Refund Status for canceled cruises: Retitled after merges

[azbirdmom]

46 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

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).

 

There's over a dozen ships floating around Manila waiting to disembark including several Princess ships.  I know that quite a few crew members were allowed off the Ovation of the Sea yesterday and are on their way home.  A friend is among them and I imagine she is home now as she was halfway home earlier today.  What an ordeal for all of the staff and crew.

[npcl]

3 hours 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? 

Being in the pre-phase 1 group I am certainly interested in that question

[azbirdmom]

I checked in with our friends today to find out if they had received their FCC and refunds.  They were supposed to be on the Sky Princess with us and we were due to depart yesterday.  We cancelled two days before the first pause was announced and got a partial refund but are awaiting the rest.  They didn't cancel early and chose Option 1.  They haven't gotten their FCC, any refund, nor have they heard anything from Princess about it since the March 12th email announcing the first pause.  I reached out to our TA for an update today and the latest she has heard from Princess is that they are now saying that all of the pause 1 and 2 cruises should be done within 2 to 4 weeks of May 31st.  I hope the TAs push Princess on this point during the next webinar.  The goal posts keep getting moved!

[Aulanis]

35 minutes ago, azbirdmom said:

There's over a dozen ships floating around Manila waiting to disembark including several Princess ships

16 ships   5000 Filipino crew to be tested for virus before being allowed ashore ( a few days ago. ) Including the Ruby  which in view of the problems maybe first in the queue.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Aulanis

[cruzsnooze]

My citibank charge card is is a Costco charge so I only use it for travel for obvious reasons. I usually pay for purchases at the gas station or supermarket with cash, easier and no bills later. 

[cristine]

10 hours ago, hm9912 said:

I posted my refund experience in another thread but I'll repeat it here.

We were booked on the Sky Princess for our April 4th cruise out of Fort Lauderdale with our three grandkids. We booked two cabins with two different booking numbers. We also took out a travel policy with Allianz for the grandkids. We have a separate annual travel policy with Allianz

We booked and paid for two travel excursions in December 2019 and made final payment for the two bookings in early February 2020.

Princess cancelled our cruise in early March.

We chose option 2 and that showed up in our personalizer in a couple of weeks.

We had spoken with a Princess Customer Service Rep shortly after Princess cancelled our cruise in March inquiring about the refund of the cruise fare for the two cabins. She told us it could take up to 60 days for the refund.

Everything is paid for on my Barclays Princess Visa card

Knowing that most credit cards require any disputes be filed within 60 days, I initiated a credit card dispute of all my Princess charges first over the telephone receiving two case numbers and following up in writing on their web site.

On Friday I received all of the funds back on my Princess Visa Card and now have a very substantial credit.

Very happy

For those that think that they are just going to receive their money back automatically from Princess without filing a credit card dispute you may be waiting a long time or forever.

Hope this helps

 

Howard

Howard 

Our final payment was due and paid in Dec. for a April 4th cruise.

Princess cancelled our cruises in March ...60 days had already passed since making payment am I correct in assuming by your post that Barclays Princess VISA CC 

waived the 60 day requirement to make a claim...?

Thanks 
Christine
 

 

10 hours ago, hm9912 said:

 

 

[Maui Girl]

6 hours ago, nho9504 said:

 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.

I understand your opinion, but I was on the Ruby and would like to clarify your inaccurate comments.   Less than 24 hours before we docked in Sydney on March 8th,  there were 36 people that had reported to the medical center with "flu like" symptoms.  That was .094 percent of the people on that ship, passengers and crew.  At that point we were considered low risk by the health department.  HOWEVER, we were only 2 sick people short of the 1 percent threshold that would have classified us as medium risk and required the NSW health department team to board the ship before anyone disembarked.  In light of C19 virus being in Australia and the world, you would think that someone in the health department would have been on top of the situation and perhaps "assumed" that we would have more people in the last 17-20 hours and they needed to check us out.   And we did have a few more by the morning of the 8th, however the NSW health department did not reassess us, just gave us clearance to disembark.  Out of those 38-40 people that were sick, the medical center had swabbed 13 of them for possible C19, however they had no way to process the tests, so they were turned over to the health department.  Ultimately, 4 of those swabs were positive but they had already let everyone go home.  These are all FACTS from my personal experience and from the testimony that is going on right now in the investigation in Australia.   The health department official even testified that,  "we knew it was the last cruise and, well, 2800 people.  They didn't want to deal with quarantining or medical care for a bunch of people, they just wanted us off the ship and OUT of there.   Thats not to say that Princess handled everything perfect either, but ultimately most of the blame for that tragedy is going to fall on the shoulders of the NSW health departments mistakes.  

[Expat Cruise]

5 hours ago, ringers0815 said:

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. 

If you file the claim with the correct information and within the time frame required you will always win.  One of the reasons Princess is saying wait 60 days is to possibly put  guests outside of the filing time period.

[Carnevale]

Check with your cc company as early as possible to see what their time lines are.  I am in Canada so it may be different here but my Visa carrier is accepting claims up to 90 calendar days from the day your travel should have started.  Regardless, I filed last week for an April 12 sailing and am now waiting to see if the provisional refund will stick or whether Princess will dispute it.

 

CC companies have so many differences that you really do need to clarify what applies to you.

[Cuedon]

17 hours ago, nho9504 said:

 

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.

 

I'm almost positive that there's something going on somewhere their email systems and ours; my sister is getting those random (mostly useless) periodic update emails while the rest of my family gets nothing, while I'm the primary account holder, so to speak.

 

But more than that, about a year ago, I had a very high value casino offer that could only be booked via email. I couldn't seem to get a response from the casino department so I contacted a few of the hosts directly to see if they could help me take care of it. It took a bit of cajoling with her insisting that they did respond, but eventually she forwarded me a copy from her personal corporate account and I noticed it had time stamps appropriate for a response from my initial inquiries.

 

So... something weird's been going on with emails, and it's been that way for a while.

[travelhound]

14 hours ago, azbirdmom said:

 I reached out to our TA for an update today and the latest she has heard from Princess is that they are now saying that all of the pause 1 and 2 cruises should be done within 2 to 4 weeks of May 31st.  I hope the TAs push Princess on this point during the next webinar.  The goal posts keep getting moved!

That sounds hopeful 

[hm9912]

12 hours ago, cristine said:

Howard 

Our final payment was due and paid in Dec. for a April 4th cruise.

Princess cancelled our cruises in March ...60 days had already passed since making payment am I correct in assuming by your post that Barclays Princess VISA CC 

waived the 60 day requirement to make a claim...?

Thanks 
Christine
 

 

 

Christine

I believe that is in fact the case.

Cruise lines require final payment 75 days in advance of your cruise date and tours for that particular cruise are being offered well in advance of the final payment date and many fill up quickly and are charged to ones credit card when booked. In our case that was in December 2019.

By using my Princess Visa card to pay for everything Princess related, and the fact that Princess cancelled the cruise I don't think Barclays is strickly enforcing the 60 day rule? I think all credit cards are required to send out the fine print on the terms of use of their cards which most people don't read and throw out as we do so I'm  not exactly sure what paragraph in that long document applies when a cruise is cancelled by the cruise line but here is the bottom line.

Open a dispute with your credit card company as soon as possible and most likely you will receive a refund.

Sorry for my long winded response but hey, I'm not going anywhere any time soon.

Good luck

Howard

[hm9912]

17 hours ago, nho9504 said:

 

 

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.

 

Thank you for your detailed explanation. Your detail taught me some things about using points to their fullest that I did not know. I have learned many new things from others on cruise critic because they have seen lots of new things.

[Ombud]

15 hours ago, azbirdmom said:

I checked in with our friends today to find out if they had received their FCC and refunds.  They were supposed to be on the Sky Princess with us and we were due to depart yesterday.  We cancelled two days before the first pause was announced and got a partial refund but are awaiting the rest.  They didn't cancel early and chose Option 1.  They haven't gotten their FCC, any refund, nor have they heard anything from Princess about it since the March 12th email announcing the first pause.  I reached out to our TA for an update today and the latest she has heard from Princess is that they are now saying that all of the pause 1 and 2 cruises should be done within 2 to 4 weeks of May 31st.  I hope the TAs push Princess on this point during the next webinar.  The goal posts keep getting moved!

Are those working on refunds in California? I'm asking because that's approximately Governor Newsom's latest timeline for going to Phase 3 of reopening California and no longer requiring work from home

[billco]

10 minutes ago, Ombud said:

Are those working on refunds in California? I'm asking because that's approximately Governor Newsom's latest timeline for going to Phase 3 of reopening California and no longer requiring work from home

The confirmation e-mail you get when you book a cruise gives this address;

If paying by check, mail payments to: Princess Cruises, Attn: Cash Operations Po Box 9345 Seattle, Wa 98109-9345

[Ombud]

1 minute ago, billco said:

The confirmation e-mail you get when you book a cruise gives this address;

If paying by check, mail payments to: Princess Cruises, Attn: Cash Operations Po Box 9345 Seattle, Wa 98109-9345

So at least they're under Washington's Shelter in Place orders. When does Washington reopen?

[Dee4990]

Replying to the OP only.  I filed a credit card dispute for my May 2nd cancelled Princess cruise with Bank of America on March 31.  I filed on-line and followed up with a phone call (less than pleasant).  I got several snail mails stating they were "working on it" .  On May 6th, I got a e-mail that there was an "update" on it.  I logged into my account and read that BofA had found in my favor and given me the credit "provisionally" - which means Princess can still try to claw it back, I suppose?  But what would their position be - I have neither the goods (cruise) nor money (refund).  The credit is posted in my credit card account and available to me right now.  I hope this is helpful to you.  Good Luck!

[GottaLuvCruising]

Our cruise was cancelled two months ago.  Princess has posted our FCCs.  They owe me $974.44 for taxes, gratuities and bottled water.  

 

Today I called for the first time.  The voicemail options did not include one for my circumstances, so I just pressed "0" and got a live agent.  The checked both bookings and said they are both in queue for the refunds to be processed.  

 

I know they are overwhelmed with all of this, so I am satisfied to confirm that we have the same figures and refund will be processed.  

[Baby_Bear]

We were supposed to sail on May 16th on the Caribbean Princess. I had canceled our cruise on March 9th and was supposed to get back all but the $200 deposit as a refund on my card. Zero movement on my case along with most people here. I called Capital One this morning to file a credit card dispute. Capital One told me I could dispute my $200 deposit as well since my cruise was subsequently canceled.  Not sure how that'll play out (if that's rejected, I'll claim on my credit card insurance) but definitely want the rest of the refund which I am entitled to.

 

Its kind of sad that it had to come to this, but the way Princess has been dragging its feet has been pretty disappointing. As a point of comparison, we had an end May trip to Asia booked, and got prompt refunds for international flights and hotels within 3-7 calendar days - and these guys are dealing with far more cancellations in terms of volume and sometimes amounts than Princess. Rather than call Princess to be given vague timelines, I figured to just let the credit card company deal with the hassle and I'm happy to give them any documentation they need. Good luck to everyone waiting on their refunds. 

Edited May 11, 2020 by Baby_Bear

[shpshootr]

For those that have won the dispute and received credit from their credit card companies, did Princess still give you the future cruise credit as well? Just curious as my cruise was for March 21, 2020, and of course no refund yet and I want to file a dispute but was curious if they would still give the fcc as well. 

[Cruise Raider]

It really seems as though they should have been able process more than a percent or two of refunds by now, two months after their initial announcement....but, it doesn't appear that is happening. That percentage is speculation, of course, but you can extrapolate the data from various sites (here / FB)  using an ample sample size and it is a rare instance when anyone can post they've gotten their refund. They are cash strapped and making it worse as if most people were like me, they will think long and hard about sinking anymore money into Princess when it is iffy as to when or if they will ever see their initial refund, much less one down the road.

They've put many restrictions on how people can use those FCCs they've gotten ... they can't be used for deposits now. Why? Because they want new money.   Why were they still selling cruises that they knew couldn't possibly happen? Because they want new money and don't to slow down the returns on current bookings? Why did they pass out several upgrades for current bookings?  (My thought is it is easy to do as those sailings probably won't be happening.)  Because they want to retain your cash they already have?  Why the delay in restoring gift card balances and Future Cruise Deposits?  Because neither will bring in new money!

[Roger88]

I woldnt go for any disputes until the expiration of the designated refund dates. If you, say, start a dispute on 60th day of your 90 day refund, you will have to wait additional 45 days for your claim to be reviewd and then another 2-3 weeks to get your money. I would suggest waiting till those days are over and only then starting a dispute.. or on a last day just to be safe 

[Cruise Raider]

16 hours ago, azbirdmom said:

I checked in with our friends today to find out if they had received their FCC and refunds.  They were supposed to be on the Sky Princess with us and we were due to depart yesterday.  We cancelled two days before the first pause was announced and got a partial refund but are awaiting the rest.  They didn't cancel early and chose Option 1.  They haven't gotten their FCC, any refund, nor have they heard anything from Princess about it since the March 12th email announcing the first pause.  I reached out to our TA for an update today and the latest she has heard from Princess is that they are now saying that all of the pause 1 and 2 cruises should be done within 2 to 4 weeks of May 31st.  I hope the TAs push Princess on this point during the next webinar.  The goal posts keep getting moved!

 

Whoa ... that's now taking up to the end of June?  How disappointing and way beyond their thirty day mark that they originally promised.  I tend to think they are going to push that out again though as I think very few are getting any refunds until they actually start cruising again.  

[Cruise Raider]

1 hour ago, Ombud said:

So at least they're under Washington's Shelter in Place orders. When does Washington reopen?

 

My sister and cousin live there so we keep in touch over who gets out first.  Both Washington and the Bay Area in California have shelter in place orders through the end of May .... so far.  Reopening is going through a phased in approach over the next several months, according to the so called experts.  

[remydiva]

1 hour ago, Ombud said:

Are those working on refunds in California? I'm asking because that's approximately Governor Newsom's latest timeline for going to Phase 3 of reopening California and no longer requiring work from home

e pause 1 and 2 cruises shouldbe done within 2 to 4 weeks of May 31st.  
 

so in other words June 15-30? Why not word it that way? By putting the word ‘May 31’ doesn’t make it MAY!