Royal refusing to return my FCC

[Hammergirl]

This is a long story so please bare with me.

 

In November of 2019, I booked two cruises. One for August of 2020 and one for March of 2021. Each had $1000 non-refundable deposits because they were suites.

 

We cancelled our August 2020 cruise in March of last year due to COVD, but before Royal officially cancelled it. We had paid $3500.00 additional towards this cruise so we were to get $3500.00 back and a $1,000.00 FCC. Well, in June of last year I filed a chargeback for the $3500.00 because it had not been refunded yet. I got my $3500.00 back and my $1000 FCC was issued.

 

In December, we applied that FCC to our March 2021 cruise.

 

At the end of January, that March 2021 cruise was cancelled. We got all of our money back, except that $1000.00. 

 

Well, we have yet to get that FCC reissued. My agent called on March 11th to find out where my FCC was and Royal told her that we would not be getting it back because they refunded us in cash for that last June via the chargeback. This is obviously completely false information as we were NOT refunded this $1000 and furthermore, if we had been refunded for this, how on earth did we apply this $1000 towards another cruise 6 months after they claim they refunded it?

 

Now they said that had to send it to accounting to "research" what happened to it. Well, it has been 3 weeks and according to my agent they are claiming accounting is still looking into it.

 

This is complete BS! They have had this money since November 2019 and now they are trying to steal it from me! My agent has had zero luck on it and I called Royal and they will not talk to me because I went through an agent. I talked to my credit card company and they said that because I did that chargeback in June and that $1000.00 was involved, even though not refunded, that it cannot be disputed again. They said that the company probably knows this and so they will likely keep my money and there is nothing I can do about it. 

[Biker19]

1 minute ago, Hammergirl said:

This is complete BS!

Very likely that is the case - don't expect a quick resolution.

[firefly333]

5 minutes ago, Hammergirl said:

This is a long story so please bare with me.

 

In November of 2019, I booked two cruises. One for August of 2020 and one for March of 2021. Each had $1000 non-refundable deposits because they were suites.

 

We cancelled our August 2020 cruise in March of last year due to COVD, but before Royal officially cancelled it. We had paid $3500.00 additional towards this cruise so we were to get $3500.00 back and a $1,000.00 FCC. Well, in June of last year I filed a chargeback for the $3500.00 because it had not been refunded yet. I got my $3500.00 back and my $1000 FCC was issued.

 

In December, we applied that FCC to our March 2021 cruise.

 

At the end of January, that March 2021 cruise was cancelled. We got all of our money back, except that $1000.00. 

 

Well, we have yet to get that FCC reissued. My agent called on March 11th to find out where my FCC was and Royal told her that we would not be getting it back because they refunded us in cash for that last June via the chargeback. This is obviously completely false information as we were NOT refunded this $1000 and furthermore, if we had been refunded for this, how on earth did we apply this $1000 towards another cruise 6 months after they claim they refunded it?

 

Now they said that had to send it to accounting to "research" what happened to it. Well, it has been 3 weeks and according to my agent they are claiming accounting is still looking into it.

 

This is complete BS! They have had this money since November 2019 and now they are trying to steal it from me! My agent has had zero luck on it and I called Royal and they will not talk to me because I went through an agent. I talked to my credit card company and they said that because I did that chargeback in June and that $1000.00 was involved, even though not refunded, that it cannot be disputed again. They said that the company probably knows this and so they will likely keep my money and there is nothing I can do about it. 

"They said the company probably knows this and so likely will keep my money"

 

If anyone working disputes said they they would be immediately fired where I worked. I am betting you read more into what they said as I've heard similar. I know how carefully we had to speak to not give any advise and our calls were monitored. For instance on a dispute where you kept the credit ..our letter said "the credit will remain on your account". People would say they won the dispute proving they were right. ..we carefully did not say who was right ...they read what they wanted to hear into it.

 

I keep hearing people give the advise to dispute a charge, and think they dont realize this gums up the works with rcl. People also think if they got the credit that means they no longer owe the money and act all mad when they are put in collections. Disputing a charge should only be done if you cant work things out because there may be unexpected consequences. 

[Ourusualbeach]

1 hour ago, Hammergirl said:

Now they said that had to send it to accounting to "research" what happened to it. Well, it has been 3 weeks and according to my agent they are claiming accounting is still looking into it.

From experience I can tell you that when they create a workflow it can take anywhere from 30-60 days to look into it

[AF-1]

good luck.  Hope if gets resolved 

[Hammergirl]

7 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

From experience I can tell you that when they create a workflow it can take anywhere from 30-60 days to look into it

Of course it does. They have had this money since November 2019 so what's another 2 months. It is just such a mess. My agent said that she has several clients being told they are not getting their FCC's back after Royal cancelled their cruises.

[Ourusualbeach]

4 minutes ago, Hammergirl said:

Of course it does. They have had this money since November 2019 so what's another 2 months. It is just such a mess. My agent said that she has several clients being told they are not getting their FCC's back after Royal cancelled their cruises.

I never said it did, I was just telling you in my experience of having been through this with several clients on the expected wait times in this situation 

[JsMom2]

14 hours ago, Hammergirl said:

Of course it does. They have had this money since November 2019 so what's another 2 months. It is just such a mess. My agent said that she has several clients being told they are not getting their FCC's back after Royal cancelled their cruises.

They will not get their money back if they cancelled from the sailing before the cruise line suspended the cruise.  Just as your $1000 FCC is not refundable either.  I understand you aren’t trying to refund the FCC, just get it reissued.  But as others have said, that chargeback really messed things up.  Royal can’t talk to you about your bookings.  But the FCCs are yours independent of the TA.  You can call to ask about the status of your FCC. Give them the original booking number, and the suspended booking number.  They will need to go back to your original booking, and hold that amount in penalty to be able to reissue the FCC. That will also take a workflow.  But workflows are moving much quicker now - they are usually done in 1-3 days.     The hard part will be getting the system to understand that the $1,000 was never refunded - again because of the chargeback.  No it doesn’t make sense, but they are working with antiquated systems which aren’t designed to do everything that is being asked.  Believe me this process is much more painful for the people trying to fix this mess, then it is for you.   They want to get this resolved as quickly as possible.  

[Ourusualbeach]

7 minutes ago, JsMom2 said:

But workflows are moving much quicker now - they are usually done in 1-3 days

Glad to hear that you have had that experience but I have not.  I have 3 currently outstanding for clients and they are all approaching 30 days

[JsMom2]

12 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Glad to hear that you have had that experience but I have not.  I have 3 currently outstanding for clients and they are all approaching 30 days

Hmmm.  It could be that they were returned.  I would call in and ask someone to check the status. 

[Ourusualbeach]

Just now, JsMom2 said:

Hmmm.  It could be that they were returned.  I would call in and ask someone to check the status. 

Nope, still working on them, following up weekly

[JsMom2]

37 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Nope, still working on them, following up weekly

There is some type of issue then.  Good luck with that.  

[Ourusualbeach]

Just now, JsMom2 said:

There is some type of issue then.  Good luck with that.  

They always get resolved it's just time and these days I have lots of that.

[Iamcruzin]

On 4/5/2021 at 11:03 AM, firefly333 said:

 

 

I keep hearing people give the advise to dispute a charge, and think they dont realize this gums up the works with rcl. People also think if they got the credit that means they no longer owe the money and act all mad when they are put in collections. Disputing a charge should only be done if you cant work things out because there may be unexpected consequences. 

I was thinking the same thing all along.  People needed to be patient. There was an overload of refunds and with a decreased staff working from home which created a backlog.  All the chargeback did was create another paper trail that now has to be followed up. I'm sure a lost FCC isn't high on Royal's priority list and the TA doesn't seem to be much help either.