may hope for an upsell or other offer, but they have made up their mind to sail on that cruise.  The posters who will wait for the last minute because they won't commit to a decision will get what's left over after the committed PAX.  It is too easy for people to tie up cabins that they won't use by unrestricted deposit refunds.  If it is completely refundable, it doesn't seem to be a deposit to me...  Of course there is always the unexpected especially for cruises booked a long time in advance.  That's what they sell insurance for.

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, Daniel A said:

It seems to me that the PAX who makes a booking with a non refundable deposit is making a commitment to sailing on that cruise.  They may hope for an upsell or other offer, but they have made up their mind to sail on that cruise.  The posters who will wait for the last minute because they won't commit to a decision will get what's left over after the committed PAX.  It is too easy for people to tie up cabins that they won't use by unrestricted deposit refunds.  If it is completely refundable, it doesn't seem to be a deposit to me...  Of course there is always the unexpected especially for cruises booked a long time in advance.  That's what they sell insurance for.

We have had one non-refundable deposit. (It was on HAL.) The price was a real bargain, but the kicker was not only was the deposit non-refundable, but it was the entire fare. I immediately bought insurance.

 

And I am glad to say we did the cruise.

[finucane]

I believe the cruise lines are just continuing scalping us all.

 

Think of all their deposit/bookings on all of their ships on all of their sailings for all of the weeks. And then consider the majority are booking 1 to 2 years out. The $ deposit numbers they are holding for that time period is horrendous. The $'s they make on investment or even a simple interest rate is staggering.

Regardless they are still going to book every cabin at a premium before sailing refundable or not. Their still going to make a boat load from holding your deposit for 6 months to 2 years.

Do the math, it is truly staggering...

 

After almost 50 two and four week voyages, guess we are done after our present (refundable) 6 bookings are completed.

I'll never book a non-refundable voyage, premium, discounted or whatever smoke screen they want to hide it with, its all corporate greed on a massive scale.

Will gladly give others that will allow themselves to be ripped off our cabins, we will be done...

 

I am predicting they will screw themselves in the long run, the market is rapidly becoming saturated. People are getting tired of over crowded paradise. The quality of on-board help is getting impossible to sustain, they've all become Americanized.

Premium pricing, not to mention a guaranteed downturn in the economy in the next 8 years.

Time will tell, this is all JMHO and I am far from alone.

 

Well, guess I got off topic but in the long run its all related. A lot less for a lot more $'s

 

We had a great run...

 

OK, eat me up!👌😁

[finucane]

6 hours ago, Iamcruzin said:

This all sounds good in theory but when the share holders see that bookings are down, watch how fast they run the $1 deposit promotion. Royal Caribbean and Celebrity are already offering two prices for RD and NRD. Royal Caribbean is very sneaky about it as you have to go through the entire booking process to see how much more a refundable deposit will be. NRD is the default.  Newbies fall into the trap and then find Cruise Critic to complain when they cancel and are penalized. I'm still part of the working world so planning 18months plus out won't work for me with a NRD. I will wait for the fire sales or the special deposit offers before I commit to anything. In reality I'm sure that it's only a remote few who follow cruise critic that book a dozen cruises at a time. The average person doesn't have time to keep track of mass bookings unless they are at TA.  Celebrity's formula of offering NRD and no perks while offering a refundable deposit with two perks that most don't want doesn't seem to working. I have been receiving more last minute fire sale adds than ever before. 

Bingo!

[Iamcruzin]

8 hours ago, finucane said:

I believe the cruise lines are just continuing scalping us all.

 

Think of all their deposit/bookings on all of their ships on all of their sailings for all of the weeks. And then consider the majority are booking 1 to 2 years out. The $ deposit numbers they are holding for that time period is horrendous. The $'s they make on investment or even a simple interest rate is staggering.

Regardless they are still going to book every cabin at a premium before sailing refundable or not. Their still going to make a boat load from holding your deposit for 6 months to 2 years.

Do the math, it is truly staggering...

 

After almost 50 two and four week voyages, guess we are done after our present (refundable) 6 bookings are completed.

I'll never book a non-refundable voyage, premium, discounted or whatever smoke screen they want to hide it with, its all corporate greed on a massive scale.

Will gladly give others that will allow themselves to be ripped off our cabins, we will be done...

 

I am predicting they will screw themselves in the long run, the market is rapidly becoming saturated. People are getting tired of over crowded paradise. The quality of on-board help is getting impossible to sustain, they've all become Americanized.

Premium pricing, not to mention a guaranteed downturn in the economy in the next 8 years.

Time will tell, this is all JMHO and I am far from alone.

 

Well, guess I got off topic but in the long run its all related. A lot less for a lot more $'s

 

We had a great run...

 

OK, eat me up!👌😁

Furthermore it's the Future Cruise Credits that are the cause of the multi rooms being reserved and canceled. How many people do you think are leaving thousands of dollars to book multi rooms with Princess on a sailings they have no intention of taking? Once those FCC's become non refundable see how fast the sales drop off.

[Daniel A]

9 hours ago, finucane said:

I believe the cruise lines are just continuing scalping us all.

 

OK, eat me up!👌😁

I'm not eating you up here but I genuinely would like to know what causes such a strong reaction to the concept of non refundable deposits.  I've seen postings of people who have taken huge numbers of cruises in their lifetime and are complaining that they will not place a non refundable deposit on any cruises in the future.  To me, if 50+ times a PAX has placed refundable deposits that ended up being applied to the total cost of the cruises wasn't that really non refundable deposits since the deposits were not returned?  On the other hand, what percentage of the time did the 50+ cruisers cancel and claim the deposit back?  What is it that makes PAX so dependent on refundable deposits?  Again, I'm not condemning anybody - I just don't understand the logic. 

[finucane]

1 hour ago, Daniel A said:

I'm not eating you up here but I genuinely would like to know what causes such a strong reaction to the concept of non refundable deposits.  I've seen postings of people who have taken huge numbers of cruises in their lifetime and are complaining that they will not place a non refundable deposit on any cruises in the future.  To me, if 50+ times a PAX has placed refundable deposits that ended up being applied to the total cost of the cruises wasn't that really non refundable deposits since the deposits were not returned?  On the other hand, what percentage of the time did the 50+ cruisers cancel and claim the deposit back?  What is it that makes PAX so dependent on refundable deposits?  Again, I'm not condemning anybody - I just don't understand the logic. 

Seriously!

The whole thing refundable or non-refundable leaves a whole lot of cash to the cruise lines...

I'd hope we can agree on that

 

For those who have been cruising for a longtime, we have seen (like everything else) things watered down. The changes are so very drastic anymore I guess this is just one more nail in the cruise lines coffin. So I guess the disdain comes from just that.

 

Maybe its just a "I'm not going to take it anymore" that so many have issue with, who knows.

Maybe some day you'll understand but on a different topic perhaps...

 

OK, off to other more productive threads. Six other bookings we have that we'll not be cancelling, possibly our last six bookings it may appear.

Again, we had a good run, not really a big deal if its over, so many other things to do...

Edited August 12, 2019 by finucane

[rocklinmom]

Basically comes down to the ability to get your deposit back, if not possible to transfer it to another cruise, if the unplanned or unthinkable happens. I don't want to have to pay more money for cruise insurance. Of course we plan on doing our next cruise but with 72 year old parents (one with a heart condition) joining us, things could be very different in 2020 than right now. 

[Ken the cruiser]

I just read through this thread and don't believe I saw an answer to this question. If you book a cruise in the US with a nonrefundable deposit, can you "refare" the booking (where the booking number stays the same) if the price goes down? On Celebrity you can whereas on HAL you can't unless you want to forfeit your nonrefundable deposit. 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Ken the cruiser

[Iamcruzin]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

I just read through this thread and don't believe I saw an answer to this question. If you book a cruise in the US with a nonrefundable deposit, can you "refare" the booking (where the booking number stays the same) if the price goes down? On Celebrity you can whereas on HAL you can't unless you want to forfeit your nonrefundable deposit. 

This is a new concept for Princess so I guess time will tell. Royal Caribbean allows you to book another cruise within a year of the cancellation date. So if you don’t find another cruise to transfer to it’s better to wait to cancel just before final payment so you have a full year from the furthest possible date.

[Pierlesscruisers]

On 8/9/2019 at 10:44 AM, Donray said:

Deposits should never be refundable.   So one should be able to put a deposit down on a dozen rooms and then cancel just before the payment is due and get all your money back?  And the cruise lines get what for holding a room? 

 

Never refundable?  Nope, definitely disagree with that. Limits on what is refundable? Yep, there should be limits, no doubt. Any passenger should be able to make a temporary (for lack of a better word) deposit while they check on some situation or with some other person to see if the cruise is workable with other situations or people.  When the end of the temporary deposit period is reached, then the deposit would be terminated and the cabin returned to available status, the funds returned to the person who made the deposit  in the same form as it was originally made (e.g. returned to an active FCD, credited to credit card, etc.) That would prevent the situations you described while allowing some measure of protection to both the person making the deposit, other cruisers and the cruise line involved. 

 

Tom

[Ken the cruiser]

7 minutes ago, Iamcruzin said:

This is a new concept for Princess so I guess time will tell. Royal Caribbean allows you to book another cruise within a year of the cancellation date. So if you don’t find another cruise to transfer to it’s better to wait to cancel just before final payment so you have a full year from the furthest possible date.

Thanks, but I don’t see how your response addresses my question of refaring an existing Princess cruise. 

[Iamcruzin]

3 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks, but I don’t see how your response addresses my question of refaring an existing Princess cruise. 

It doesn’t and I don’t think anyone knows. Call Princess .

[Iamcruzin]

3 hours ago, Pierlesscruisers said:

 

Never refundable?  Nope, definitely disagree with that. Limits on what is refundable? Yep, there should be limits, no doubt. Any passenger should be able to make a temporary (for lack of a better word) deposit while they check on some situation or with some other person to see if the cruise is workable with other situations or people.  When the end of the temporary deposit period is reached, then the deposit would be terminated and the cabin returned to available status, the funds returned to the person who made the deposit  in the same form as it was originally made (e.g. returned to an active FCD, credited to credit card, etc.) That would prevent the situations you described while allowing some measure of protection to both the person making the deposit, other cruisers and the cruise line involved. 

 

Tom

Sounds good but all it will do is create more cancellations and rebooking.

[Sea Hag]

5 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

I just read through this thread and don't believe I saw an answer to this question. If you book a cruise in the US with a nonrefundable deposit, can you "refare" the booking (where the booking number stays the same) if the price goes down? On Celebrity you can whereas on HAL you can't unless you want to forfeit your nonrefundable deposit. 

Interesting question. I don't have a cast-in-cement answer, but this may shed some light. I saw a price drop for one of my 2020 cruises some weeks back. Sent email to my PVP to ask her for the adjustment, but got an autoreply that she was out of the office for a few days. I didn't know how long the price would stay down, so I called Princess to ask for the refaring. The person that took care of it for me went through some checking: any promos - no, non-refundable deposit - no. Then she told me that she could take care of it without any problems. That makes me believe that this particular Princess rep - note the qualification there - thought that if the deposit was non-refundable then I'd lose it. Take that with a huge chunk of salt, rather than a grain. Probably depends on who you speak to.

[Ken the cruiser]

18 minutes ago, Sea Hag said:

Interesting question. I don't have a cast-in-cement answer, but this may shed some light. I saw a price drop for one of my 2020 cruises some weeks back. Sent email to my PVP to ask her for the adjustment, but got an autoreply that she was out of the office for a few days. I didn't know how long the price would stay down, so I called Princess to ask for the refaring. The person that took care of it for me went through some checking: any promos - no, non-refundable deposit - no. Then she told me that she could take care of it without any problems. That makes me believe that this particular Princess rep - note the qualification there - thought that if the deposit was non-refundable then I'd lose it. Take that with a huge chunk of salt, rather than a grain. Probably depends on who you speak to.

Thanks Sea Hag! That pretty much goes along with the HAL policy where you cannot refare a "non-refundable" booking without also sacrificing the full deposit noted on the confirmation sheet. 

[idahospud]

40 minutes ago, Sea Hag said:

That makes me believe that this particular Princess rep - note the qualification there - thought that if the deposit was non-refundable then I'd lose it. Take that with a huge chunk of salt, rather than a grain. Probably depends on who you speak to.

I have refared clients with non-refundable deposits. Just did one last week. They did not lose their deposit and did get to keep their same cabin. 

[Iamcruzin]

16 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks Sea Hag! That pretty much goes along with the HAL policy where you cannot refare a "non-refundable" booking without also sacrificing the full deposit noted on the confirmation sheet. 

That’s worse than I thought. At least Royal Caribbean lets you re fare. However it’s possible to lose any promo OBC or whatever promotion that was in affect when you originally booked. Princess is famous for dropping price. There is no way I would ever book NRD if they won’t adjust the price.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Iamcruzin

[Ken the cruiser]

7 minutes ago, idahospud said:

I have refared clients with non-refundable deposits. Just did one last week. They did not lose their deposit and did get to keep their same cabin. 

That's great news to hear in case we ever decide to book with a non-refundable fare and the price subsequently goes down. Thanks!

Edited August 12, 2019 by Ken the cruiser

[Daniel A]

4 hours ago, Pierlesscruisers said:

 

Never refundable?  Nope, definitely disagree with that. Limits on what is refundable? Yep, there should be limits, no doubt. Any passenger should be able to make a temporary (for lack of a better word) deposit while they check on some situation or with some other person to see if the cruise is workable with other situations or people. 

So what do people do when booking airline reservations?  People book airline reservations all the time and they check on situations or with others before they book the seat(s).  I think on some airlines you can get your money back if you are flying on a significantly more costly fare basis.  I still don't understand why some PAX are getting so upset (although I do understand Finucane's answer and I've been there too in other matters!)  I'm not arguing for or against any type of deposit.  I just want to understand the angst. 

[Ombud]

4 hours ago, Pierlesscruisers said:

 

Never refundable?  Nope, definitely disagree with that. Limits on what is refundable? Yep, there should be limits, no doubt. Any passenger should be able to make a temporary (for lack of a better word) deposit while they check on some situation or with some other person to see if the cruise is workable with other situations or people.  When the end of the temporary deposit period is reached, then the deposit would be terminated and the cabin returned to available status, the funds returned to the person who made the deposit  in the same form as it was originally made (e.g. returned to an active FCD, credited to credit card, etc.) That would prevent the situations you described while allowing some measure of protection to both the person making the deposit, other cruisers and the cruise line involved. 

 

Tom

I just put it on hold. Normally non-deposit holds expire after 3 days but my PVP can extend that a week for me. 

 

I have only 1 nonrefundable deposit right now -- it's $1. No sweat 

[rocklinmom]

31 minutes ago, idahospud said:

I have refared clients with non-refundable deposits. Just did one last week. They did not lose their deposit and did get to keep their same cabin. 

Thanks, that's good to know for refaring. What about if you have to cancel due to medical issue, etc.? Can you transfer a nonrefundable deposit to another cruise? 

[Capt Krunch]

On 8/11/2019 at 1:38 PM, Iamcruzin said:

This all sounds good in theory but when the share holders see that bookings are down, watch how fast they run the $1 deposit promotion. Royal Caribbean and Celebrity are already offering two prices for RD and NRD. Royal Caribbean is very sneaky about it as you have to go through the entire booking process to see how much more a refundable deposit will be. NRD is the default.  Newbies fall into the trap and then find Cruise Critic to complain when they cancel and are penalized. I'm still part of the working world so planning 18months plus out won't work for me with a NRD. I will wait for the fire sales or the special deposit offers before I commit to anything. In reality I'm sure that it's only a remote few who follow cruise critic that book a dozen cruises at a time. The average person doesn't have time to keep track of mass bookings unless they are at TA.  Celebrity's formula of offering NRD and no perks while offering a refundable deposit with two perks that most don't want doesn't seem to working. I have been receiving more last minute fire sale adds than ever before.