Refunds

[DWolf2020]

20 hours ago, Rock_Dr said:

Silly question but how are you cancelling?  I go to my reservation and can't find anyway to cancel.  My cruise is not until July and final payment is due next week.  I have diabetes and don't know if they are going to change policy before then so I just want to cancel and can always rebook later.  I am sure there will be cabins:)

Call their customer service line.  They are able to do it over the phone and access your booking.

[Rock_Dr]

11 minutes ago, DWolf2020 said:

Call their customer service line.  They are able to do it over the phone and access your booking.

Crap.  I really hate talking to people:(  I have been preparing my whole life for this look down.

[DWolf2020]

10 minutes ago, Rock_Dr said:

Crap.  I really hate talking to people:(  I have been preparing my whole life for this look down.

🙂 You got plenty of time to practice overcoming this!!!! Hahaha...good luck.

[shof515]

16 minutes ago, Rock_Dr said:

Crap.  I really hate talking to people:(  I have been preparing my whole life for this look down.

i have a speech disability that effects how i talk..i really really hate talking to people

[LaRue1975]

21 hours ago, Rock_Dr said:

Silly question but how are you cancelling?  I go to my reservation and can't find anyway to cancel.  My cruise is not until July and final payment is due next week.  I have diabetes and don't know if they are going to change policy before then so I just want to cancel and can always rebook later.  I am sure there will be cabins:)

You can do it online, go to your account and vacation planner.

Scroll down and click on booking order and details.

Scroll down and click on Balance Information.

Click on Cancellation Information. 
click on Cancel Reservation to cancel. 

 

[Rock_Dr]

40 minutes ago, LaRue1975 said:

You can do it online, go to your account and vacation planner.

Scroll down and click on booking order and details.

Scroll down and click on Balance Information.

Click on Cancellation Information. 
click on Cancel Reservation to cancel. 

 

Thank you.  Saves from having to argue with someone:)

[LaRue1975]

15 minutes ago, Rock_Dr said:

Thank you.  Saves from having to argue with someone:)

Definitely and no waiting on hold! 😊

[beshears]

I won't go into the details here, but there were 8 of us to cruise, until it as cancelled out. I am going to post a question under "Carnival" that my son had mentioned, of "what" might happened if we decided to take the FCC with the OBC, instead of the FCC.  I know the OBC sounds good, but after we were talking, I am doing some different thinking now.

[happy40]

Reading these somehow makes me feel better too. I cancelled 3/15 online before the final payment date and haven’t received anything. No email or refund. So I called 3/20 to check, since I hadn’t even received an email and the agent said 10-14 businesses days......still waiting for any communication from Carnival. 
 

very disappointed so far..

[rudoja00]

Reading all of this makes some of you feel good?  It's pretty obvious CCL was counting on future revenues to pay the refunds for the first round of cancellations.  The 2nd month of cancelled bookings plus being justifiably left out of the stimulus plan is why we are being told 90 days.  They simply do not have the cash on hand and are hoping for some miracle financing in the very near future.

 

We ain't getting our refunds folks.  Best bet will be a message down the road that converted refunds to FCC.

[jesskuhmarie]

2 hours ago, rudoja00 said:

Reading all of this makes some of you feel good?  It's pretty obvious CCL was counting on future revenues to pay the refunds for the first round of cancellations.  The 2nd month of cancelled bookings plus being justifiably left out of the stimulus plan is why we are being told 90 days.  They simply do not have the cash on hand and are hoping for some miracle financing in the very near future.

 

We ain't getting our refunds folks.  Best bet will be a message down the road that converted refunds to FCC.

This is a huge reach. From what I've read Carnival has $12 Billion of liquidity currently, they have no lack of funds to issues these refunds. The delay is clearly due to the unprecedented number of refunds they are having to process at once. It takes time. I have no doubt Carnival will have some struggles coming out of this whole shutdown, but to make inflammatory claims like this is just irresponsible. 

[SRQbeachgirl]

1 hour ago, jesskuhmarie said:

This is a huge reach. From what I've read Carnival has $12 Billion of liquidity currently, they have no lack of funds to issues these refunds. The delay is clearly due to the unprecedented number of refunds they are having to process at once. It takes time. I have no doubt Carnival will have some struggles coming out of this whole shutdown, but to make inflammatory claims like this is just irresponsible. 

 

^^^This. I have heard that the refunds go through their accounting department for processing and most of the accounting department is out of the office. I'm not concerned as to if I will get my refund, only when.

[pirateg11]

8 hours ago, SRQbeachgirl said:

 

^^^This. I have heard that the refunds go through their accounting department for processing and most of the accounting department is out of the office. I'm not concerned as to if I will get my refund, only when.

Yes, but until recently, their accounting department was in the office, and still no refunds have been issued to anyone post the 3/13 announcement.  Whether or not they have the liquidity, it does seem like they are holding all refunds and waiting on something....

[rudoja00]

17 hours ago, jesskuhmarie said:

This is a huge reach. From what I've read Carnival has $12 Billion of liquidity currently, they have no lack of funds to issues these refunds. The delay is clearly due to the unprecedented number of refunds they are having to process at once. It takes time. I have no doubt Carnival will have some struggles coming out of this whole shutdown, but to make inflammatory claims like this is just irresponsible. 

 

LOL, that's why they went full panic and did a huge equity and debt offering at an obscene 11.5% to raise desperately needed cash?  The good news is they got some cash...the bad news is they now have an insane debt load for 3 years.

 

I still stand by my hunch that many of us don't ever see these refunds.  

[KansasBeachLover]

I know they said 90 days.  But 2 days before my cruise that never happened, I cancelled shore excursions.  We had decided that we would not split up as a family in Progreso and would do something together for a short time and get back on the ship.  I cancelled an excursion for 3 of us.  Any other time I've cancelled something with Carnival that I booked online, it was refunded the following day.  I still don't have the refund for those excursions and that was done 2 days before they cancelled our cruise on us.  I don't have a refund for any of the stuff I bought to have in our room.  Nothing for FTTF.  Nothing.  We had 7 rooms booked and we have a lot of money tied up in this whole thing.  The virus is not their fault.  I do not blame them for that.  But I do blame them for not issuing refunds in a timely manner.

[pzsdd6]

Carnival is not refunding money because they need it to cover operating costs. They are telling customers that it will take 90 days or more to get your refund. lie! They can process it just as fast as they can bill you......immediately!  They are hoarding cash at our expense. They spend all kinds of money to set up call centers to take future cruises and bill you immediately, while closing down accounting, which would process your refund, and short staffing the customer service lines so you can’t reach them. As I stated earlier, I spoke with members of the banking community and they all said the same thing, Carnival is desperate for cash. As a matter of record, they were the only cruise line that said they would cruise again in early April. They did so that could book thousands of additional cruises, get customer money, knowing full well that there was no infrastructure in place to provide services to do the cruises. Now, they have more money and won’t refund it for at least 90 days, if at all. Also, they have captured your money as a FCC, again giving them more cash. Mark my word, if the day comes and you do get to use your FCC, the prices will increase exorbitantly!

Is this the kind of company that you really want to do business with! For years, the cruise company has stacked the deck against customers, making themselves virtually judgement proof. Now they want a bailout from the U.S..........No way!

Hold them accountable and make them re-register in the U.S.

IMHO

[pzsdd6]

P.S. forgot to repost this.....

I spoke with Barclays US which administers Carnivals MasterCard. They are not processing refunds from Carnival, they haven’t been requested to do so from Carnival!

once again, lies and false information from Carnival!

[pzsdd6]

3 minutes ago, jesskuhmarie said:

 

Then how are some people getting refunds if they are not processing them? All businesses use customers money to fund day to day operations 🙄 They don't just set that money aside until the cruise date it paid for, that wouldn't make any sense.

 

As far as them upping prices of cruises to "screw" customers, why would someone get a FCC but then wait until prices go back up to use it? Obviously the price of cruises is down now, I think most people are either getting their refund or rebooking now at CURRENT prices which are fairly low. It would obviously be a bad decision to leave your money with Carnival but not even apply it to a new cruise while prices are down. 

 

I don't see any situation where Carnival would or could just not refund people's money, outside of them going bankrupt which while possible in the long-term I don't think there is much risk of that happening in the next few months unless the overall outlook for travel past summer continues to decline. They are not stupid enough to bankrupt themselves by trying to not process refunds that are owed.

 

I never said that they would not refund it, I said they were delaying it! 90 days and more is not a reasonable timeframe for a refund. Additionally, I never said anything about Carnival going bankrupt. The cruise industry as a whole is to big of a business to go under. The cruise industry summer travel is shot! Period!

First, it is the highest price time to cruise, the US economy has tanked, the consumers don’t have jobs or money to cruise, that’s a luxury. Sure, there will always be those that can afford to go, but way fewer. After the summer you have hurricane season which always has the lowest prices, and even those are going up already.

Ask yourself this, why can I get thru to book a cruise without much trouble, but to get help with one or to cancel one, you have to wait on hold for hours and even days. Why can the process a payment instantly, but take 90 days to issue a refund.

 

[jesskuhmarie]

1 minute ago, pzsdd6 said:

I never said that they would not refund it, I said they were delaying it! 90 days and more is not a reasonable timeframe for a refund. Additionally, I never said anything about Carnival going bankrupt. The cruise industry as a whole is to big of a business to go under. The cruise industry summer travel is shot! Period!

First, it is the highest price time to cruise, the US economy has tanked, the consumers don’t have jobs or money to cruise, that’s a luxury. Sure, there will always be those that can afford to go, but way fewer. After the summer you have hurricane season which always has the lowest prices, and even those are going up already.

Ask yourself this, why can I get thru to book a cruise without much trouble, but to get help with one or to cancel one, you have to wait on hold for hours and even days. Why can the process a payment instantly, but take 90 days to issue a refund.

 

 

Well someone on this thread plainly said that they were never going to issue the refunds, and your posts certainly hinted at. I didn't say you said anything about Carnival going bankrupt? I made a comment on that being the only scenario that would effect the refunds ..

 

Cruise prices currently are WAY down from what they were a month ago for later this year, next year, all of them that I have looked at. Again, if the customer waits until the industry is back up and running to use the FCC, that's a bad decision. Prices will go back up, but they are currently down so there's no logical reason to choose FCC but not book at these low prices.

 

The same people who help you book cruises are the same ones who cancel them? So I'm not sure how you're able to get through to book a cruise but not to cancel one. I had no problem getting through on Monday after a 30 minute wait and both cancelled and rebooked on the same call. That's how most people are doing it, not two separate calls. Or you can even do it yourself online. 

 

I don't have time to explain basic concepts of how refunds and payments work in general, but they are very much different processes. Clearly Carnival doesn't care who's paying or how they are paying when they take a payment. Refunds are a much more meticulous, manual process when there are multiple people on a reservation and payments from multiple sources (for my cruise alone I paid on 3 separate Carnival gift cards and 3 separate credit cards). Add to a manual process hundreds of thousands of refunds to be processed when the Company has been equipped to process a fraction of that each day, it's just common sense that it will take time.

[pzsdd6]

3 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

....oh brother.  Facts to back it up?

I wish. Going by information provided by people in the banking business as ell as a phone call to the credit card company. If I had hard facts and proof, we wouldn’t be having this conversation I would be talking to someone else. As stated, this is IMHO

[jimbo5544]

2 minutes ago, pzsdd6 said:

I wish. Going by information provided by people in the banking business as ell as a phone call to the credit card company. If I had hard facts and proof, we wouldn’t be having this conversation I would be talking to someone else. As stated, this is IMHO

They are blitzed, think of the number of cruises cancelled and the different cancel options.  They will stiff no one.  They are now quoting on between 30 to 60 days to process.  Patience is a virtue, relax it will happen.

[pzsdd6]

Isn’t it ironic that the Carnival and the cruise industry are being quite vocal about how bad their business has been hurt and how hard up they are for cash to operate, and yet with the economy tanked, people out of work and desperately short of cash, Carnival withholds refunds to people that really could use it!

Hmmmmm

[pzsdd6]

1 minute ago, jimbo5544 said:

They are blitzed, think of the number of cruises cancelled and the different cancel options.  They will stiff no one.  They are now quoting on between 30 to 60 days to process.  Patience is a virtue, relax it will happen.

I agree with you that they are overwhelmed, and I also know that they will refund the money. I also know that once things have settled down, I will cruise again, but I will most likely look elsewhere when it comes to choosing a cruise company. The true measure of a person, is how they react when under pressure. The same can be said about a company!

[pzsdd6]

6 minutes ago, pzsdd6 said:

Isn’t it ironic that the Carnival and the cruise industry are being quite vocal about how bad their business has been hurt and how hard up they are for cash to operate, and yet with the economy tanked, people out of work and desperately short of cash, Carnival withholds refunds to people that really could use it!

Hmmmmm

P.S. Carnival and the cruise industry want help from the stimulus package.........IMMEDIATELY! Not 90 days!

Edited April 2, 2020 by pzsdd6

[DWolf2020]

I can vouch that Carnival DID DO REFUNDS PRIOR TO THEIR MARCH 13/14 POLICY UPDATE.  We cancelled our Match 26 cruise prior to this on March 12 and got our FCC and Money refunded within 3 days.

After their policy update, we pursued turning our FCC back into our cash and that's where we've run into their "90 days/Accounting Dept." etc. reasoning.

Anyone who is claiming they got a refund AFTER the March 13/14 policy update either called to receive it BEFORE the update (when their accounting dept. was still "working") and it popped into their account AFTER March 13/14.  If you've been pursuing your refund and got it after the policy update, PLEASE let us all know.

As some people have said, Carnival is indeed acting shady and it's interesting that their still booking customers and have their personal cruise assistants in Florida calling customers, but their Accounting dept. is "closed" in accordance with Florida state guidelines.

Carnival isn't getting help from the Stimulus package, most cruise companies are "not US companies".  They're incorporated in Panama to escape US taxes.  If they were actually incorporated in the US, then they could've got some help.