Shipboard Money that's NOT a "Freebie"

[flipoid]

I have searched "shipboard credit" and "onboard credit" for an answer to my question but have not been able to find an answer that applies to my situation.

 

In the interest of better budgeting for our cruise, my husband and I have called Princess several times to add money (from our checking account) to our shipboard account, to pay for tips, onboard expenses, etc. The last time I called to add some, the Princess rep pointed out to me that any money that we did not use would be lost at the end of the cruise.

 

I have a BIG problem with that. :mad: I can understand that if a passenger has shipboard/onboard credit that came from a travel agent perk (get $200 if you book a balcony cabin--book today!!), or from a future booking credit that the passenger made while on board, that if for some reason it's not used, the passenger loses it. But to have the rep tell me that we lose our money that's in our shipboard account if we don't use it is the equivalent of saying that if, when we board the ship in May, we hand them $1000 as a cash deposit for the onboard credit and don't use it all, we lose it instead of getting a refund at the end of the cruise. That's OUR money, not the travel agent's bonus, or Princess's bonus for booking the cruise.

 

Do any of you experienced Princess cruisers have any knowledge of this? Have any of you who have sailed Princess before (we're going on the Caribbean Princess) added money to your shipboard account this way? This just doesn't seem right to me, given that it is our money to begin with. Any and all responses (even if they're not what I want to hear!) would be appreciated.

[creed205]

Wow, that's disturbing. My wife and I have added about $600 to our account and planned to add more as the Canadian dollar is strong right now. I think we might wait instead. If we lose it then it doesn't matter a bit what exchange rate we are getting!

[coiran]

Why don't you just use a credit card?

Ron

[spongerob]

Whoever you talked to was just plain wrong. During one cruise, my wife scored big in the casino and suprised me by paying off the on-board account, and actually overpaid a little so we'd have some banked funds to play with while still on board. The morning we disembarked, the purser's office phoned our cabin to make sure I didn't forget to come down and collect my "refund". They will NOT keep your money if you don't spend it.

[chrysalis]

we pay down our on board account on each cruise, while on the cruise....you can just use traveller checks for that, and do it mid-week and then again late in the cruise. It is relatively easy to figure out what your balance might be.

 

I guess what Princess does not want to have to do is start sending out money to people after a cruise for small amounts because of overpayment of their onboard accounts, nor do they want people showing up at the purser's desk on the last day to get refunds.

[Dale]

The morning we disembarked, the purser's office phoned our cabin to make sure I didn't forget to come down and collect my "refund". They will NOT keep your money if you don't spend it.

:cool: :cool:

My wife and I had the same experience on our Baltic cruise.

[Pam in CA]

Actually, come to think of it, buying Traveler's Checks to use on the cruise to pay down your onboard account is a good idea. Instead of arranging the payment ahead of time, put your money into Traveler's Checks, keep checking your account through the week and pay it off in Traveler's Checks.

[creed205]

Why don't you just use a credit card?

Ron

Like I said above, when you are doing an exchange in currencies then you try and play the 'market' it is nice to buy ahead of time. I have purchased all my credit so far at a great rate. Over all it's another $29 on the cruise. Worth it for me :)

[Murphey]

We just went through this on our last cruise......If the SBC is from a TA, Princess etc., as a promotion you must "use it or lose it". If it is a gift from yourselves or someone else (i.e., real $) they will refund it.

[flipoid]

Thank you so much for all your responses! That's why I love this board--everyone is so helpful.

 

Ron-we do not want to rack up credit card debt; putting money in the shipboard account ahead of time is one of our ways of helping budget what we spend while we're on the cruise.

 

creed205-it seems like you can still add money to your account; that's a good idea to do it at a time the exchange rate is good!

 

I guess I will have to call back and speak to another rep or a supervisor; I didn't see how they could keep your money like that. To me, it would be like going to a store where you had a gift card that had $100 on it, buying something that came to $75, and the store clerk saying, "Sorry, you didn't use the whole amount so we keep the card and you lose the $25."

 

Thanks so much again--this sets my mind at rest.

[DanJ]

I don't know if things are different for Princess, since we've never had a credit balance at the end, or if Carnival changed things themselves since, but in the weeks after 9-11, we were booked on an East Coast cruise out of NYC. Since the ship was moved to Boston, they gave everyone $100 credit to deal with the hassle of having to go there. In addition, since we declined Carnival's offer of bus service from NYC to Boston, and drove ourselves, they gave us another $100 pp. Half way through the cruise, we couldn't get into Sydney, NS due to high winds, so we got another $20pp for the missed port. The last night we went down to settle our account, and they handed me back about $250. But like I said, this was 4 years ago and a different cruise line.

 

I prefer to use my rewards credit card for the shipboard account. I even charged a couple hundred bucks onto my room card from the casino, since I figured out the reward points outweighed the 6 dollar casino fee, and probably wasn't too far off the charge to use the ATM onboard.

[creed205]

We just went through this on our last cruise......If the SBC is from a TA, Princess etc., as a promotion you must "use it or lose it". If it is a gift from yourselves or someone else (i.e., real $) they will refund it.

Hmm, interesting. Not that I disagree with that policy, but I have an interesting question for you to ask Princess DanJ. If you got a $200 TA credit for being a nice person (that would rock, we'd all have really good cruises) and then placed another $800 on your account, then you have a total of $1000. If you spend $900 on the cruise, did you spend your money first or the TA's credit. The ship could argue that the $100 left over is TA money.

How do they handle that? (I assume they consider it TA money and you lose it).

[jlines]

We got a rather large shipboard credit for our upcoming cruise and really don't spend a lot while on board so my question is - will the amount we don't use go toward gratuities or should we find things to spend it on?

[creed205]

We got a rather large shipboard credit for our upcoming cruise and really don't spend a lot while on board so my question is - will the amount we don't use go toward gratuities or should we find things to spend it on?

Your gratuities are added to your shipboard account if you have no credit in there and you are expected to pay for them when you leave. The credit you have is part of the same 'pot' if you will and everything, including the auto-tips will come from there.

[senior lady]

We're going on a 19 day repo cruise this May. Instead of charging everything this trip, i've started getting travelers checks. Especially when the dollar is good. This way I can pay down my account as we go. If there are any surprises then I'll use my charge card.

I've always used my charge card on previous cruises, but we just did a Celebrity Mexican cruise and the rate of exchange they charged was outrageous!!! Even though I checked the little box wanting them to just charge to my account and let my credit card convert at a better rate.

 

So because this is a much longer cruise i'm going to try the travellers check route:confused:

[MichTraveler]

We got a rather large shipboard credit for our upcoming cruise and really don't spend a lot while on board so my question is - will the amount we don't use go toward gratuities or should we find things to spend it on?

We have had 2 cruises where the only spending we did was auto tip -- and they used our OBC for those with no problems. On our upcoming March cruise, we have an unusually large OBC to spend. We're going to do a couple of Princess excursions for a change, but may still have a balance. I understand you can use the casino to draw out the funds for a fee (3% or so). Maybe we'll just splurge and buy something in one of the onboard shops.

[Times Prince]

On our cruises where we had onboard credits they appeared at the top of the ledger and covered most of the automatic tips. In other words if there is a use it or lose it policy it really doesn't matter as these funds will be consumed first by tips, onboard shops, tours booked through Princess, purchased drinks, etc. If you want to prepay a good estimator of costs is to consider what you would spend for tours and "standard" tips.

 

We've found the traveller's check method to work if we are on a budget and want to pay "as we go". Otherwise we use credit card, and pay it off as soon as we get the bill with our budgeted money from savings. We've also found that conservatively using credit like this and paying it off has helped increase our credit rating over the years.;)

[Scuttle-Butt]

To all you fellow "Canucks" on this thread, this may (or may not) interest you. We know that when we purchase something in American dollars such as a cruise on Princess, shipboard accounts, tips etc... we get "hit" with the exchange rate, a fact of life, we pay more, however, are you aware that when we use a credit card for any of these purchases we also pay a Foreign exchange fee (about 2 1/2 percent) in addition? I just discovered this recently when I obtained a "Bank Of America" card and the foreign exchange fee was listed separatly from the exchange rate of my purchases. I then looked closer at my statments from my Canadian credit card company only to discover the foreign exchange fee was included in the exchange rate and I have been paying it for years and years!! (and didn't know it):( From now on I will get American travellers checks before leaving home and pay everything that way. It makes me wonder how much I have paid in foreign exchange fees, after 12 cruises, and countless holidays in the States ! Not really complaining (yes, I am)..

Oh well.. We will still cruise and holiday.. Life is short. enjoy !!

Alfe :D

[Cruise Gopher]

QUICK TIP:

 

If you have a remaining amount from a credit from a TA or Princess and don't use it all and don't want to "lose it" go to the casino and take the cash out against your shipboard account. They will charge you 3% but its not that big of a deal.

 

On our recent cruise on the Grand we had received a $75 on board credit for the port change, I cashed $70 of it out and walked away with the cash in hand. Don't let Princess keep the money you have been given.

[DanJ]

Princess billed my credit card in CDN$$, and I just did the math, and they used $1.185 for the exchange. That's within a point of where the exchange rate was yesterday at the Thomas Cook currency exchange.

[Redsgj]

Princess billed my credit card in CDN$$, and I just did the math, and they used $1.185 for the exchange. That's within a point of where the exchange rate was yesterday at the Thomas Cook currency exchange.

 

Did you want Princess to bill in CDN$ or did you tick the box to say "don't convert"? I've heard that the exchange rate Princess uses is only set twice a year so it can be very bad depending on how our dollar is doing.

 

I don't know what Thomas Cook currency exchange charges if anything with regards to a fee (never used it) but the official Bank of Canada rates for the last two days were $1.1462 (Jan 30th) and $1.1390 (Jan 31st).

 

Guess $1.185 don't look so good now :D! Seriously though, take a look at the credit card agreement for your card. Our credit card charges a 2% foreign exchange fee which is added to the "official" exchange rate for that day.

 

This cruise we had extra traveler's cheques (that's checks for you American folks!) left over (didn't spend as much in the ports) so we added them to our account the last day to reduce our balance.

[DanJ]

The Bank of Canada rate really means nothing to the average person buying or selling US money. The banks and currency exchanges all have different rates, and what they sell the US$ for is not what they buy it back for. I paid $1.17 the week before the cruise for my US money, and this was through a friend at the bank who gets a discount. It was just shy of $1.19 posted.

 

I don't have to worry about a currency conversion fee for my ship account, since as I said, it was billed in CDN. I will get hit for the future cruise booking, which I did in US, since it was $100US or $125CDN. I'll still end up a couple bucks ahead on that, but not much.

[chuibaca]

Help! really confused with all this talk about exchange rates really confused me. I'm leaving on the sapphire /mexican rivera on sat, should i be concerned with any of thes rates, travellers checks, currency stuff or should i just continue using my credit card to pay my shipboard account. :confused:

[DanJ]

You'll be fine just to use your credit card. If you feel like it, you can use cash or travellers checks to pay down your shipboard account before the final day, so you don't end up with a larger credit card bill. If not, you'll just get your normal credit card bill later. Don't worry about it.

[CuteyPie]

Is it just me or is this crazy way to "budget" or "save" for the trip? :confused:

If you have the money now that you want to save why don't you put it in the bank (maybe start a new account designated for vacations) and earn interest on the money? Or at least you could just pay the credit card in advance and that credit will be there for you to pay with the card later. In addition, I want to use my credit card as much as possible since I get all the cash back or points for using it, and I just pay the balance every bill.

This way the money is still always yours instead of paying it in advance to the cruiseline and you don't have to worry if you will get it back or not.