Agent changed my reservation to NRD without my permission

[tomservo]

I have an upcoming sailing on the Oasis in late 2020 that I booked myself under a refundable deposit, and transferred to my TA. During the recent Black Friday sales, I asked her if there were any price reductions for any of the sailings I had booked with her, she said yes the price on this had dropped 200 dollars, so I asked her to reprice it. A few weeks ago during another sale, I saw a great deal on the same sailing for higher cabin category, so I booked it NRD(non-refundable deposit) thinking I'll just cancel the old one and transfer this one to her. She tells me that the original one is NRD and how should she proceed. I send her my original confirmation showing a refundable deposit, and that it must be some kind of mistake. She replied back saying that it went to NRD when she did the price reduction and left it at that. I politely responded that I never asked her to change the deposit type, and asked how should we proceed. I'm waiting for her response now.

 

So now I have 2 NRD cabins on the same sailing. What are my options? I'm surprised that her initial response wasn't "oh I'm so sorry I didn't realize I converted your RD to an NRD let me fix it right away", but that aside, I'm not sure how to handle this situation. Thoughts?

[tomservo]

The way I see it, this is her fault and she needs to fix this, although I'm not sure what to do if she would rather lose me as a client and not do anything about it.

[Merion_Mom]

2 minutes ago, tomservo said:

The way I see it, this is her fault and she needs to fix this, although I'm not sure what to do if she would rather lose me as a client and not do anything about it.

 

Let's wait and see what she says.  Keep us in the loop.  😉 

[Biker19]

9 minutes ago, tomservo said:

Thoughts?

Tell the TA they owe you $200 as you will be canceling the first booking (with them). Apply the FCC you get from that cancellation to the second booking. Look for another TA.

[Clarea]

19 minutes ago, tomservo said:

I have an upcoming sailing on the Oasis in late 2020 that I booked myself under a refundable deposit, and transferred to my TA. During the recent Black Friday sales, I asked her if there were any price reductions for any of the sailings I had booked with her, she said yes the price on this had dropped 200 dollars, so I asked her to reprice it. A few weeks ago during another sale, I saw a great deal on the same sailing for higher cabin category, so I booked it NRD(non-refundable deposit) thinking I'll just cancel the old one and transfer this one to her. She tells me that the original one is NRD and how should she proceed. I send her my original confirmation showing a refundable deposit, and that it must be some kind of mistake. She replied back saying that it went to NRD when she did the price reduction and left it at that. I politely responded that I never asked her to change the deposit type, and asked how should we proceed. I'm waiting for her response now.

 

So now I have 2 NRD cabins on the same sailing. What are my options? I'm surprised that her initial response wasn't "oh I'm so sorry I didn't realize I converted your RD to an NRD let me fix it right away", but that aside, I'm not sure how to handle this situation. Thoughts?

 

TA needs to fix it.  They messed up when you asked for the price drop.

[molly361]

I agree with the others. Your TS needs to make it right

[tomservo]

At this point we keep going back and forth. Basically she's telling me that I should have upgraded the existing reservation with her, and I keep telling her that that's besides the point, my original booking should not have been changed to NRD.

[alfaeric]

FWIW, the next time you want to upgrade the cabin on the same sailing, you can do that on a NRD reservation.  We've done it a few times.  

 

Sorry that it does not help this time, and I hope your TA works it out.

[celoplyr]

I had an RCL agent change my bookings to NRD without letting me know that was how they were repricing it.  I threw a FIT.  The TA is probably not throwing the fit that needs to be thrown to get it back to refundable, and hearing that it's "impossible".  Or they don't want to wait on the phone.  Or they did know it was going to be non-refundable, but they snuck it in to see.  When I got mine repriced back to refundable, RCL went through every phone call recording to see if my claim (that I always requested it to be refundable, and was never informed) was accurate. It took probably 90 minutes of my time.

 

Does your TA work by herself or with a firm? I'd escalate as needed.  We are only talking about $200, but it's $200.  A good TA should make you whole- assuming that they can't produce any call recordings saying that you agreed, or emails where you just didn't catch it...

[DeltaOne]

I've been watching the prices on our Celebrity cruise for April 2020.  I've called at least twice after seeing a price reduction only to be told the lower price is for a non-refundable deposit.  No thanks, I'll stick with my refundable deposit.

 

The "games" Celebrity has been playing with pricing is almost enough to make me cancel the cruise.  Things like refundable versus non-refundable, 4 perks vs 3 perks vs 2 perks, 3rd and 4th guests half-off, etc.  Plus they hide the cabin category to make it hard to compare apples to apples and hide the deposit refund information in the tiny print.  Feels very much like a bait & switch scheme.  

[molly361]

8 minutes ago, celoplyr said:

I had an RCL agent change my bookings to NRD without letting me know that was how they were repricing it.  I threw a FIT.  The TA is probably not throwing the fit that needs to be thrown to get it back to refundable, and hearing that it's "impossible".  Or they don't want to wait on the phone.  Or they did know it was going to be non-refundable, but they snuck it in to see.  When I got mine repriced back to refundable, RCL went through every phone call recording to see if my claim (that I always requested it to be refundable, and was never informed) was accurate. It took probably 90 minutes of my time.

 

Does your TA work by herself or with a firm? I'd escalate as needed.  We are only talking about $200, but it's $200.  A good TA should make you whole- assuming that they can't produce any call recordings saying that you agreed, or emails where you just didn't catch it...

I have had that happen twice with Royal. I always get and look at the booking confirmation immediately and caught it right away both times and had it fixed.  I believe their system defaults to non refundable 

[molly361]

10 minutes ago, Paul from Maryland said:

I've been watching the prices on our Celebrity cruise for April 2020.  I've called at least twice after seeing a price reduction only to be told the lower price is for a non-refundable deposit.  No thanks, I'll stick with my refundable deposit.

 

The "games" Celebrity has been playing with pricing is almost enough to make me cancel the cruise.  Things like refundable versus non-refundable, 4 perks vs 3 perks vs 2 perks, 3rd and 4th guests half-off, etc.  Plus they hide the cabin category to make it hard to compare apples to apples and hide the deposit refund information in the tiny print.  Feels very much like a bait & switch scheme.  

I'm surprised that Royal has not started that add 2, 3 or 4 perks yet.  I think that will be coming sometime

[cruisinfanatic]

34 minutes ago, tomservo said:

At this point we keep going back and forth. Basically she's telling me that I should have upgraded the existing reservation with her, and I keep telling her that that's besides the point, my original booking should not have been changed to NRD.

First, your price drops were for NRD that the TA gave you. A refundable would have been a different price (higher) than what you were expecting

Your TA is right saying you should have had them upgrade your cabin.

[Cruiser_1977]

This maybe a "dumb" question or beside the point...

 

Why bother using a TA if you're going to do any of the work yourself? If I have to monitor sales, upgrades, etc. I sure as heck am not going to let someone earn commission on my booking.

[tomservo]

She asked me what to tell the resolutions department when they ask why didn't I upgrade with her. I told her to just tell them that I booked it late at night, didn't want to wake her up, and was worried that I would miss out on the sale. I'm still annoyed that she's been so defensive on this. Again, the fact that I didn't upgrade with her is moot. I always book my own then transfer to her - I prefer to do my own research and make my own reservations.

[tomservo]

5 minutes ago, JennyB1977 said:

This maybe a "dumb" question or beside the point...

 

Why bother using a TA if you're going to do any of the work yourself? If I have to monitor sales, upgrades, etc. I sure as heck am not going to let someone earn commission on my booking.

 

Because she gives me the bulk (I'm assuming it's the bulk) of her commission back as OBC, so I try not to make too much work for her since I don't think she's making too much from me. I could be wrong, I'm not sure exactly what she's making from commissions on me.

[rimmit]

7 minutes ago, JennyB1977 said:

This maybe a "dumb" question or beside the point...

 

Why bother using a TA if you're going to do any of the work yourself? If I have to monitor sales, upgrades, etc. I sure as heck am not going to let someone earn commission on my booking.

Likely cause The OP TAs give perks.  Mine give pretty much ten percent back as OBC.  So basically book ten cruises get one free.

 

22 minutes ago, molly361 said:

I'm surprised that Royal has not started that add 2, 3 or 4 perks yet.  I think that will be coming sometime

 

That is very unlikely.  RCI has the 2nd cheapest berths on average of a US based mainstream cruise line based on all the pricing I have done over the years (this is for a family of four).  They cater to a very price conscious crowd.  As in during their peak seasons,  a lot of younger people and younger people with families.  People who are still saving for retirement, college, paying off their house etc.  Their market really looks strongly at the “get on the boat price.”  Perks add a notable amount to the base price.  Often times discounting the beverage package a little so it is not going up on a 1:1  basis in pricing,  but if you look at the cost for NCL,  whenever I have priced out getting the beverage package vs not as a perk,  it has added $1000 or more dollars to my fare at times.   
 

ultimately RCI would maybe give start giving perks if they have a hard time filling their ships.  Ships sail full without perks and people pay full price for a beverage package so why bother to discount it as part of a perk deal?  
 

In regards to the OP post, we have had the same thing happen but in a slightly different way.   At around the time RCI introduced the NRD,  we booked a cruise.   We never would have booked a NRD if someone had told us.  Months later we go to cancel the cruise.  Our TA says it’s NRD. I say we never have booked an NRD.  I go through ALL of my communications and it never stated NRD.  EVER.  She continues to claim that is how it is booked.  I argue and she goes to resolutions with RcI.  RCI won’t back down.   We are out $400 dollars (we are a family of 4). I state she needs to offer compensation.  She goes to her boss and the agency won’t compensate.   She pesters RCi more.  Still won’t budge.  We pull all our bookings with her, and move them elsewhere on our refundable cruises.   We get our FCC worth $600,  but also randomly RCI gives us a $500 dollar refund months later after We had not received our FCCs after a month or two and they processed them after we complained. We only had a $1000 dollar deposit.  So we now had $600 in FCC AND a $500 dollar refund from RCI totaling $1100.   It was so bizarre.

 

Needless to say I contacted our Original TA and said she must have confused the heck out of them as they issued a refund and FCC totaling more than our original deposit.  So we came out $100 ahead!!   So we are now back with our original TA.  RCI is really comical sometimes.

[rimmit]

14 minutes ago, tomservo said:

 

Because she gives me the bulk (I'm assuming it's the bulk) of her commission back as OBC, so I try not to make too much work for her since I don't think she's making too much from me. I could be wrong, I'm not sure exactly what she's making from commissions on me.

i wonder that too as I feel our TA commission comes back as Obc.  My assumption is they get bonuses based on amount of cruises sold.

[taglovestocruise]

21 minutes ago, JennyB1977 said:

This maybe a "dumb" question or beside the point...

 

Why bother using a TA if you're going to do any of the work yourself? If I have to monitor sales, upgrades, etc. I sure as heck am not going to let someone earn commission on my booking.

We do all the work ourselves and then book with a TA or if we booked with the cruise line we transfer the booking. It is all about the TA perks. Our online TA usually gives us pre paid gratuities and one specialty dining dinner. 

[SRF]

26 minutes ago, JennyB1977 said:

This maybe a "dumb" question or beside the point...

 

Why bother using a TA if you're going to do any of the work yourself? If I have to monitor sales, upgrades, etc. I sure as heck am not going to let someone earn commission on my booking.

 

Exactly.

 

That is why I use the one I do.  She monitors for price drops and handles it.

[nelblu]

14 minutes ago, taglovestocruise said:

We do all the work ourselves and then book with a TA or if we booked with the cruise line we transfer the booking. It is all about the TA perks. Our online TA usually gives us pre paid gratuities and one specialty dining dinner. 

I do the same whether it's thru a TA or RCL desk as I like to explore itineraries and select available cabin locations.  Also, it's a way to have the cost in hand as comparison.  The best deal is to book on board and transfer to TA.  Not only do you get the TA perks but also RCL's perks and lower deposit amount. 

[Maverick61]

1 hour ago, tomservo said:

She asked me what to tell the resolutions department when they ask why didn't I upgrade with her. I told her to just tell them that I booked it late at night, didn't want to wake her up, and was worried that I would miss out on the sale. I'm still annoyed that she's been so defensive on this. Again, the fact that I didn't upgrade with her is moot. I always book my own then transfer to her - I prefer to do my own research and make my own reservations.

 

I believe you are both at fault.  She should have told you to reprice it at a lower rate, you were changing from refundable to non refundable.

 

That said, you were at fault booking a second cabin with a non refundable deposit on your own without checking with her first to just update your booking.

 

You both have fault here

[Arzeena]

I know that an RD can be converted to NRD.
But can  NRD be converted to a RD by paying the extra amount needed for an RD?

If yes, convert to RD by paying the amount. Then cancel and get your deposit $ back. BEFORE DOING THIS PLEASE MAKE SURE THEY WILL REFUND YOU THE ENTIRE AMOUNT OF THE RD. This is just a thought.

[awestover89]

8 minutes ago, Arzeena said:

I know that an RD can be converted to NRD.
But can  NRD be converted to a RD by paying the extra amount needed for an RD?

If yes, convert to RD by paying the amount. Then cancel and get your deposit $ back. BEFORE DOING THIS PLEASE MAKE SURE THEY WILL REFUND YOU THE ENTIRE AMOUNT OF THE RD. This is just a thought.

 

No, NRD can not be made refundable through normal channels. In a case of clear error (which I believe this should fall under) it can be escalated to resolutions and changed, but that's the exception not the rule.

[rimmit]

10 minutes ago, Arzeena said:

I know that an RD can be converted to NRD.
But can  NRD be converted to a RD by paying the extra amount needed for an RD?

If yes, convert to RD by paying the amount. Then cancel and get your deposit $ back. BEFORE DOING THIS PLEASE MAKE SURE THEY WILL REFUND YOU THE ENTIRE AMOUNT OF THE RD. This is just a thought.

You cannot convert and NRD to an RD.  That would defeat the purpose of an NRD.