Refund Status for canceled cruises: Retitled after merges

[ceilidh1]

1 hour ago, remydiva said:

Received our refund back today on credit card but it was dated May 21.

..its within a dollar of total we paid

 Got back transfers, taxes and Princess Insurance.

Chose Option #2.

Booked through Princess by phone so didn't use a TA.

In Canada.

Got our FCD reinstated last week.

HAVE NOT GOT EXTRA 25% FCC YET.

Got email on May 18 from Princess with a cruise cancellation 'invoice'

Cruise date was April 19 on Regal.

Did NOT phone Princess or PVP.

Did NOT phone credit card.

 

So happy for you!

Congrats!

[cltnccruisers]

2 minutes ago, voljeep said:

Princess Vacation Planner in this case … I've had zero success with them - gotten reps who know more and willing to 'dig' deeper into various fares by calling 1-800 … 

Makes sense.  I had an email exchange early in this process with a Princess Cruise Specialist.  She was very good helping us straighten out the FCC for our group and distribute it across the new cruise.  Thanks.

[azbirdmom]

2 hours ago, dog said:

This is the odd one. She got credit card refund early on but no FCC. Sounds like it got lost in process or set aside. 

 

I'm one of those who got a partial refund early on then no FCC.  I cancelled on March 10th and within a couple of days had the refund.  Those of us in that narrow window of cancelling early got moved to the pile of those reservations to be reprocessed under the pause 1 rules.

[azbirdmom]

2 hours ago, remydiva said:

Received our refund back today on credit card but it was dated May 21.

..its within a dollar of total we paid

 Got back transfers, taxes and Princess Insurance.

Chose Option #2.

Booked through Princess by phone so didn't use a TA.

In Canada.

Got our FCD reinstated last week.

HAVE NOT GOT EXTRA 25% FCC YET.

Got email on May 18 from Princess with a cruise cancellation 'invoice'

Cruise date was April 19 on Regal.

Did NOT phone Princess or PVP.

Did NOT phone credit card.

 

 

Congratulations!  That gives me hope that the rest of our refund and FCCs will be coming soon as well.  We received a cancellation notice out of the blue last Friday so I will be diligently checking Princess.com as well as my credit card for credits from Princess.

[azbirdmom]

1 hour ago, CaribbeanIsland said:

I have a friend who worked at Princess as a PVP until recently when she was let go in the massive cuts. She indicated that Princess did not allow refunds until two weeks ago. I mentioned that some did report some and she is surprised as not one of her clients she had received theirs. She was surprised some got through the system. Refunds were processed but the batch was not released to the credit cards until April 15th. This was intentional. After the chaos of what happened she will not sail with any Carnival Corp company in the future. I don't blame her.

 

I had suspected as much.  They had to be doing something with all of the reservations over the two month period so it was surprising that very few refunds were being reported.  I'm just glad that the spigot has opened and people are finally getting their money back.  I'm one of the lucky few who cancelled early before they shut the money off so we have most of our refund back but I am anxiously awaiting the balance.

[remydiva]

2 minutes ago, azbirdmom said:

 

Congratulations!  That gives me hope that the rest of our refund and FCCs will be coming soon as well.  We received a cancellation notice out of the blue last Friday so I will be diligently checking Princess.com as well as my credit card for credits from Princess.

Your Friday May 22 notice is just 4 days after mine then.

You should be end of this week or early next then as I got my 'out of the blue' cancellation notice on May 18 with numbers that made no sense to me. But when I added up my two refunds (the initial one when we cancelled Mar 5) and today's it does add up to what we paid in total.

The FCD used to book this cruise had disappeared for about 6 wks off my Captain Circle but it showed back up correctly on Friday.

The bonus 25% FCC for choosing Option 2 however have NOT shown up and at this point I don't know how much it will be...25% of the base cabin fare I'm assuming so that will be handy since it appears the prices have gone up 25% 🙂

I've got my fingers crossed that in less than a week you will be getting your refund.

[azbirdmom]

3 minutes ago, remydiva said:

Your Friday May 22 notice is just 4 days after mine then.

You should be end of this week or early next then as I got my 'out of the blue' cancellation notice on May 18 with numbers that made no sense to me. But when I added up my two refunds (the initial one when we cancelled Mar 5) and today's it does add up to what we paid in total.

The FCD used to book this cruise had disappeared for about 6 wks off my Captain Circle but it showed back up correctly on Friday.

The bonus 25% FCC for choosing Option 2 however have NOT shown up and at this point I don't know how much it will be...25% of the base cabin fare I'm assuming so that will be handy since it appears the prices have gone up 25% 🙂

I've got my fingers crossed that in less than a week you will be getting your refund.

 

Thank you!  The cancellation notice that I received on Friday was missing the EZAir fare and showed PVP at $0.01 each for my husband and I so that was clearly a mistake.  But it shows $0 in cancellation fees vs. the $1800 or so on the original cancellation statement issued March 10th.  Our FCD disappeared on May 9th, the date of the cancelled cruise.  Up until that time it was shown as still applied to that cruise.  Fingers crossed!

[Coral]

29 minutes ago, azbirdmom said:

 

Thank you!  The cancellation notice that I received on Friday was missing the EZAir fare and showed PVP at $0.01 each for my husband and I so that was clearly a mistake.  But it shows $0 in cancellation fees vs. the $1800 or so on the original cancellation statement issued March 10th.  Our FCD disappeared on May 9th, the date of the cancelled cruise.  Up until that time it was shown as still applied to that cruise.  Fingers crossed!

Hope so for you!

[Ombud]

1 hour ago, ceilidh1 said:

I suspect she got in right before they turned off the automatic refunds. I cancelled her on March 9th and within 4 days the refundable amounts (including fees/taxes/partial EZ Air) were back on her card.

Exactly what happened to one of mine. My Grand Princess March 22nd cruise was canceled by Princess on March 8th and refunded March 12th.  1/2 FCC showed up later. Frankly if I don't get the other 1/2 I'm still good. 

 

Do you know if they plan to stick to releasing the rest of Pause 1 May 31st, start releasing Pause 2 the next day, and start processing Pause 3 later on June?

[PompeySailor]

Cancelled excursions and other pre cruise items on March 21st for a now cancelled Regal June cruise.

 

Now at 66 days and not a penny refunded back on credit cards.

Just called in and was told that these pre cruise items would not be refunded until after ACTUAL cruise date

June 21st

That would be roughly 98 days since cancelling, plus however many days after they take to process cruise refund. Let’s be fair and add another 60 days.

so let’s say 158 days being generous

 

Cancelled excursions and pre cruise items with P&O refunded within 2 days of request

Same with MSC, took 3 days for refund to hit credit card

 

 

So I ask the cheerleaders, loyalists, do you think this is an acceptable time to wait.

For the impatient would you say this wait time is reasonable 

 

(I know they are busy, it’s an unprecedented time, they are not use to dealing with this, etc etc etc.....)

 

Wife has been trying to get me on Princess for last 20 years, from my experience of not sailing with them, my first and last impressions are not in the 5 star rated column.

[dog]

10 minutes ago, PompeySailor said:

Cancelled excursions and other pre cruise items on March 21st for a now cancelled Regal June cruise.

 

Now at 66 days and not a penny refunded back on credit cards.

Just called in and was told that these pre cruise items would not be refunded until after ACTUAL cruise date

June 21st

That would be roughly 98 days since cancelling, plus however many days after they take to process cruise refund. Let’s be fair and add another 60 days.

so let’s say 158 days being generous

 

Cancelled excursions and pre cruise items with P&O refunded within 2 days of request

Same with MSC, took 3 days for refund to hit credit card

 

 

So I ask the cheerleaders, loyalists, do you think this is an acceptable time to wait.

For the impatient would you say this wait time is reasonable 

 

(I know they are busy, it’s an unprecedented time, they are not use to dealing with this, etc etc etc.....)

 

Wife has been trying to get me on Princess for last 20 years, from my experience of not sailing with them, my first and last impressions are not in the 5 star rated column.

File a dispute with your credit card

Edited May 26, 2020 by dog

[ceilidh1]

53 minutes ago, Ombud said:

Exactly what happened to one of mine. My Grand Princess March 22nd cruise was canceled by Princess on March 8th and refunded March 12th.  1/2 FCC showed up later. Frankly if I don't get the other 1/2 I'm still good. 

 

Do you know if they plan to stick to releasing the rest of Pause 1 May 31st, start releasing Pause 2 the next day, and start processing Pause 3 later on June?

Honestly, I have no idea how they are working through it. It certainly doesn't seem as if it is in any kind of "order". The webinar did say that now they have the system figured out, pause 2 and 3 would go much faster. Whether there will be any kind of order to those refunds will have to be seen.

 

 

[ceilidh1]

47 minutes ago, PompeySailor said:

Cancelled excursions and other pre cruise items on March 21st for a now cancelled Regal June cruise.

 

Now at 66 days and not a penny refunded back on credit cards.

Just called in and was told that these pre cruise items would not be refunded until after ACTUAL cruise date

June 21st

That would be roughly 98 days since cancelling, plus however many days after they take to process cruise refund. Let’s be fair and add another 60 days.

so let’s say 158 days being generous

 

Cancelled excursions and pre cruise items with P&O refunded within 2 days of request

Same with MSC, took 3 days for refund to hit credit card

 

 

So I ask the cheerleaders, loyalists, do you think this is an acceptable time to wait.

For the impatient would you say this wait time is reasonable 

 

(I know they are busy, it’s an unprecedented time, they are not use to dealing with this, etc etc etc.....)

 

Wife has been trying to get me on Princess for last 20 years, from my experience of not sailing with them, my first and last impressions are not in the 5 star rated column.

I don't feel it is acceptable to wait that long, but I was willing to wait 60 days as that was the timeframe put on the processing. However, now that timeframe has passed and Princess has moved the goalposts yet again I disputed with my credit card. For both of my cards, they required that I first try to resolve with the merchant -  I was able to satisfy this due to the calls and emails I have. Both banks required me to give the merchant 15-20 days to refund, so I assume that is an "acceptable" wait time according to credit card companies.

[ohnonotmeagain]

2 hours ago, azbirdmom said:

 

I'm one of those who got a partial refund early on then no FCC.  I cancelled on March 10th and within a couple of days had the refund.  Those of us in that narrow window of cancelling early got moved to the pile of those reservations to be reprocessed under the pause 1 rules.

Hi

I appear to be in that bracket. Cancelled March 12,refunded a few days later,minus cancellation fees ,which were supposed to be given back as FCC,not heard anything since.

Have emailed but all I  hear are genetic excuses and have patience.

[remydiva]

2 hours ago, azbirdmom said:

 

Thank you!  The cancellation notice that I received on Friday was missing the EZAir fare and showed PVP at $0.01 each for my husband and I so that was clearly a mistake.  But it shows $0 in cancellation fees vs. the $1800 or so on the original cancellation statement issued March 10th.  Our FCD disappeared on May 9th, the date of the cancelled cruise.  Up until that time it was shown as still applied to that cruise.  Fingers crossed!

mine too.... 0.01 for PVP which i figured was just a place holder and $0 cancellation.

with no itemized invoice i just added the first partial refund to todays and compared it my final booking payment and it added up.

[Cuedon]

So I just got a bunch of cancellation notices, most of them duplicates for voyages from months ago (for March 15 was the most recent email I got)... No FCC or refund on the CC yet, but I'm hopeful-- has this happened to anybody else and could report on what happened after?

[nho9504]

The latest load down on what is going on.  Take it or leave it.

 

Just finished a lengthy talk with a nice rep at Customer Relations. 

 

Had to insist to the front line rep to get transfer to Customer Relations.  Also waited a very long time still nobody picked up when the front line rep used the mechanism that would tie to the guest profile / booking number.  Front line rep was nice enough to come back every now and then informing me she was still waiting for someone to pick up.  At the end she said she would just transfer me without info, so "you would need to tell them the booking number again."   This time it was rather quick I got a gentleman at Customer Relations.  He is super helpful by the way.

 

He looked at our booking, said there was one step missing so he could not do his part in requesting a refund - but he said it was a behind the scene, and definitely not anything I or the travel agency has caused it, but someone should have done that particular step, failed to do.  He said he could only "nudge" it via an email to the other end, to "please finish the missing step because this is a cruise in Pause 1, that the process should be wrapping up now."   His advice is to call back directly to Customer Relations in 10 business days and straight ask for him,  IF he is still around (they let go of some folks 2 weeks ago).  Else just ask the specific amount of my refund to anyone who would take the call.

 

The way the refund is process, is nothing as we were told, other than Pause 1would get finished before Pause 2 would start.  That is the only guide post.   It is not by sailing date, not by cancellation date, not by submitting the option form date.  None of these. 

Instead, each sailing is assigned to a person / or a group of persons, to process that particular sailing, then progress to the next assigned sailing once the prev assigned is finished.  Needless to say, there are people who work faster than others, and they move faster in their assignments - that is why we see the sailing dates that are taken care of are all over the place, without any discernible order - because there is really no sequence of any kind.

 

He emphasized a few times that if I was at Pause 2,  there is nothing he could help me now because Pause 2 would not start until all Pause 1 are processed.

 

There will soon be a Pause 4 - the Australia / New Zealand cruises will be canceled. 

 

He also said everyone is work from home for quite some time already but that does NOT affect how things are processed.  Though he said he wish work at home will be over in a few weeks.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by nho9504

[redtop101]

I came into this thread rather late and don't want to scroll back through 106 pages of comments.

 

Can someone quickly tell me what are the dates considered as Pause 1, Pause 2, Pause 3 ?

 

I'm now sitting at over 70 days with nothing and my travel agent contacted Princess and was told could take as long as 90 business days. Help!

[Larry613]

We had two fully-paid balcony cabins on the Royal which was scheduled to cruise on April 18. We left everything in place with no inquiries until Princess cancelled in either the first or second round of blanket cancellations. One cabin was for myself and DW, the other for our daughter and her husband. Due to our age and the fact that we both have chronic health issues, we decided to ask for the cash refund along with the modest FCC offered for our cabin. We encouraged our daughter to opt for the generous FCC and no cash. We hadn't even bothered to check the credit card account until yesterday because it appeared that very few, if any, cash refunds were being made. Much to our surprise, the full amount, including port fees etc, had been credited a few days earlier. No sign of the FCC's yet, and I expected we would also receive cash back for the prepaid gratuities we had made on the second cabin, but that amount was not included. Still, we are very happy to have received the principal amount back, and we have some renewed faith that eventually be made "whole." Hopefully, others will be reporting similar surpises soon. We made no attempts to contact either Princess or our credit card company during the wait.

[Coral]

7 minutes ago, redtop101 said:

I came into this thread rather late and don't want to scroll back through 106 pages of comments.

 

Can someone quickly tell me what are the dates considered as Pause 1, Pause 2, Pause 3 ?

 

I'm now sitting at over 70 days with nothing and my travel agent contacted Princess and was told could take as long as 90 business days. Help!

If your cruise was cancelled on March 12th, you are in Pause 1. This was the 60 day pause of sailing.

[redtop101]

Thank you Coral.

So, if our first cruise was departing May 8th, would that put us in Pause 3? The whole sailing dates were cancelled March 12th

Edited May 27, 2020 by redtop101

[nho9504]

32 minutes ago, redtop101 said:

Thank you Coral.

So, if our first cruise was departing May 8th, would that put us in Pause 3? The whole sailing dates were cancelled March 12th

 

Pause 1 covers cruises start Mar 12 thru May 11.

 

Then there is another further suspension of operation from May 12 to June 30 IIRC.  That is Pause 2.

 

The latest is from Jul thru Oct with some going into Nov, as that is not universal.  That is Pause 3.

 

We will soon see Pause 4 - those Australia / New Zealand sailings still show as bookable for from Sept onward - not going to happen based on the Customer Relations rep I talked to this evening.

 

See Princess website for details.

 

https://www.princess.com/news/notices_and_advisories/

Edited May 27, 2020 by nho9504
correct info on periods

[ceilidh1]

1 hour ago, nho9504 said:

The latest load down on what is going on.  Take it or leave it.

 

Just finished a lengthy talk with a nice rep at Customer Relations. 

 

Had to insist to the front line rep to get transfer to Customer Relations.  Also waited a very long time still nobody picked up when the front line rep used the mechanism that would tie to the guest profile / booking number.  Front line rep was nice enough to come back every now and then informing me she was still waiting for someone to pick up.  At the end she said she would just transfer me without info, so "you would need to tell them the booking number again."   This time it was rather quick I got a gentleman at Customer Relations.  He is super helpful by the way.

 

He looked at our booking, said there was one step missing so he could not do his part in requesting a refund - but he said it was a behind the scene, and definitely not anything I or the travel agency has caused it, but someone should have done that particular step, failed to do.  He said he could only "nudge" it via an email to the other end, to "please finish the missing step because this is a cruise in Pause 1, that the process should be wrapping up now."   His advice is to call back directly to Customer Relations in 10 business days and straight ask for him,  IF he is still around (they let go of some folks 2 weeks ago).  Else just ask the specific amount of my refund to anyone who would take the call.

 

The way the refund is process, is nothing as we were told, other than Pause 1would get finished before Pause 2 would start.  That is the only guide post.   It is not by sailing date, not by cancellation date, not by submitting the option form date.  None of these. 

Instead, each sailing is assigned to a person / or a group of persons, to process that particular sailing, then progress to the next assigned sailing once the prev assigned is finished.  Needless to say, there are people who work faster than others, and they move faster in their assignments - that is why we see the sailing dates that are taken care of are all over the place, without any discernible order - because there is really no sequence of any kind.

 

He emphasized a few times that if I was at Pause 2,  there is nothing he could help me now because Pause 2 would not start until all Pause 1 are processed.

 

There will soon be a Pause 4 - the Australia / New Zealand cruises will be canceled. 

 

He also said everyone is work from home for quite some time already but that does NOT affect how things are processed.  Though he said he wish work at home will be over in a few weeks.

 

 

So, if you had not called and spoke to customer relations, would that step ever have been done? If not, you would have been waiting indefinitely for something to happen on your account? This is partly where the problem lies - 99% of people who call only get to speak to that first line of reps (the reservation people). These reps are only able to see the front end of your booking and can't take any action on it to get your refund moved along. Only customer relations are able to dive in deeper and actually see the complete process and, if necessary, initiate further action. I suspect there are many bookings missing some process/tag/code and are slipping through the cracks.

[nho9504]

18 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

So, if you had not called and spoke to customer relations, would that step ever have been done? If not, you would have been waiting indefinitely for something to happen on your account? This is partly where the problem lies - 99% of people who call only get to speak to that first line of reps (the reservation people). These reps are only able to see the front end of your booking and can't take any action on it to get your refund moved along. Only customer relations are able to dive in deeper and actually see the complete process and, if necessary, initiate further action. I suspect there are many bookings missing some process/tag/code and are slipping through the cracks.

 

Indeed.  I have to be very assertive to finally get transferred to Customers Relationship, where I got a very helpful and very knowledgeable rep.  He quickly saw the FCD was refunded - to that I said it showed up a week or more already but what about the remaining elements?  He went into the account and then said,  Ah, I see why the refund not being issued - there is one missing step not being done, and without that step,  I cannot act further.   He at first tried to explain what is missing, but then resorted to say "it is behind the scene step",  assured me it was not caused by either me or the travel agency, even though when I said I filed the Option instead of the TA because Princess told me it did not matter.  He at first said, that might be related to that missing step, but quickly told me who filed it did not matter.  My gut feeling is, someone who handled the refund on this booking, forgot to check an area as the request was made by the passengers already, no need to go thru agency again... or something in similar nature... 

 

He then said he would send an email to "nudge" it to move as "this is in Pause 1 period"  that should have been handled by now.

 

So,  No, that missing step would not self-corrected according to the Customer Relations rep,  He said eventually it would be one of those falling into crack for those people who are at Pause 1 still not seeing anything.  

 

My advice to anyone is,  YOU are the ONLY PERSON who Cares the Most of YOUR OWN MONEY.  Nobody would pay more attention than yourself.  You can claim you have not done anything but still receive everything you should have -

 

Well, count your lucky star that everything lines up at the end.  However if there is anything goes wrong during the process, it will NOT get corrected, until much later - most likely when customers are calling to find out WHY they still not get refunds.

 

The guy actually said that he was glad to see I called because else that missing step would not be detected until someone asked to take a look at the refund status!   He also gave me the Customer Relations number to call in 10 business days, so I dont need to go thru the regular number again.   This is the 3rd time I called Princess - the 1st time was to make sure they received the correct option, that was back in late March.  The 2nd time was last week when more than 60 days have passed and we finally saw the FCDs back to our accounts.  My mistake on that call was NOT to ask to talk to Customer Relations and just took the words of the front line agent that the Refund is still "In Process".   Thanks to a few posters here mentioning about the need to talk to the Customer Relations,  this evening I INSISTED to be transferred to the CR dept and finally got a good rep to go over our booking, saw the problem, and told me he would try his best to request it being fixed.

 

He did say if the booking is not in Pause 1, nothing he could help because Pause 1 must be finished before Pause 2 gets looked at. 

 

I feel very bad for those of you who are being classified as "In Transit" and then would not be dealt with until all suspension caused cancellations are handled.  That is NOT right!

Edited May 27, 2020 by nho9504

[ceilidh1]

4 minutes ago, nho9504 said:

 

No, that missing step would not self-corrected according to the Customer Relations rep,  He said eventually it would be one of those falling into crack for those people who are at Pause 1 still not seeing anything.  

 

My advice to anyone is,  YOU are the ONLY PERSON who Cares the Most of YOUR OWN MONEY.  Nobody would pay more attention than yourself.  You can claim you have not done anything but still receive everything you should have - well, count your lucky star that everything lines up at the end.  However if there is anything goes wrong during the process, it will NOT get corrected, until much later - most likely when customers are calling to find out WHY they still not get refunds.

 

The guy actually said that he was glad to see I called because else that missing step would not be detected until someone asked to take a look at the refund status!

I agree with you 100%, which is why it is so pointless and frustrating when all you are told is "It's taking longer due to our systems..." etc, etc. I did exactly as you did at the end of April and got pretty much the same info. I was told that my booking had not been tagged correctly and the customer relations rep tagged it and forwarded it to the correct department. A month later and still nothing. I've given up asking Princess for answers and have disputed with my credit card. Let them deal with Princess.