Passport email from HAL

[HAL4NOW]

I am on the phone with HAL now and have been for the past 30+ minutes. According to Holland America's Privacy Policy you can opt out of Affiliate Marketing contacts and they give the toll free number to do that. It is the same as HAL's booking number. None of the phone options mention anything about opting out of Affiliate Marketing and the supervisor I spoke with says she doesn't have that information, cannot tell what my preferences are, and she is transferring me to the Mariner Department. She also said that this email would come even if I have opted out of Affiliate Marketing because CIBT visas is not an affiliate of HAL; they are a partner.

She insists this is not a marketing email; it is "an enhanced service" that Holland America is providing for their customers.

[HAL4NOW]

Finally off the phone (1 hour 17 minutes I will never get back) and was assured that I am in the do not email or call with marketing list. The Mariner Department representative was under the impression that the email that CIBT Visas sent was just an informational email saying that there had been a name change. She checked with a supervisor when I explained the content of the email and the fact that it was a marketing email and did not even mention the name change. She filed my concerns with whatever complaint form they use and added that I would like a response from Management when they determine why this went out and if it will go out for our future cruises. It sounds like HAL is hunkering down and defending this "partnership" as an enhanced service for us, as cruisers. 

[kazu]

26 minutes ago, HAL4NOW said:

I am on the phone with HAL now and have been for the past 30+ minutes. According to Holland America's Privacy Policy you can opt out of Affiliate Marketing contacts and they give the toll free number to do that. It is the same as HAL's booking number. None of the phone options mention anything about opting out of Affiliate Marketing and the supervisor I spoke with says she doesn't have that information, cannot tell what my preferences are, and she is transferring me to the Mariner Department. She also said that this email would come even if I have opted out of Affiliate Marketing because CIBT visas is not an affiliate of HAL; they are a partner.

She insists this is not a marketing email; it is "an enhanced service" that Holland America is providing for their customers.

 

 

Bolding is mine.  They can add as much air freshener and colour it however they want, it still STINKS.  They are giving away OUR information - WHEN we sail, WHO we are and our email.  There’s enough breaches in this day and age.  Who wants another risk with a company you will have NOTHING to do with?

[HAL4NOW]

2 minutes ago, kazu said:

 

 

Bolding is mine.  They can add as much air freshener and colour it however they want, it still STINKS.  They are giving away OUR information - WHEN we sail, WHO we are and our email.  There’s enough breaches in this day and age.  Who wants another risk with a company you will have NOTHING to do with?

I suspect they are getting quite a bit of pushback on this. The agent got defensive from the mere mention of an email from CIBTVISAS. The phone conversation went downhill from there. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

40 minutes ago, summer slope said:

I forwarded the email to my TA and she hadn't seen it before.  She said she can't imagine why they are doing it unless many people arrive at the docks without proper documentation.

 

My TA thought the same thing. She said people still show up with photocopies of birth certificates.  And it is good that the warning about having proper documents is in there. But the email should have been sent by HAL.

[JimnKaren]

Ya know...I am sorta upset! We are leaving in less than a week...and I got nothing. We have Voyage of the Vikings for next summer...and I got nothing.

I guess that giving them all of my money early on doesn't count for anything. Harrumph!

 

Jim

[dot73]

18 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

My TA thought the same thing. She said people still show up with photocopies of birth certificates.  And it is good that the warning about having proper documents is in there. But the email should have been sent by HAL.

It should have been sent directly from HAL explaining what they were doing and giving people an option of whether they wanted their information released to this third party.  What's next; giving our credit card numbers? I just put the email into my spam folder.  

[summer slope]

I will say I'm glad I have a house sitter for while we are gone.  Would worry about leaving the house empty and our information being given out without permission.

[TiogaCruiser]

Well if HAL thinks it’s okay to share THAT level of information with it’s “Partners”, does it also mean It is okay for the same level of our information to be shared with other partners like ATK, Microsoft, Oprah, etc.?

[erewhon]

12 hours ago, TTFromSommersTown said:

Thanks for the suggestion but I have already used those sites to obtain my ETA's.

 

That's good to hear.

[Walfam]

5 hours ago, ger_77 said:

We received an email yesterday as well, but it wasn't about passports, it was about the need for a visa for our stop in Amber Cove, Dominican Republic.  

I'm really confused. Maybe because I'm not as travel savvy as all of you, but this website Travel.state.gov  says for the Dominican Republic: 
 

"TOURIST VISA REQUIRED:
Not required for visits shorter than 30 days"

So, what's up with that???  We've been looking at a winter cruise and I'm not going to pay for a visa to stop at Amber Cove for a day.

 

ETA --- CIBT's own website says one is not necessary

.Link to CIBT site

Edited October 22, 2019 by Walfam

[sevenseasnomad]

3 minutes ago, Walfam said:

I'm really confused. Maybe because I'm not as travel savvy as all of you, but this website Travel.state.gov  says for the Dominican Republic: 
 

"TOURIST VISA REQUIRED:
Not required for visits shorter than 30 days"

So, what's up with that???  We've been looking at a winter cruise and I'm not going to pay for a visa to stop at Amber Cove for a day.

You do not need a visa unless you're staying 30 days or longer.  Unless you plan to stay in the D.R. after your ship sails, don't worry about the visa.

[MISTER 67]

19 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

Some posters have suggested in the past that Holland America requires all passengers to have a passport. I never paid much attention as I always travel with mine, but I do confess to wondering whether that is really the case.

 

Can anyone confirm, or confirm that they have sailed on a HAL cruise (e.g., Caribbean) without one?

We sail exclusively in the Caribbean with Passcards. 

[sevenseasnomad]

For the most up-to-date information, please link to:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/travelers-with-special-considerations/cruise-ship-passengers.html 

 

If a passenger, for whatever reason, needs to fly back to the U.S. prior to the end of the cruise, he/she must travel with U.S. passport.  Since none of us can predict the future (and a need to return to the U.S. at some point during the cruise), it makes sense to travel with a passport.  Should a passenger be hospitalized in a port and the ship leaves, he/she would need the passport to return home to a U.S. port.  I am unwilling to take the chance.  We never leave the U.S. without our passports.  

Edited October 22, 2019 by sevenseasnomad

[TAD2005]

4 hours ago, kazu said:

 

 

They are giving away OUR information - 

HAL is not GIVING away your cruise information, they are SELLING it.   They have a marketing arrangement with this company, and they kick back money to HAL for leads for passport expediting and Visa applications.   Businesses do this all the time, they sell your personal information to marketing companies that can get sales leads by harassing you with e-mails.   Sure, you can opt out, but that info is buried in a paragraph with a font size of 2.

[kazu]

47 minutes ago, TAD2005 said:

HAL is not GIVING away your cruise information, they are SELLING it.   They have a marketing arrangement with this company, and they kick back money to HAL for leads for passport expediting and Visa applications.   Businesses do this all the time, they sell your personal information to marketing companies that can get sales leads by harassing you with e-mails.   Sure, you can opt out, but that info is buried in a paragraph with a font size of 2.

 

Of course, you are right.  They are selling it.

But, this is MY private information and against confidentiality laws in Canada.

More importantly, I never agree to this crap and I have opted out.  I know exactly what the affiliates clause means.  Heaven help them if I get an email.

I am actually considering on emailing them now and putting them on warning that if they even think of it, I will never sail HAL again.

 

I take my personal information seriously and you can call me silly if you want, but DH and I are like minded on this.

If they are going to sell this personal information who knows who the next one is to?  This is despicable IMO.  I guess you can tell I am pretty adamant about this 😉 

 

[xjust4fun]

30 minutes ago, kazu said:

 

Of course, you are right.  They are selling it.

But, this is MY private information and against confidentiality laws in Canada.

More importantly, I never agree to this crap and I have opted out.  I know exactly what the affiliates clause means.  Heaven help them if I get an email.

I am actually considering on emailing them now and putting them on warning that if they even think of it, I will never sail HAL again.

 

I take my personal information seriously and you can call me silly if you want, but DH and I are like minded on this.

If they are going to sell this personal information who knows who the next one is to?  This is despicable IMO.  I guess you can tell I am pretty adamant about this 😉 

 

Agree with the above, we never gave permission for HAL to share any of our personal information and today we received the email discussed in this thread so you can just imagine how shock we were as we are leaving on Saturday for our cruises.  Only one of us received it and not the other person.  Frustrating.....

[HAL4NOW]

1 hour ago, TAD2005 said:

HAL is not GIVING away your cruise information, they are SELLING it.   They have a marketing arrangement with this company, and they kick back money to HAL for leads for passport expediting and Visa applications.   Businesses do this all the time, they sell your personal information to marketing companies that can get sales leads by harassing you with e-mails.   Sure, you can opt out, but that info is buried in a paragraph with a font size of 2.

I believe you are correct, that HAL is selling our information. The HAL agents I spoke with today insist that they do not sell our information. I asked to see the agreement HAL has with CIBT visas; they will not share this information. HAL is either immoral for selling our information against our wishes, or worse, flat out stupid and immoral for giving our personal information away without any compensation.

 

[madera1]

Both my DH and I received this email yesterday for our Dec. Caribbean cruise. I decided that o just ignore as no Visa's needed and passports are in order.

[Scrapnana]

Just checked my e-mail from last week about visas for the GWV.  Mine actually came from HAL via my TA.  Wonder why CIBT sends some and HAL others?

[erewhon]

3 minutes ago, Scrapnana said:

Just checked my e-mail from last week about visas for the GWV.  Mine actually came from HAL via my TA.  Wonder why CIBT sends some and HAL others?

 

So it was CIBT charging US$149.00 fee, plus the cost of a visa?

[kazu]

6 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

My TA thought the same thing. She said people still show up with photocopies of birth certificates.  And it is good that the warning about having proper documents is in there. But the email should have been sent by HAL.

 

Ok, I get that people in the U.S. might do that (sail without a passport and have a medical emergency?  I think not)

But those of us that not from the United States always travel with passports.  We have no choice.  There is NO reason to share our information with this company.

I am bright enough to research visa requirements and the HAL itineraries they send you warn you if they may be required.

[Petunia1950]

The privacy notice on Holland America's website is very clear as to what they can do with our personal information UNLESS we opt out.  If we have not opted out, then they can do basically whatever they want to do.  The fact that we have not proactively agreed to the privacy policy doesn't matter.  The fact that it exists and we do business with Holland America means that we have implicitly agreed to it.  The policy is found at https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/legal-privacy/privacy-policy.html#CA.   It provides, in part:

Disclosing Information to Third Parties

We may share your information with our affiliated companies of Carnival Corporation and plc including but not limited to Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, Cunard, Costa, Aida, P&O Cruises UK, and P&O Cruises Australia and third parties as described in this Privacy Policy.

We will share Profile Information and other personal information with unaffiliated third parties for purposes including:

• you request or authorize it;
• the information is provided to help complete a transaction for you;
• the information is provided to comply with the law, applicable regulations, governmental and quasi-governmental requests, court orders or subpoenas, to enforce our site’s Terms and Conditions, Legal Notices or other agreements, or to protect our rights, property or safety or the rights, property or safety of our users or others (e.g., to a consumer reporting agency for fraud protection, etc.);
• the disclosure is done as part of a purchase, transfer or sale of services or assets (e.g., in the event that substantially all of our assets are acquired by another party, customer information may be one of the transferred assets);
• the information is provided to our agents, outside vendors or service providers to perform functions on our behalf (e.g., analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, providing customer service, processing orders, sending emails about our products or services, etc.) or with whom we may have cooperative or joint marketing arrangements;
• the information is shared with third parties for their own marketing use, or
• to others as described in this Privacy Policy or that we may describe to you at the time of collection.

There is a provision in the privacy policy providing for opting out.  

[HAL4NOW]

13 minutes ago, Petunia1950 said:

The privacy notice on Holland America's website is very clear as to what they can do with our personal information UNLESS we opt out.  If we have not opted out, then they can do basically whatever they want to do...  

There is a provision in the privacy policy providing for opting out.  

 

We did opt out and still received the marketing email from CIBT visas. When I phoned HAL they defended their position in partnering with this corrupt organization, sending them our personal information in spite of us opting out, and had the nerve to call this arrangement "an enhanced service" for guests.

[cccole]

I call BS, HAL.  You shared personal info with a third party when customers did not give you permission.  I would be pi***d.  JMO, Cherie