HAL Refund runaround

[fatcat04]

10 minutes ago, nyceve said:

 

Not my refund, the refunds which many many people need.  The disregard I have experienced, and I am sure many others, for their loyal customers, is due to corporate indifference.  They will have a harder time surviving when many don't return.

No, it's due to being completely overwhelmed by an unprecedented world wide crisis plus having had several ships with desperate and even some ill passengers  still on them needing to get to safety. And that is far more important than my or your cruise funds. Thankfully most of us who are due funds or FCCs (and I would bet that is probably 90% of the folks on this forum) understand this. 

Edited April 5, 2020 by fatcat04

[oceanmom]

Just now, fatcat04 said:

No, it's due to being completely overwhelmed by an unprecedented world wide crisis plus having had several ships with desperate and even some ill passengers  still on them needing to get to safety. And that is far more important than my or your cruise funds. Thankfully most of us who a due funds or FCCs (and I would bet that is probably 90% of tye folks on this forum) understand this. 

 

Just what I was going to write, fatcat04.

 

I was able to cancel three cruises last week using the chat feature on the website--but I had booked directly with HAL, not through the big box store or a TA.

[Seasick Sailor]

1 minute ago, fatcat04 said:

No, it's due to being completely overwhelmed by an unprecedented world wide crisis plus having had several ships with desperate and even some ill passengers  still on them needing to get to safety. And that is far more important than my or your cruise funds. Thankfully most of us who a due funds or FCCs (and I would bet that is probably 90% of the folks on this forum) understand this. 

 

Well said fatcat04.

"Let cooler heads prevail" 

[richwmn]

31 minutes ago, nyceve said:

As I stated, I have not received a single email from HAL. Full stop. The last email I received was HAL telling me to print my boarding passes.  After that, silence.  I'm really disgusted with them.  Why did I purchase platinum insurance?!

since you chose not to answer the two questions I asked, I will only add the following.

If you booked thru a Travel Agency, or transferred the cruise to a Travel Agency after booking, HAL has constantly maintained that the Travel Agency "owns" the booking and any communications about the cruise must be thru that Agency. This has been the policy for years. If you used a Travel Agency, you should be contacting them to help you sort out your reservation. Good luck if it is one of the "Big Box" or consolidator Agencies.

 

[Seasick Sailor]

6 minutes ago, richwmn said:

since you chose not to answer the two questions I asked, I will only add the following.

If you booked thru a Travel Agency, or transferred the cruise to a Travel Agency after booking, HAL has constantly maintained that the Travel Agency "owns" the booking and any communications about the cruise must be thru that Agency. This has been the policy for years. If you used a Travel Agency, you should be contacting them to help you sort out your reservation. Good luck if it is one of the "Big Box" or consolidator Agencies.

 

Rich, see post #4. The OP did a no-no..

Joy

[DeeniEncinitas]

13 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

 

Hello again dear friend.❤️

❤️ Just finished with United on the phone!

Got a our FF refund on our buisness seats on the ca flight from Paris home👍 Happy to see that! Hope HAL comes through for everyone with their refunds soon! 
Trying times and patience is miserable!

Take care Joy!

Denise😊

PS Joy I guess your cheese and fruit platter and a drive around the lake is a no go with the snow? Knowing you guy’s you’ll have fun indoors!

[Seasick Sailor]

1 minute ago, DeeniEncinitas said:

❤️ Just finished with United on the phone!

Got a our FF refund on our buisness seats on the ca flight from Paris home👍 Happy to see that! Hope HAL comes through for everyone with their refunds soon! 
Trying times and patience is miserable!

Take care Joy!

Denise😊

PS Joy I guess your cheese and fruit platter and a drive around the lake is a no go with the snow? Knowing you guy’s you’ll have fun indoors!

 

Glad United fixed your FF refund. No drive around today, sadly. Our weather man must have been asleep at the wheel on our weather report!

 

[vinfan]

Once again I will add my 2 cents’ worth regarding HAL’s complete lack of communication. They kept us hanging up to a week before our March cruise, even suggesting shore excursions, when virtually all our destination ports were closed to cruise ships. They announced cancellation of a cruise 6 days before ours and 10 days after, but never ours. All we got was the email announcing the 30-day pause, a timeframe that included our cruise. Worst. Customer. Service. Ever.

[nyceve]

10 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

Rich, see post #4. The OP did a no-no..

Joy

Yes, I know this. I also have Platinum insurance which is owned/underwritten by HAL.

[richwmn]

13 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

Rich, see post #4. The OP did a no-no..

Joy

I thought I remembered that, but didn't look thru every post to find out. Lazy of me.

[AncientWanderer]

 

@nyceve Sorry you are having frustration.  Other posters have solid suggestions of how to approach the problem, but realistically things probably won't happen too quickly.  So many companies are just gripping to stay afloat.  Sadly, so are a lot of individuals, who with sudden jobs lost, etc., could probably really use refund cash sooner rather than later.  

Seriously unprecedented situation.

 I just wanted to wish you well.

[Seasick Sailor]

@nyceve As delicately as possible I will say this: We also had "Platinum" insurance for our 6 week cruise. This does not mean we get priority on our refunds. Many of us on CC are in the same boat as you and I are. You made your statement on several threads about being unhappy with where we all stand with our refunds. Replying to the same posts and posters is mute. The folks reading your threads are aware you are unhappy. We all get it.

Have a Blessed Holy Palm Sunday, and God Bless us all.

Joy

 

[nyceve]

4 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

@nyceve As delicately as possible I will say this: We also had "Platinum" insurance for our 6 week cruise. This does not mean we get priority on our refunds. Many of us on CC are in the same boat as you and I are. You made your statement on several threads about being unhappy with where we all stand with our refunds. Replying to the same posts and posters is mute. The folks reading your threads are aware you are unhappy. We all get it.

Have a Blessed Holy Palm Sunday, and God Bless us all.

Joy

 

HAL has very  exacting financial demands of us, the passengers. Final payment due date, etc. etc. But when it comes to a contractually due refund, they are silent.  Not even the simple courtesy of an email. It is the worst customer service ever as someone else noted. And it will profoundly harm the company long term.

 

 

[VMax1700]

The British have a wonderful system.  It is called a queue.  You may know it as a 'line'.

Please feel free to join all the others already in the queue/line and wait.

There is a global pandemic at the moment, and all cruise lines and travel companies are up to their necks in unexpected work. There are more important things than me. me. me.

[DFD1]

Surely not....

[AncientWanderer]

In fairness to HAL, they have always in the past issued refunds super promptly.  Even in February, when we cancelled spring Japan cruise, along with Flight Ease air and umpteen shore excursions, we received all of our cash refund just as quickly as is HAL's customary habit.  And that was with no insurance, just the cruise cancelled by HAL.

 

But that was then and this is now.  What a difference a couple months can make!  

 

[kelmac]

This may be good news in general, but people over on the Celebrity boards are reporting a flood of refunds:

(go to the last page of this thread)

 

 

[Tom O.]

There is a certain amount of risk, to insure your cruise with the cruise line. Under normal circumstances, there would be no risk, but in these trying times, that is not the case. If a cruise line goes bankrupt, the people who insured through that cruise line might not receive reimbursement, because there is no money available.

A separate insurance company should be able to pay off it's policy holders, but if that company has a run of claims, they could go under too.

If we all lose money on our cruises, at least it is money we can afford to lose, since cruising is a luxury and not a necessity.

[Crazy For Cats]

26 minutes ago, Tom O. said:

There is a certain amount of risk, to insure your cruise with the cruise line. Under normal circumstances, there would be no risk, but in these trying times, that is not the case. If a cruise line goes bankrupt, the people who insured through that cruise line might not receive reimbursement, because there is no money available.

A separate insurance company should be able to pay off it's policy holders, but if that company has a run of claims, they could go under too.

If we all lose money on our cruises, at least it is money we can afford to lose, since cruising is a luxury and not a necessity.

I agree with you that cruising is a luxury and not a necessity.  I disagree with that we can afford to lose the money that we gave HAL.  Given the current state of affairs many are suddenly unemployed, the retirement funds are much smaller and in my case I’m working with the premise that we have one paycheck to go.

[Andi Land]

I have a cruise that I canceled and asked that my money be put towards another itinerary. I was also told 30-60 days for that to happen.  So, they aren’t trying to keep your money as my example shows I’m not trying to get anything back.  As someone else said, we are all in line waiting our turn. And as we tell our kids “no line cutting allowed”. When you turn happens, you’ll get your refund. 
 

I can’t recall if you said, but did you ever call, not email,  your TA to straighten this out? HAL will only direct you to them if you haven’t. Emails are the least effective way to communicate right now do to everything going on. You could attempt the chat feature, which I’ve had luck with, but be prepared for them to direct you to your TA for all communication. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

5 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

The British have a wonderful system.  It is called a queue.  You may know it as a 'line'.

Please feel free to join all the others already in the queue/line and wait.

There is a global pandemic at the moment, and all cruise lines and travel companies are up to their necks in unexpected work. There are more important things than me. me. me.

 

Well said! Cunard's cancellation is saying allow up to 60 days, so it isn't just HAL that's taking a while to handle everything.

 

[kazu]

56 minutes ago, Andi Land said:

I can’t recall if you said, but did you ever call, not email,  your TA to straighten this out? HAL will only direct you to them if you haven’t.

 

I think the OP did say they contacted their TA but for some reason the TA threw this back at HAL IIRC.

 

Reading back, the OP said this (In italics):

I have called, emailed, done everything imaginable.  I booked through Costco, and finally got through to cancel.  But they told me all refunds come through HAL. 

thinking about this, lots of our roll call members had HAL’s insurance and our TA’s took care of it and instructed HAL to process it.  I think the OP’s problem may lie with their TA and not HAL.  Their frustration may be misdirected IMO.

[Horizon chaser 1957]

7 hours ago, nyceve said:

 

This is really unacceptable. Giving refunds MUST be at the top of their list. 

No, it doesn’t need to be at the top of their list. 
We were at sea off Australia on the 2020GWV when the world fell apart. Borders were closing, flights were cancelled, ships were being denied docking all over the world.

HAL got us home. The Australian, American, and Canadian governments were changing rules and shifting goalposts several times a day. It was a long,  exhausting, terrifying ordeal but we are home and safe now. And that was coming off a ship with no illness aboard.
I do not expect to see our refund for 60 days, and would be very surprised if anything happens sooner.

HAL still has its hands full getting people off the Zaandam. I think they need to finish putting out the fires before they can start dealing with the ashes.

[3rdGenCunarder]

18 minutes ago, Horizon chaser 1957 said:

No, it doesn’t need to be at the top of their list. 
We were at sea off Australia on the 2020GWV when the world fell apart. Borders were closing, flights were cancelled, ships were being denied docking all over the world.

HAL got us home. The Australian, American, and Canadian governments were changing rules and shifting goalposts several times a day. It was a long,  exhausting, terrifying ordeal but we are home and safe now. And that was coming off a ship with no illness aboard.
I do not expect to see our refund for 60 days, and would be very surprised if anything happens sooner.

HAL still has its hands full getting people off the Zaandam. I think they need to finish putting out the fires before they can start dealing with the ashes.

 

Thank you for some perspective from someone who has "been there, done that." Glad you're home safe.

 

[Lido deck main]

7 hours ago, nyceve said:

 

Not my refund, the refunds which many many people need.  The disregard I have experienced, and I am sure many others, for their loyal customers, is due to corporate indifference.  They will have a harder time surviving when many don't return.

Your cruise was not scheduled to go until April 19th, 2020.  Now that there has been a full pause of all cruises from mid March onwards, the staff at HAL now has to go through every single booking for each cruise for each person.  You will get your refund.  I cancelled our cruise which was to start on April 15th I cancelled that on March 8th, 2020.  I have not received my half refund cash and other FCC.  Have patience.  If you rationally think they have to go through each individual  booking, and each ship, for cruises over currently an approx. two month pause at this time of cruises, wow that number of refunds they are processing is in the tens of thousands.  There is no corporate indifference.  HAL staff are a lot busy at the moment.  Being mad, upset, unreasonable doesn’t help the situation for you at all, just wasted energy.