Are future cruise certificates covered by ABTA/ATOL bonding

[blag]

Clarification on this is important to both Azamara and to guests. If the 'enhanced' FCC's are not valid for ABTA protection, I suspect that many, if not most, including me, will opt for the refund, thereby increasing the drain on Azamara's funds.

Furthermore, many might not re-book so the revenue is lost to Azamara!

I realise that the validity or otherwise of these FCC's is not a decision that can be made by Azamara, but I think they should be investigating diligently.

[uktog]

27 minutes ago, blag said:

Clarification on this is important to both Azamara and to guests. If the 'enhanced' FCC's are not valid for ABTA protection, I suspect that many, if not most, including me, will opt for the refund, thereby increasing the drain on Azamara's funds.

Furthermore, many might not re-book so the revenue is lost to Azamara!

I realise that the validity or otherwise of these FCC's is not a decision that can be made by Azamara, but I think they should be investigating diligently.

I agree, and be honest if it’s bad news.  

[hamrag]

On 4/22/2020 at 7:18 PM, uktog said:

They have just advised on Watchdog (BBC) that this is not an option you should pursue and are calling for government intervention to stop the industry using their customers as their "bankers".  I was going to go down the voucher route but the absence of reassurance on the ABTA/ATOL position which is still not appearing I am very uncomfortable now.  Each day that passes without reassurance, the more concerned I would be.

 

I decided to dip back into the Az threads, as the other lines' threads I look at have become somewhat repetitive. When we were on the December Caribbean cruise with you on Journey, I cannot recall if we mentioned the long cruise (not with Az) we'd booked March from Cape Town across Indian Ocean and into the Far East. Anyway, it was cancelled with a week to go and we had the same dilemma re FCC or cash.

 

For what it is worth, I decided that a 125% FCC was too risky as we are in seriously uncharted territory evidenced by the wavering ABTA/ATOL positions.....chose cash refund, now secured, and with every passing day more convinced it was the right decision.

 

Take care, stay well, enjoy the spell of decent weather for a few more days!

Edited April 23, 2020 by hamrag

[Mrs Miggins]

Would you be prepared to name the cruise company that have already refunded your money ?  

Thank you.

[hamrag]

1 hour ago, Mrs Miggins said:

Would you be prepared to name the cruise company that have already refunded your money ?  

Thank you.

CC rules do not allow that, so not on here. If you email me, and reference your cc name, I shall respond privately.

 

I would be happy to upload the comms between myself and the TA in relation to the matter, if you are trying to find a form of words....let me know.

Edited April 24, 2020 by hamrag

[uktog]

You can name the cruiseline just not the travel agent.

 

Elsewhere, I think given the silence we all need to assume the future cruise certificates are not ABTA bonded in the UK and make our decisions on that basis for the time being.  Azamaras rules do allow you to switch back to a future cruise certificate so long as your refund has not been processed.  Given how long processing is taking, if clarification is forthcoming in the next few weeks you could probably have time to switch out of cash again if you wanted.

 

I wanted to go with the risk up to December of a future cruise certificate.  I wanted to say to Azamara, yes I will come back in due course.  But they needed to be able to answer basic questions in an open forum for me to do that.  On that they failed.  

[Mrs Miggins]

hamrag

It was just out of curiosity.  At the moment I have asked for a refund and am prepared to wait for a refund.  Of course if this process takes more than 60 days then I will think again.  I do not blame my TA and I certainly want them to survive.  They are a small family firm.

At the moment we are not in a position to make plans to cruise but Azamara have not covered themselves in glory and we may well choose Viking next time.  We have been with them twice but they do not have the itinerary flexibility that attract us to Azamara.  

[hamrag]

Mrs M....my apologies, I misread your post as asking about the TA, uktogs' response alerted me to that....the cruiseline was NCL.

 

The TA which I used had taken the line that the refund from NCL would take approximately 90 days.....and it was already a month since the cruise was cancelled. My response to them was that UK law required a refund to be made within 14 days of cancellation, and advised that what NCL do with them (as the TA) ought to be seamless to me....my contract was with the TA and not NCL.

 

The TA (a huge web based UK agency, part of a US equivalent) in question gets almost all my cruise business, so they took my request 'up the management ladder' and refunded my cruise cost in full. At the point I received payment it was 6 weeks since cancellation, and it would have taken approximately a further 80 days for NCL to pay the TA.

[BBMacLaird]

We are currently assessing the new instruction from ABTA on the use of a refund credit note and how this applies to our future cruise certificates.  If you have any concerns in the short term, please feel free to reach out to our contact centre or your booking agent.

[uktog]

31 minutes ago, BBMacLaird said:

We are currently assessing the new instruction from ABTA on the use of a refund credit note and how this applies to our future cruise certificates.  If you have any concerns in the short term, please feel free to reach out to our contact centre or your booking agent.

Our booking agent referred us to Azamara hence the posts!  

Can I ask you post the update once you receive it as waiting to speak to the contact centre just in case isn't possible just now

Edited April 24, 2020 by uktog

[BBMacLaird]

2 hours ago, uktog said:

Our booking agent referred us to Azamara hence the posts!  

Can I ask you post the update once you receive it as waiting to speak to the contact centre just in case isn't possible just now

Will do! Hopefully it won't be too tardy for you.

 

[uktog]

Bonnie

Is there any update.  My travel agent contacted Azamara today and the answer was "we don't know".  So the agent has done all they can and their contact centre knows nothing.......

We want to try and come back but not if the credits are unprotected

[blag]

2 minutes ago, uktog said:

Bonnie

Is there any update.  My travel agent contacted Azamara today and the answer was "we don't know".  So the agent has done all they can and their contact centre knows nothing.......

We want to try and come back but not if the credits are unprotected

Hear, hear! Very, very important. 

[BBMacLaird]

Still nothing definite. Our corporate team in the UK is still working on this.

[Mrs Miggins]

I did not know there was a “Corporate Team” in the UK any more.  What do they do exactly ?

[Bloodaxe]

14 minutes ago, Mrs Miggins said:

I did not know there was a “Corporate Team” in the UK any more.  What do they do exactly ?

Neither did I, thought they had gone with Richard and his team.

[alanbab]

On 4/28/2020 at 9:49 PM, BBMacLaird said:

Still nothing definite. Our corporate team in the UK is still working on this.

 Hi there any news yet?

[BBMacLaird]

6 minutes ago, alanbab said:

 Hi there any news yet?

 

No, no news from corporate yet.

[alanbab]

On 5/4/2020 at 4:49 PM, BBMacLaird said:

 

No, no news from corporate yet.

This topic is in danger of dropping out AND we still don't have a reply. Any news please?

[uktog]

The longer it goes on the more convinced I am there is no protection attached to the certificates. 

[Aulanis]

Whilst the following may not be relevant it may give you something to

get your query moving.

https://www.pocruises.com/travel-health-advisories/future-cruise-credit 

You need to read right to the bottom.

Another interesting thing is that P&O FCC s appear to be transferable

so you can sell them?  to friends or relatives?

 

 

[Grandma Cruising]

Interesting that P & O are saying that their 100% FCCs are definitely covered by ABTA bonding.

[uktog]

That’s been the issue from Day 1 that MSC also addressed and has already been highlighted on here. Any certificate with an incentive is not covered. If Azamara issued two certificates as others have done one for 100% and one for 25% there would be no issue in my mind but one certificate for 125% is a risk 

[blag]

37 minutes ago, uktog said:

That’s been the issue from Day 1 that MSC also addressed and has already been highlighted on here. Any certificate with an incentive is not covered. If Azamara issued two certificates as others have done one for 100% and one for 25% there would be no issue in my mind but one certificate for 125% is a risk 

Exactly!

But will Azamara admit that they hadn't thought this through? Or is their dilatory response indicative of indifference to the problem? Either way, since their current idea of communication with frustrated guests is to issue a Past Guest Survey, it seems highly unlikely that any beneficial response will materialise from Azamara. 

 

I don't know how many 125% FCC's have been issued by Azamara to UK guests, but seeing how SLOWWWLY Azamara is processing refunds and FCC's, how long would it take for them to re-issue such FCC's as two, one for 100%, another for 25%? 

Or is the idea of two FCC's just too intelligent for Azamara management? 

[alanbab]

20 hours ago, blag said:

Exactly!

But will Azamara admit that they hadn't thought this through? Or is their dilatory response indicative of indifference to the problem? Either way, since their current idea of communication with frustrated guests is to issue a Past Guest Survey, it seems highly unlikely that any beneficial response will materialise from Azamara. 

 

I don't know how many 125% FCC's have been issued by Azamara to UK guests, but seeing how SLOWWWLY Azamara is processing refunds and FCC's, how long would it take for them to re-issue such FCC's as two, one for 100%, another for 25%? 

Or is the idea of two FCC's just too intelligent for Azamara management? 

Bonnie please can you push this one again for us.