Large Online TA featuring on Current Affair tonight (3/5/21)

[Aus Traveller]

31 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

Agree they don't pass the sniff test.  I hope someone has contacted ACCC re the non refund of monies refunded by the cruise lines to this TA.  The worry is they are still advertising cruises for sale.

I only book direct also.   

I think cruise lines will need to recalibrate how they sell cruises.  The amount requested for deposit and the long period when they release cruises for sale got completely out of control.  In addition, the time requested for final payment got sooner.  GREED!

I suspect a lot of world cruisers, who booked a long time in advance, would be worried because they wouldn't be able to get their money back from their credit card company.  

 

I booked the 2020 world cruise through a TA, but not the one featured in the TV show. Everything has been refunded.🙂

[Aus Traveller]

7 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

We waited almost a year before we got the rest of our refund from Crystal for a cruise that was cancelled at the beginning of April 2020. We recovered 75%, ie the final payment amount, after five months through a credit card chargeback but couldn't recover the substantial deposit that way as we'd paid that in October 2018. Unfortunately we lost about $600 in exchange rate fluctuations due to their delay in refunding. It would have been substantially more if we had bern waiting for the full amount to be refunded.

Am I understanding correctly - that you did not receive any refund from Crystal, but only recovered the final payment through a credit card chargeback? That is horrendous. Crystal should have paid you the lot within a few months of the cancellation.

[MMDown Under]

14 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I started getting worried about that TA when those Sapphire bookings went on sale and the Princess site crashed. I managed to get a guarantee cabin hold through tbem but when I looked at the payment dates I wasn't happy so I let the hold lapse. I think they wanted final payment almost immediately, which was months before the Princess final payment date. Little alarm bells started ringing in my head!

You can't beat instinct!  

[OzKiwiJJ]

28 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

Am I understanding correctly - that you did not receive any refund from Crystal, but only recovered the final payment through a credit card chargeback? That is horrendous. Crystal should have paid you the lot within a few months of the cancellation.

After five months we hadn't received anything so initiated a chargeback. That got us our final payments back but we couldn't get the deposit amount back that way as it was outside the chargeback timeframe. However we did get the chargeback amount in AUD. We finally received the outstanding USD amount, ie the deposit less any exchange rate variation from the chargeback, from Crystal about 2 weeks short of a full year since the cruise was cancelled. I doubt we will cruise with Crystal again.

Edited May 4, 2021 by OzKiwiJJ

[OzKiwiJJ]

23 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

You can't beat instinct!  

Exactly.

[NSWP]

11 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

Their website is still a goer.

Here’s a interesting cruise. Should I put a deposit down or save my money?

 

Looks ok, but book direct with P&O Straya, no TA's.

[icat2000]

Just now, NSWP said:

Looks ok, but book direct with P&O Straya, no TA's.

Yeap. What NSWP said. 

[Chiliburn]

1 hour ago, icat2000 said:

Yeap. What NSWP said. 

Yeh , I had a fallout with this mob. I think I booked something and a couple of days the price crashed. They wouldn’t honour the lower price.

I think there’s a cooling of period but they wouldn’t come to party.

 

I like to use a agent, I use one in Melbourne that offers some cruises.

They are the cheapest and then they hit the cruise line for loyalty schemes.

[windsor26]

I have used them (as well as others but only if they wee better)  and I have one booked through them at present Hoping the cruise will actually go ahead as it6 is an inter5nmal Australian one with P&O  but will not pay until the last minute. I personally have no problems withy them but it is strange that they no longer have a telephone number anyone can use and this means it takes about 14 days to ghet6 a reply from an e mail

[windsor26]

Just now, windsor26 said:

I have used them (as well as others but only if they were better)  and I have one booked through them at present Hoping the cruise will actually go ahead as it6 is an internal Australian one with P&O  but will not pay until the last minute. I personally have no problems with them but it is strange that they no longer have a telephone number anyone can use and this means it takes about 14 days to get a reply from an e mail

 

[Aus Traveller]

1 hour ago, Chiliburn said:

Yeh , I had a fallout with this mob. I think I booked something and a couple of days the price crashed. They wouldn’t honour the lower price.

I think there’s a cooling of period but they wouldn’t come to party.

 

I like to use a agent, I use one in Melbourne that offers some cruises.

They are the cheapest and then they hit the cruise line for loyalty schemes.

I think there is only a cooling off period for items you purchase (like from door-to-door salesmen) where they solicited you for the sale. I don't believe it would apply where you contact a business to buy or book something.🙂

[Chiliburn]

15 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

I think there is only a cooling off period for items you purchase (like from door-to-door salesmen) where they solicited you for the sale. I don't believe it would apply where you contact a business to buy or book something.🙂

The agent I use now gives a week I believe.

[Chiliburn]

1 hour ago, Aus Traveller said:

I think there is only a cooling off period for items you purchase (like from door-to-door salesmen) where they solicited you for the sale. I don't believe it would apply where you contact a business to buy or book something.🙂

Actually bruise offers gives 2 weeks cooling off period ( or they used to )

They give you a email when THEY have to pay the deposit to the cruise line .

 2 weeks and they are flexible in that time.

Ive had them rebook a lower price,not a problem.

[mr walker]

Just as you can't put all cc posters in one basket, the same applies to TA's. We have used TA's to book cruises, more recently only for charter cruises where you have to book thru the appointed agents, and in general all was good.

Our music charter cruise last year was cancelled due to COVID & the agency returned our money (over $4000) with no issue.

 

That said, for a cruise only ie no air etc, it is easy to book direct with cruise-line & not use a TA. 

[CRUISING ALONG]

 

The following statement is on A Current Affairs website. Believe it or not:

 

Statement by an Ozcruising spokesperson:

As I am sure you are aware it has been a very difficult time in the Travel industry over the last 14 months. The cruise industry has been completely shut down due to Government ban not allowing the ships into Australian waters. As Australian based cruises are our only source of income, this has had a massive impact on us along with everyone who works in this industry.

As a result of the end of Jobkeeper we have lost 75 per cent of our workforce which has resulting in unavoidable delays in processing refunds.

Ozcruising has had over 27,000 passengers impacted by the cancellation of their cruises.

With multiple cruise lines offering different options for each booking, Ozcruising works as the middle man we have to receive the request from the passengers (if they would like a credit or a refund) then pass this on to the cruise line, as well as responding to client emails.

There are processes and procedures that we must follow in order to ensure all funds have been received before we are able to refund to each individual booking. This is an extremely manual and difficult process, we are trying to do this in the fairest way possible which is cruise sail date order.

There are many factors and restrictions by the banking sector that also relate to how many refunds we are able to process per day but I can assure you that we are working as hard as we can to get all refunds out to all affected passengers, unfortunately this takes time.

We are proud to say we have processed over 70% of these refunds. We have been and still are working with the suppliers to provide their refunds.

Ozcruising has waived all fees and will continue to provide refunds during this difficult period.

 

 

Cheers

CRUISING ALONG

[icat2000]

Well its good if they have processed 70% of the refunds to date. 

 

Maybe they are just a bit large. 

 

However, job keeper has just ended. 

 

So, they refunded 18,900 passengers so far, so they would have another 8,100 passengers to go. And they lost 75% of their workforce (if they referring to just recently when the scheme ended). It seems like it could take another 12 months for people to get their money back. 

[RosieCanberra]

We had a cruise booked for January 2021 with this agency, had only paid a deposit of $400. We did a chargeback on our credit card last October, no problem. We had used them a few times previously, always had good service, great prices. Such a shame this is happening. 

[Chiliburn]

39 minutes ago, RosieCanberra said:

We had a cruise booked for January 2021 with this agency, had only paid a deposit of $400. We did a chargeback on our credit card last October, no problem. We had used them a few times previously, always had good service, great prices. Such a shame this is happening. 

It is a shame because they where a great cruise agent and hopefully I will use them again.

[Gnomey]

I have used this company exclusively for some time now and have no complaints. Company policy is no price matching and I have lost a few dollars with this in the past but on the other hand they consistently offer the most competitive price at the time of booking. They have been most helpful sorting out some issues both domestically and internationally and I'll be quite happy to deal with them again when things settle down.

We had a cruise booked through them with Princess and after quite a while they refunded the fare in full. Princess said at the time of cancellation that Princess would give us the 125% refund deal but they ended up just refunding the TA. I can imagine they run a very tight line, budget wise, in order to offer such competitive pricing and to have this Pandemic thrown at them effectively killing the business must be so hard. Maybe we should be thankful they are still trading and paying back what they can, as they can. The alternative is bankruptcy and no cash back for anyone!

 

Gnomey.

[cruise love]

14 hours ago, icat2000 said:

There something dodgy happening when they been refunded the money from the cruiselines and still after 8 months they haven't given it back to the passengers.

 

I think the money gone.

 

Be interesting to hear from people who were successful at getting a refund.

 

I used to use this company a lot about 5 years ago. However, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole now. I'm also very wearing about paying money for cruises many months ahead (this applies to many Cruises TA and TA's in general).

 

My rule of thumb is to book directly with the cruiseline or airline or hotel. Have been doing this for awhile now. 

I got my money back from this company after about 5 months from cancellation

i emailed 3 times with their proforma response but the did answer personally after about 2 weeks

had to go back to them as they said I had a non refundable deposit but this was incorrect and the rest of my money was refunded.

 

i have now booked 4 of cruises for 2022 and 2023 but I have done this direct with the cruise line.

[icat2000]

10 hours ago, cruise love said:

I got my money back from this company after about 5 months from cancellation

i emailed 3 times with their proforma response but the did answer personally after about 2 weeks

had to go back to them as they said I had a non refundable deposit but this was incorrect and the rest of my money was refunded.

 

i have now booked 4 of cruises for 2022 and 2023 but I have done this direct with the cruise line.

That good to hear. That will provide some level of comfort for those still waiting for 8 months.

[icat2000]

13 hours ago, Gnomey said:

I have used this company exclusively for some time now and have no complaints. Company policy is no price matching and I have lost a few dollars with this in the past but on the other hand they consistently offer the most competitive price at the time of booking. They have been most helpful sorting out some issues both domestically and internationally and I'll be quite happy to deal with them again when things settle down.

We had a cruise booked through them with Princess and after quite a while they refunded the fare in full. Princess said at the time of cancellation that Princess would give us the 125% refund deal but they ended up just refunding the TA. I can imagine they run a very tight line, budget wise, in order to offer such competitive pricing and to have this Pandemic thrown at them effectively killing the business must be so hard. Maybe we should be thankful they are still trading and paying back what they can, as they can. The alternative is bankruptcy and no cash back for anyone!

 

Gnomey.

So long as not trading to collect new deposits for future cruises to fund out cancelled cruises. 

[NSWP]

On 5/5/2021 at 9:15 AM, icat2000 said:

So long as not trading to collect new deposits for future cruises to fund out cancelled cruises. 

They could be doing that. I reckon they are close to bankruptcy.

[SuitesRbest]

On 5/4/2021 at 8:32 AM, icat2000 said:

There something dodgy happening when they been refunded the money from the cruiselines and still after 8 months they haven't given it back to the passengers.

 

I think the money gone.

 

Be interesting to hear from people who were successful at getting a refund.

 

I used to use this company a lot about 5 years ago. However, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole now. I'm also very wearing about paying money for cruises many months ahead (this applies to many Cruises TA and TA's in general).

 

My rule of thumb is to book directly with the cruiseline or airline or hotel. Have been doing this for awhile now. 

Much the same for us, directly book through cruise line. You are in control of it all no middle man stuffing around.

[bazzaw]

As P T Barnum once famously said - there's a sucker born every minute!   In this instance, I am thinking of those fools who would outlay real cash for a cruise at the moment, either deposit or final payment. 

Edited May 11, 2021 by bazzaw
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