Refund Status for canceled cruises: Retitled after merges

[cruzsnooze]

2 hours ago, dog said:

You should be able to get those deposits back. I would call credit card company and try again

I don't believe you can dispute the same charge twice. Princess acknowledges they owe me the 2 deposits so I will wait like everyone else. The third cruise I took a 125% FCC and will wait for it to show up in my account. 

[nho9504]

On 5/9/2020 at 11:14 AM, suzyed said:

We never even got that email.

 

Same here, we dont even get that email.

[nho9504]

On 5/9/2020 at 11:23 AM, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

Sure, and we could post it tomorrow, in the event someone didn't see it before, and again the day after and so on.  And not just for this but all sorts of other topics.  I get that the post had value for you specifically, and no doubt others as well, and I'm very glad about that.  But the situation is that many if not most of us got that email, and it has been discussed.  Once again, not that everyone is aware, but to most of us, we just don't see how a mass email (which is basically more meaningless drivel from Princess which honestly says nothing informative) which is over a week old, is adding any enlightenment to the current morass Princes has created.

 

Points well taken. 

 

However I believe suzyed is being sarcastic.  We did not receive ANY of the subsequent liar emails at all, after the initial acknowledgement of our choice of options on March 16.  Nothing ever since.

 

The agent of Our booking agency which is Loyal Travel handling most banks travel bookings from the banks' loyalty booking,  went ahead to cancel our cruise on Mar 25th when I called to inform them we submitted the refund option.  She did that without informing me first but I figured it should not affect anything due to the Pause started on Mar 12 and our sailing was Apr 11.

 

So far, it is dead silence on all front from Princess.

Edited May 10, 2020 by nho9504

[CruzinNoony]

8 minutes ago, PrincessLuver said:

 

Really could care less at this point about the 25%FCC.....just want a lot of cash back very soon!!!

 

You are not answering my question.  My FCC amounts to almost $1000 and I plan on cruising again, so will use it.  Again, for those who chose option two with the promise of getting 25% extra FCC and disputed with the credit card company, did you receive your bonus FCC?

 

[Ombud]

18 minutes ago, CruzinNoony said:

For those of you that disputed with the credit card company and chose option 2, I'm wondering if you got the 25% FCC that was promised by choosing option 2.

I was promised 100% FCC, got 50% and a random check from Bottomline Technologies that my PVP traced back to an expired bonus gift card + some random incidentals. The gift card was already replaced. I disputed the amount due back on the 2nd cancelled cruise last week.

 

I read on another thread that they were going to start processing the Phase 2 cancellations on May 31st. I'm still wondering what happened to pre-phase 1 & phase 1. 

 

Added: could this be complicated by California's lockdown? 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Ombud

[oskidunker]

17 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

I disputed it with Citi bank and Princess won. I'm told that if the merchant says NO it's resolved in the merchants favor. I called Princess and they said they see I'm due a credit for two different cruises that I used my credit card for (NOT FCC OR FCD) and it will be processed.  They said they are working in the order of the cruise date NOT the date of cancellation. 

I would cancel my Citi card and tell them why. Never had any problem with Chase. I will never charge a cruise in Citi bank and probably will never use the card again. 

[nho9504]

On 5/9/2020 at 12:16 AM, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

Fair enough.  I had heard and read many reports to the effect of what you were describing in the media and perhaps am overstating things as I can't know what they feel.  Still, I gotta believe, a good portion just want to get home as soon as possible in any way they can.  But it is a more difficult logistical issue then just corporate press releases and accounting matters that's for sure.

 

The initial action of keeping the crews onboard is because the cruise  lines think they could resume sailings by July - It would be much more costly to send the crews back home then bring them back if cruises could resume by Jul 1st.

 

Of course that fantasy of resuming sailing by July has not happened because cruise lines have NOT been able to come up with the action plan that adequately addresses the requirements by CDC in order to provide a safe environment for everyone onboard - from passengers to crews, no exception.  They fail.  So they are now cancel till November, hoping one of the two things to happen -

1) reliable / effective antibody tests to screen people who now have developed immunity to the SARS-Cov2 virus. 

2) reliable / effective vaccines that would artificially immunize people so they can safely go in a confined environment for so many days.

 

The cruise lines, especially CCL's brands are betting by Sept/Oct, a better picture on the above would emerge. 

 

With such another LOOONG pause from now, (May to November),  it makes sense to send crews home.

 

 I do not buy the argument of not allowing them to dock - because they do NOT need to bring the ship to dock, but use tenders or small boats to send the crews to shore - as this HAPPENED on Fri or Sat at Florida - all the American and Canadian crews are sent to shore this way from the TV footage

 

For the crews issues - Celebrity has long been let their crews stay at guest cabins from March - they are on a luck draw / rotation basis,  LONG BEFORE Princess allows their crews to do so.

On top of that RCL has consolidated its crews in Asia / Australia, to one ship and then sailed to Indonesia, where crews from SE Asian could fly home from there.  That was back in March.

 

Operational wise, RCL has done a whole lot better job than CCL, with Princess has  done the POOREST job - have anyone ever thought WHY all big problems are from a Princess ship?   Why would Grand's crews be transferred to Regal when it was already known there were cases on Grand?  What Ruby has told Australian officials so the ship was allowed to disembark all passengers to Sydney without any precaution, that resulted to almost 700 cases and near 2 doz deaths, with countless cases traced back to Ruby? 

 

Aside from the lying on processing refunds, personally I dont feel comfortable on how Princess top management is managing its business as demonstrated by the disasters after disasters all carried a Princess name.

[voljeep]

3 minutes ago, nho9504 said:

I do not buy the argument of not allowing them to dock - because they do NOT need to bring the ship to dock, but use tenders or small boats to send the crews to shore - as this HAPPENED on Fri or Sat at Florida - all the American and Canadian crews are sent to shore this way from the TV footage

Emerald Princess was DOCKED at PE/FLL yesterday - I watched it pull out around 5 pm from what looked like terminal 2 from the port webcam and the webcam from Pier 66

[dog]

Topic: Are people getting refunds to credit cards?

from all the posts on here and fb refunds appears to be on a pause, as well. Really have not seen many FCC in past two weeks and no credit card refunds in quite awhile. 

Edited May 10, 2020 by dog

[nho9504]

On 5/9/2020 at 7:29 AM, hm9912 said:

Since you claim to be a person with a business , financial, and accounting background why did you not pay for your cruise with a credit card.

You especially with your background should be aware of the credit card fine print that provides consumers with protections that are not available with those that pay using a debit card, check, cash, bitcoin, paypal, etc

 

 

Good question.  But you failed to read the hint on why that mentioned in my post - that why has been explained 2 months ago in the upthread. 

 

Go back to the beginning of this thread, I have explained more than once, that I  paid for this cruise with our Chase Ultimate Reward points - that gives me 33% discount on the total money paid - from cruise to taxes to any extras to air paid thru Princess. 

 

To give you some educational background -

 

The booking agency Chase used is called Loyalty Travel which is under Connexions, a company handles Chase, Citi, US Bank and may be Capital One banks reward travel booking using the banks reward program.  You can easily search Connexion on google and learn something if you so inclined.

 

The guaranteed value of Chase Ultimate Reward point when redeemed as Statement Credit or Direct Deposit to a bank account is $0.01 to one point.

 

With Chase Sapphire Reserve card which I believe several posters have mentioned they used said card to pay for their cruises - the card earns 3% rebate on travel related charges fwiw.  We have more than enough points in our account to pay for a few cruises.  Hence we chose to use points instead of using out of pocket $ - that is how rewards are for, right?

 

Chase Sapphire Reserve benefits incl booking travel thru Chase Ultimate Reward program, would get a 1.5 x value instead of a 1 x value.  Chase Sapphire Preferred card and 2 Chase Ink business cards would get a 1.25 x value.  just fyi.

 

To illustrate,  for a $5000 worth of travel booking payment,  when booked thru Ultimate Reward program,  it would only cost me $3333, or 33,333 pts.   Got that? 

 

We opted to pay 100% of the booking by points which again, equaled to 66% of the $ paid to Princess.  Until Princess refunds to Loyalty Travel, it could not refund the points back to our account.

 

This is not our first time to book trips using our UR points. 

 

Last Spring we sailed a Celebrity Trans Pacific cruise from Tokyo to Vancouver entirely on the Chase Ultimate Reward points as an example.

 

Whenever the lodgings we needed are independent properties, not chain hotels, we use our Chase Ultimate Reward points to book, IF the lodging we want, is available on Chase platform which is operated by Expedia Corporate Travel, except Cruises which is operated by Connexions because Expedia lacks the expertise to handle cruises while Chase wants to keep its program competitive and cruise booking with UR pts is a big part of the travel reward program.

 

For this booking we only needed the cruise nothing else.  It is a Sky Trans Atlantic.  Our return flight after spending 3 weeks in Europe post cruise, was booked with Aeroolan miles (those of you Canadians should be familiar with this as Aeroplan has the most competitive chart for flight between Europe and North America), on Star Alliance flight in business class.

 

Aeroplan announced they would WAIVED award cancellation fee if canceled online before Mar 30, regardless when the award travel happened.  Later they extended that period thru May.  I went online to cancel our booking on Mar 16.  Miles deposited back to my account while I was still on the last screen of cancellation!  The taxes paid for this itinerary were refunded to my credit card in 2 days.  I did lose on exchange rate because CAD had fallen 10% during that several weeks between Feb and Mid March. 

 

That is HOW a credit card payment refund should be made - ALL AUTOMATICALLY, going back to the original form of payment WITHOUT the need of human intervention.

 

If I were to pay the same equivalent amount, you bet I would use a credit card, and an AMEX no less because AMEX still provides the best customer services.  No need to deal with overseas call centers for the most part.

 

In fact we have 2 of the $100/$500 "world leading cruises" AMEX offers in the AMEX cards we hold but the saving of $200 when paying with AMEX, PALED with the saving achieved when booking with Chase Ultimate Reward points.

 

We will see if CCL would stay afloat.  With Micky's connections, he should be able to get enough infusion of new capitals to keep the company in business.  Even NCL would, with its shadow owner of the big Malaysian wealthy family.  That does not prevent them to keep crying foul on how they are "fighting for their survivals".

 

Meanwhile, even though people who filed disputes would further delay the refunds sent to those who kept waiting, I would still encourage everyone who paid with a CC to file a dispute - that is the surest way to get your OWN money back.  It is your OWN money, and I dont see why you have to lend Princess an interest free loan for many months while getting ZERO communication plus being lied to every time you try to find out some info.

 

[nho9504]

On 5/8/2020 at 7:42 PM, hm9912 said:

Many are making the same mistake in thinking that Princess is going to magically refund their cruise fare that was paid via credit card. The CC company will ask you if you have contacted the merchant. You should at least make a phone call or on line contact to Princess so when you request the charge back refund with the CC company you can answer yes you have contacted the merchant and you would like a refund for a cruise that was paid for 75 days in advance of sailing that was subsequently cancelled. As I mentioned in an earlier post this morning I not only received all of my credit card charges on my Princess Visa card but had previously received the option 2 FCC in my Princess Personalizer.

I should also mention that when I initially contacted Princess Visa the customer service rep initiated two case numbers that were emailed to me for reference. Hope this helps.

Good luck to all still waiting and to those that are angry, just calm down, take a deep breath and be pleasant when contacting a call center.

 

It is your assumption.

 

From what I have read, nobody has made any "same" mistake on Princess would magically refund the money to their original form of payment.

 

The 60 days rule do not apply to travel providers who do not deliver their CONTRACTED services - YES, it is a contractual agreement between the customers and the travel providers that the services paid must be delivered.

 

Many trips or components of a trip, often booked Months ahead - in the old days the Payment Processors would require a  collateral account set up by the travel provider,  it would hold funds to make sure trips booked months ahead would be delivered.  The collateral in the past is such that travel providers would NOT even get their funds until very close to fulfillment time of their obligations.  I believe the requirements have reduced a lot in recent years.  Judging by NCL's 8K filing, it seems the payment processing companies now are demanding more collateral from cruise lines due to their continuous "pause of operation" while sitting on customers money paid months ago, without any possibility to fulfill their obligation in sight.

 

Nobody has said they got upset with the call center employees - they all know how those people are being LIED TO by their own employer as well. 

 

What people get very frustrated is the way Princess chose to handle the crisis - totally lack of transparency and communication, but evasive tactics whenever customers call.

[nho9504]

On 5/9/2020 at 7:47 AM, hm9912 said:

I thanked Princess because when we first contacted Princess shortly after our April 4th cruise on the Sky Princess was cancelled, the rep that took our call asked for our booking numbers and was extremely pleasant, helpful, and working from home.

I'm sorry that my thanking Princess caused so much confusion which indicated to me that many do not understand how the system works?

I tried to make it clear in my original post yesterday morning shortly after seeing the money refunded in my Princess Visa account on how to get the ball rolling for those that are just sitting at home thinking that the money that they paid for a cancelled cruise is just magically going to be refunded to them by Princess.

Maybe it will eventually but most credit card terms of use give one a 60 day window to initiate a dispute.

Sorry if my post was not clear.

I always thank all call center reps no matter what company I'm calling as I am well aware of the stress and low pay conditions that they work under. Every call is monitored, timed, and every keystroke is closely monitored. They need permission just to go to the bathroom.

It is a tough job and they should be appreciated for the job that they do.

For those that are angry their anger should be directed at our inept federal government that bears much of the responsibility for the mess our entire country is currently in.

 

First of all, I dont see how Call Center employees have anything to do with you getting a "refund", or rather, as you later said, "technically", a refund from credit card dispute...

 

Nobody here blames the call center folks.  They know their working conditions when they take their jobs.  We know they do NOT have much of a power to do anything, other than take down info, read you the scripts to your questions, try to get rid of you as quickly as possible because, yes, their time spent on each call is logged...

 

That is why whenever I have issues that require authority higher than the front line rep, I dont waste any time but tell the front line rep that,  the issue most likely would require a manager to look at - so instead for me to waste both your time and mine, to explain the situation and you still need to transfer me to higher up,  may be it would be better for you to transfer me to a US-BASED Manager or Supervisor?

 

It has never failed.  Sure I would be put on hold during the transfer which sometime takes quite a long time, but it inevitably gets me at least a US-Based Supervisor who has more empowered to do things than the front line phone rep.

 

FYI,  these days many call center reps, incl those overseas in Philippines, actually are work from home due to the needed social distancing in their countries.  I have talked to several chain hotels loyalty program reps,  they were all working from home these days.

 

Still, whatever you are talking about call centers, really is IRRELEVANT to how Princess is shabbily handling the refund process.    You sounded as if you need to be really nice for the call center reps to handle your dispute requests... total bull.  While we all should extend courtesy to the reps because it is NOT their faults of what happened, and I always emphasize this to the front line phone rep,  whether your dispute request being taken care of,  has NOTHING to do with call center reps.  The disputes are handled by Dispute Dept,  not the call center reps who merely logged your disputes on the system which will in turn be reviewed by the Dispute Dept when its turn comes up, just to make this clear so nobody would be confused by irrelevant info.

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by nho9504

[nho9504]

On 5/9/2020 at 7:36 AM, dog said:

Yes, I agree. 
all the best to those still waiting for FCC & cash ( credit card) refunds. 
March 12 to May 12 th—- almost 2 months now. 

 

You missed my posted explanation back in March when all this started, on why I did not pay the cruise with a credit card.  It is booked with Chase Ultimate Reward points with serious 33% less cost.

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by nho9504
add info

[nho9504]

20 hours ago, Coral said:

I spoke with a Customer Relations rep this week on my situation. She could not tell me when I would be getting a refund or a FCC.

 

 

Add me to that.  The call was made on Thursday.  All I would like to know is whether a process has started, not even the "when".  Nope.  She said she had no access to the information, added, none of them has access / knowledge to that information.

 

So here is my conclusion - whatever you are being told , would be some make up stuff that the phone reps simply tried their bests to sooth you, saying something that sounded somewhat "believable", just to get you off the call.

 

There.is.no. real. information. on. when. a. refund. would.be.processed.  PERIOD.

[nho9504]

1 hour ago, CruzinNoony said:

 

You are not answering my question.  My FCC amounts to almost $1000 and I plan on cruising again, so will use it.  Again, for those who chose option two with the promise of getting 25% extra FCC and disputed with the credit card company, did you receive your bonus FCC?

 

 

Go back a page or 2,  same question has been asked and answered POSITIVELY.

A poster said he got the 25% FCC posted, while he also received CC dispute refund.

 

I dont think Princess would breach its offer on the document it sent to all passengers on the 1st pause.  If it does, it would be an extremely stupid thing to do and a potential PR blunder down the road, IF it still wants to stay in business.

Edited May 10, 2020 by nho9504

[dog]

28 minutes ago, nho9504 said:

 

You missed my posted explanation back in March when all this started, on why I did not pay the cruise with a credit card.  It is booked with Chase Ultimate Reward points with serious 33% less cost.

 

Not sure about missing your post. Anyway good luck  hope it works out for you soon 

 

be safe, be kind

Edited May 10, 2020 by dog

[nho9504]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

Emerald Princess was DOCKED at PE/FLL yesterday - I watched it pull out around 5 pm from what looked like terminal 2 from the port webcam and the webcam from Pier 66

 

On the TV news, they show many many small boats doing a back and forth trips between the ship and the dock.  Then it reported the number of American and Canadian crews finally were able to be on shore with the Canadian crews (larger number) were flying home on the same day's flight.

 

What CCL should have done is to repatriate their ships to sail the crews back to their regions, like RCL started, way back in March.

 

BTW,  another acquaintance said,  Viking river cruise refunded 100% of the payment within 10 days of their "pause of operation".

 

 

[nho9504]

1 hour ago, Ombud said:

I was promised 100% FCC, got 50% and a random check from Bottomline Technologies that my PVP traced back to an expired bonus gift card + some random incidentals. The gift card was already replaced. I disputed the amount due back on the 2nd cancelled cruise last week.

 

I read on another thread that they were going to start processing the Phase 2 cancellations on May 31st. I'm still wondering what happened to pre-phase 1 & phase 1. 

 

Added: could this be complicated by California's lockdown? 

 

With the pre-phrase 1 and phrase 2 still not seeing anything,  especially those of us on Opt 2 - we do not even see the 25% FCC let alone cash refund.  Nobody at Princess knows if there is anything done in our account.  Both reps I talked to were very candid, saying they did not have any access to accounting, nor they being told anything.  Both express being hard on them due to customers keep calling.

[voljeep]

so, with my great wisdom of the inner workings of Princess financial structure, what is happening is that various Princess reps

are working from home, many at the kitchen table, drinking wine, processing the claims for refund whenever they have nothing

else to do … these processed claims then proceed and moved up the ladder ...

 

At some unknown point, the CFO of Princess will hit the submit button , which is currently under lock and key and will take at 

least 2 major officers to enter the code known only to them to unlock that submit button.

 

so claims for refund "are being processed', just not paid

 

seems reasonable, huh ? 🍷🦄🛳️🤑

[ringers0815]

We filed a dispute with our credit card in mid-April for a March 10 cruise we had cancelled on March 6 (under Princess' March 5 cancellation policy).  We immediately got a conditional credit on our card then received an email 4 or 5 days later saying the dispute had been resolved in our favour and the credit became permanent. 

[dog]

14 minutes ago, voljeep said:

so, with my great wisdom of the inner workings of Princess financial structure, what is happening is that various Princess reps

are working from home, many at the kitchen table, drinking wine, processing the claims for refund whenever they have nothing

else to do … these processed claims then proceed and moved up the ladder ...

 

At some unknown point, the CFO of Princess will hit the submit button , which is currently under lock and key and will take at 

least 2 major officers to enter the code known only to them to unlock that submit button.

 

so claims for refund "are being processed', just not paid

 

seems reasonable, huh ? 🍷🦄🛳️🤑

Like that “wine” comment. Chianti Classico,  I presume?

[Aulanis]

42 minutes ago, voljeep said:

t some unknown point, the CFO of Princess will hit the submit button , which is currently under lock and key and will take at 

least 2 major officers to enter the code known only to them to unlock that submit button.

 

At which unknown point the authority to release will have to be submitted to CCL

for further consideration. + 30 or 60 or 90 days they will make the decision BUT

Only after it is agreed by ALL members of the CLIA   who will after consideration

will refer to Mr Trump  who appears to make all important decisions irrespective

of the consequences.

[ceilidh1]

2 hours ago, nho9504 said:

 

 I do not buy the argument of not allowing them to dock - because they do NOT need to bring the ship to dock, but use tenders or small boats to send the crews to shore - as this HAPPENED on Fri or Sat at Florida - all the American and Canadian crews are sent to shore this way from the TV footage

 

Makes zero difference as to whether it's a tender or cruise ship - they still need permission to dock from the port authorities and coast guard/local governance. I can 100% state this as FACT because I worked as port agent with Princess for many years and had to deal with all the paperwork. Emerald was allowed to dock in Fort Lauderdale yesterday and disembark American and Canadian crew members. They were NOT permitted to dock in Nassau, which was the original port they planned on disembarking last week.

[ceilidh1]

1 hour ago, nho9504 said:

 

What CCL should have done is to repatriate their ships to sail the crews back to their regions, like RCL started, way back in March.

 

 

This is exactly what has been done - crew that disembarked Emerald yesterday were crew from both Princess and HAL that moved ships to all be on Emerald. A good friend of mine was originally on Regal and got transferred to Emerald about a month ago along with all other American and Canadian crew members. He is now back in Canada (he has been at sea since early March - the day before the first pause, ironically) and has to self isolate for 14 days!

 

A week or so ago, another Princess ship carrying European crew members from Princess and Holland America was allowed to dock and disembark in the UK. There is a ship currently full of Crew members from the Phillipines awaiting permission to dock in Manila (last I heard they had been denied).

[Ombud]

38 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

Makes zero difference as to whether it's a tender or cruise ship - they still need permission to dock from the port authorities and coast guard/local governance. I can 100% state this as FACT because I worked as port agent with Princess for many years and had to deal with all the paperwork. Emerald was allowed to dock in Fort Lauderdale yesterday and disembark American and Canadian crew members. They were NOT permitted to dock in Nassau, which was the original port they planned on disembarking last week.

So that further explains why NCL can dock & remain at the Port of Oakland for 2-3 months minimum. After all it was Oakland that brought the Grand Princess in