Refund Yet?

[nowretiredagain]

Anyone got their refund for their cancelled cruise?

I haven't

 

[LucyPaddy]

No. After I noticed on Fred’s website that our cruise was cancelled I notified our agent on 14 March that we wished to have a refund. I had an acknowledgement the same day that Fred had cancelled the booking and we’d get a full refund. What’s going on?  I must have been one of the earliest to confirm our requirements (even the agent wasn’t aware that Fred had cancelled) yet here we are, more than five weeks down the line and nothing. Unacceptable. Does Fred still have the money or is it with the agent? I just know that someone is dragging their heels.

[nowretiredagain]

Good news, I got my refund back on to my credit card this morning.

I had booked direct with Fred Olsen, if that makes any difference.

[comcox]

Only refund I have received was for a shore tour, nothing yet on the cruise itself which was set for April 18th, but cancelled back in mid March.

[tring]

1 hour ago, nowretiredagain said:

Good news, I got my refund back on to my credit card this morning.

I had booked direct with Fred Olsen, if that makes any difference.

 

Can I ask which cruise you were booked on?  We were booked on the mini leaving Southampton on the 24th March and also the Mystery from Liverpool on the 9th April, so both would have been over by now and we also made our refund requests very early.  I had heard they are dealing with refunds in date order of the cruises, but am not sure if that is the case.

Edited April 23, 2020 by tring

[Roger88]

1 hour ago, comcox said:

Only refund I have received was for a shore tour, nothing yet on the cruise itself which was set for April 18th, but cancelled back in mid March.

Shore tour was probably purchased from a seperate organization. Mid March sounds not that long ago. Usually refunds occur the earliest in 40 days and 90 days. In some cases they take up to 120 days. I wonder how the actualy procedure works. I mean they should have list of all the passangers with additional stuff included. If so, they must have some sort of organization in terms of issuing payments. Say, budget travelers should be refunded in the first place and so on.

[nowretiredagain]

Can I ask which cruise you were booked on? 

 

It was L2007 - Introduction to Iceland leaving from Newcastle on 6th May 2020

[LucyPaddy]

We were also booked on L2007 - via an agent. Useful to know that someone’s had a refund.

[tring]

16 hours ago, LucyPaddy said:

We were also booked on L2007 - via an agent. Useful to know that someone’s had a refund.

 

We have heard nothing about our March and April cruises.  I rang our agent yesterday, who checked, but said they had not had anything from Fred.  We asked for the refund very quickly as well, because I had been keeping an eye on what was happening.

Edited April 24, 2020 by tring

[tring]

We received our refunds yesterday.  I emailing Fred on Friday and a member of his staff rang shortly after to say that our refund was payed to our agents (he thought on or about the 13th April).  So I rang the agent again and the refund was located and sent details sent to Accounts to process the refund to us.

[comcox]

I paid FO directly by credit card, but no refund yet.  Not too worried as FO an up-front company.

[LucyPaddy]

I now know that my lack of a refund is due not to FOCL, who have responded promptly to my emails, but due to the online agent. Will never uses the agent again. 

[Pentlands]

name and shame them

 

[comcox]

Just received my refund this morning for cancelled April 18th cruise.  Now just 2 CMV and 1 P&O refunds to go and I'll have a huge card credit.

[Pentlands]

Promised refund from TA, they have really dragged their feet over this will never use them again, to be on my CC within 6 days......only taken 2 months + 6 days!

[Host Hattie]

On 5/1/2020 at 12:50 PM, Pentlands said:

name and shame them

 

That would be against our guidelines,

 

[LucyPaddy]

No refund yet but Fred staff have told me that it has now been requested by the TA. Want people to know that for me, Fred staff have been great. Each time I’ve emailed them re this, they’ve responded within a few hours by telephoning me. Helpfully too, I also now know that should a later cruise I booked on board be cancelled, I can go straight to Fred re my deposit (balance not yet paid)  rather than dealing with the TA it was passed to.

[Pentlands]

TA's are a waste of time, no worse than that they drag things out unbelievably. Yes they offer a few bucks more but I can manage without that.

 

[Pentlands]

14 hours ago, Host Hattie said:

That would be against our guidelines,

 

Would have thought bad publicity would be ok!🤐

[TheGardener]

I have found FOCL to be very responsive each time I have Emailed them they have telephoned me within a couple of days. Sadly I cannot say the same for our TA they have told us several times that they have requested a refund from FO for our cruise due to sail on 28th April 2020 from Liverpool but when I spoke to a FO representative last week they told me that the TA had not requested a refund. So FO offered to deal direct with me and credit the refund directly back to my account cutting out the TA.  Unfortunately because of the TA's lack of action FO said it would be around 8 weeks before I get the refund so we will be into August by then, 15 weeks after our cruise departure date. I do find it a little odd that it takes 8 weeks to process a simple bank transfer but as long as we get the money back I don't suppose we can grumble. These are very difficult times.

We had booked two cruises for later in the year while on Black Watch in March and FO refunded the deposits for both of these fairly promptly.

In future I will deal directly with FO at all times, I have lost trust in TA's completely it is all very sad it's not the first time we have had problems with various TA's.