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Silversea refund processing time


wren2
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Good to know as I have had another cruise cancelled.  Agree with you that Silversea should be in a better position to facilitate faster refunds - they have had plenty of practice!  Let us hope.

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I cancelled a September Whisper cruise on Apr 29th. That was my choice altho' I thought SS might have to cancel, and they now have, but I'm not bothered missing the 125% FCC, I already have an FCC, don't need more.

My TA got an email this week that it had been processed, and should show up on my credit card the first week of August.

I cancelled the Whisper cruise same day I opted for a cash refund for a June Spirit cruise that SS cancelled - the refund for that came through in five weeks. Obs different processing systems.

Edited by jollyjones
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Hello from New Zealand.  I am a first time poster and with my husband was going to be a first time cruiser on SS with a much awaited cruise from Lisbon to London due to depart 7 May.  It was cancelled on 25 March and our travel agent asked for a refund on that date.   84 days and still waiting /counting.

Just wondering if there is anyone else who was booked on that cruise and if they have received a refund?  Starting to get a little bit "itchy" :  May be it just takes a little bit longer for funds to get all the way down to NZ 🙂

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I would ask your travel agent to contact Silversea, while you are in his office, and also ask whom you should contact directly.  I often spoke to the London office but they said they were overwhelmed and of course all the agents were working from home.  Furthermore, I was told that they now have a better refund processing system in place. I did note that our Americans friends seemed to get refunds within sixty days. I had my sixth cruise cancelled last week and I asked for a refund again. Good luck. 

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Definitely get your TA to contact SS again.

SS have been overwhelmed by the volume of refunds to process, and they are less efficient since they are mostly working from home, but part of the delay with my refund (see my post above) was because SS now 'has a new credit card system in place', whatever that means, so you may have slipped through the cracks.

I waited and waited and waited for the FCC from a cruise I cancelled in March and finally got my TA to contact SS - the FCC turned up almost immediately with an apology for the delay, so sorry 'because have been overwhelmed etc etc ...'

Sometimes you've got to be the squeaky wheel.

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1 hour ago, Tothesunset said:

Cancelled a cruise today through SS London office. Refund in 30-45 days they say. We shall see... 

48 days since cancellation (and counting!) for us.  Refund promised next month.

 

Edited by KennyMandy
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My first cancellation in early March was 81 days and then another cruise was cancelled and I filed for the refund June 24,so we will see. I will be pleasantly surprised to receive it in 30-45 days. Although the London office administers the refunds, the funds are allocated by the Monaco office.  My friend is still waiting for quite minor expenses for a cancelled May cruise and she filed in April. However, this is administered by Guest Relations.

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Thanks for all responses.  We have kept in touch with TA.  Latest advice back from SS to TA on 2 June was:

 

Refunds and Payments

 

Due to the very high volume of requests for Future Cruise Credits and refunds, as well as the Sydney office not open and all staff working from home, our standard processing times are not currently possible.  Silversea’s guests and travel agents should therefore expect a delay of up to 90 days until they receive their payment.

Agent added:

"We've been asked to not contact them chasing refunds as they promise us they are processing the refunds in the order received. "  TA will be chasing at 90 days.

 

It appears that there is not much rhyme or reason for the length of time various other guests in other parts of the world are waiting for refunds.  I will be on to the TA again when the 90 days is up.  When I read other cruise guests were receiving their refunds earlier than the 90 days, I was curious if any other guests who had booked on our cruise had received their refund yet.

Again thank you.

 

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35 minutes ago, MarleyNZ said:

Thanks for all responses.  We have kept in touch with TA.  Latest advice back from SS to TA on 2 June was:

 

 

 

Refunds and Payments

 

 

 

Due to the very high volume of requests for Future Cruise Credits and refunds, as well as the Sydney office not open and all staff working from home, our standard processing times are not currently possible.  Silversea’s guests and travel agents should therefore expect a delay of up to 90 days until they receive their payment.

Agent added:

"We've been asked to not contact them chasing refunds as they promise us they are processing the refunds in the order received. "  TA will be chasing at 90 days.

 

It appears that there is not much rhyme or reason for the length of time various other guests in other parts of the world are waiting for refunds.  I will be on to the TA again when the 90 days is up.  When I read other cruise guests were receiving their refunds earlier than the 90 days, I was curious if any other guests who had booked on our cruise had received their refund yet.

Again thank you.

 

 

 

Both refunds I received were processed through the Sydney office and came through in under the estimated time.  I was advised it would take 45 days, but they were quicker than that.  Hard to understand why there is such variance in processing times.  

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How awful. The service on board Silversea is so wonderful, you expect the same from their offices and are sadly disappointed.  I know in my case, at least for the last three weeks prior to receiving my refund, the money was not being released by Monaco. Will see how my next refund,  filed June 24, is processed. Barbara did tell me in May that they had things in place to enable faster processing.

 

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Totally agree Wren 2.....Silversea experience on board superb, SS office appalling. They must have severe cash flow problems which is understandable in today’s circumstances because it takes maximum 7 days  to process an electronic transfer of funds and normal service would be 3/4 days. Hope you receive your refund quickly.After 22 years of fabulous experience cruising with SS I cannot bring myself to hand over many thousands of pounds which may produce no cruise and at worst no refund if SS should fail financially.

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 We have been cruising almost the same amount of time.  For me 24 years this September. I have booked the seven day Athens cruise in October and if that is cancelled, will not rebook. Too many hassles for refunds. 

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96 days and counting but we have progress we think

 

From Silversea to TA today "the refund has been released from our side and it is in "the middle" with the credit card company.
Once they have processed it back to you and funds have cleared you will be able to get the refund to your client."

 

We are very relieved, we were beginning to lose our faith in our decision to travel with Silversea.  If SS get a similar itinerary reinstated to the one we had booked, we will seriously consider rebooking if we feel it is safe to travel.  International travel out of New Zealand (apart from maybe parts of Australia soon) feels foolish at this stage.  Will post again when we have opened the bubbles to celebrate our refund 🤞

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Our 21 Day May Mediterranean cruise was cancelled due to Covid-19, and we also cancelled our 51 Day cruise that would have started in October. We had booked and paid for both cruises last year, with airfare included, plus we bought Rest Assure Insurance. I am very pleased that Silversea reimbursed all of our money, excluding a small administration fee for one of them. The money was reimbursed to our credit cards without any issue, within 5 weeks of us cancelling through our travel agents.

We look forward to the day we can book again with Silversea. Outstanding customer service keeps us loyal. We have heard some horrible stories of passengers not being able to get refunds and wanted to express our appreciation to Silversea for their customer service. 

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We cancelled our December Silver Wind Antarctica cruise on 5/17 and our refunds were processed on 7/2, exactly 45 days later. We expect the cruise to get cancelled but didn't want to risk losing that much money to get the FCC. Plus, we didn't do enough research before we booked. Our cruise was going to the Falklands first and we want to go to South Georgia instead. We'll try again in 2022/2023.

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On 7/5/2020 at 6:18 PM, wren2 said:

 We have been cruising almost the same amount of time.  For me 24 years this September. I have booked the seven day Athens cruise in October and if that is cancelled, will not rebook. Too many hassles for refunds. 

BBC lunchtime news today stated that UK travel advice for cruising has changed from over 70s not cruising to everybody not cruising.This would invalidate travel insurance and could involve a fine if the Foreign Travel advice is ignored.That advice changes our cruising prospects from may do to never .Hope it changes into 2021,!!

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47 minutes ago, brimary said:

BBC lunchtime news today stated that UK travel advice for cruising has changed from over 70s not cruising to everybody not cruising.This would invalidate travel insurance and could involve a fine if the Foreign Travel advice is ignored.That advice changes our cruising prospects from may do to never .Hope it changes into 2021,!!

Not sure about the fine, it’s advice not law. Agree it invalidates travel insurance.

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Advice from TA will received refund without deduction in our bank account tomorrow🍾🥂

Had my day count incorrect previously, worse than I thought!

Cancelled 25 March = 110 days ...

Phew.

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On 7/13/2020 at 7:49 AM, MarleyNZ said:

Advice from TA will received refund without deduction in our bank account tomorrow🍾🥂

Had my day count incorrect previously, worse than I thought!

Cancelled 25 March = 110 days ...

Phew.

Congratulations! We are still waiting on our refund. We are up to 58 days and TA was told a lot longer to wait when she followed up yesterday. 
We were on the HKG to SYD cruise leaving 10 Oct this year. I looked on the site tonight and am shocked to see they are still selling that cruise. They have a snowball’s hope in hell of bringing a ship anywhere near Australia in October. It’s very disappointing to see that they are taking money from customers for a cruise that will not happen.

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I have seen the same thing with different cruises.  When most September cruises were cancelled, they still showed a September 3 cruise as operating. I just think they like to keep your money as long as possible. They have much in common with some of the scheduled airlines I,e, Swiss where I have been waiting over three months for a refund. This has indeed been a learning curve for me. I have decided no more booking over a year in advance but rather three months before sailing, even if the price is slightly higher. Good luck to you on your refund.  I am awaiting two further refunds but  only filed two weeks ago.

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We were very pleased with our airline Qatar - cancelled our flight on 6 April and we received refund 26 April (having been warned it could take six weeks).

We are holding off from making any other international bookings in the short/medium term, although have received brochure for 2022 travel ...🤞

Have family in the UK so very keen to see them when it is safe for all.

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