NCL Comes Through!

[JamieLogical]

I know that NCL has made some bad calls in the past and really adversely affected some of their customers with decisions to cancel and not adequately reimburse them, but I have a positive experience to report.

 

Way back, in the pre-COVID times, we were booked on a 12-Day Southern Caribbean sailing on the Bliss in December of 2019. After we had booked the sailing and made final payment, prices dropped pretty substantially. In fact, they dropped $690 per person for our BA balcony. We called up our PCC and she called whoever she needed to call to make us an offer on a upgrade. They offered us a mini-suite (what is now a "club suite", minus the extra amenities) and we weren't interested, because we were booked in a BA with an angled balcony and the bigger balcony was more valuable to us than the bigger bathroom in the mini-suite.

 

Next they offered us 25% of the price difference as onboard credit or 50% of the difference as future cruise credit. We took the FCC and immediately used it for a sailing on the Bliss in March, 2020. The way the FCC was applied, it just lowered the initial base cruise fare, so it did not show up as a line item deduction/credit on our invoice. Then, of course, our March 22, 2020 sailing got canceled due to COVID. We received 100% of the cruise fare as one credit, and 25% of he cruise fare as an additional credit. However, neither of these reflected the $345 per person "discount" we had received by applying out FCC and the $345 was not returned to us as a separate credit.

 

We called our PCC and she submitted some sort of ticket on our behalf to see about getting us the $345 pp back on our account (though really I think it should have been $431.25 pp at this point, because of the 25% extra credit we should have received). Anyway, fast forward to last month. We were finally booked on a cruise that we are certain will actually sail: a B2B out of Jamaica on the Joy in September. My PCC finally got word back that the $345 pp credit had expired in December, 2020, because it was only good for a year. She told me how to submit a claim with NCL customer service to try to get the expiration date extended, since we obviously had no opportunity to use the credit between our canceled March sailing and December, 2020.

 

Yesterday they finally came through! They extended the credit for another year. We have to spend it before December 2021 on a sailing that sails before December 2022. No problem there, since we are booked for September. Keeping in mind that NCL never had to offer us this credit in the first place, I am really happy with the outcome. When prices go up between booking and sailing, NCL doesn't come back to us to pay the difference. So offering us a 50% credit on a price drop between booking and sailing was generous in the first place. And while it wasn't our fault we couldn't use the FCC before it expired due to COVID shutting down cruising, it wasn't NCL's fault either, so they could have stuck to their guns with the expiration. Happy to report that sometimes NCL customer service does come through!

[littlelulu01]

Thanks for sharing.  They made me whole and then some too. I took credits instead of cash refunds for my sailings. It was pretty fun booking the Prima at great rates with my credits. I got lucky (or at least I think) with my 2021 September getaway rebooked sailing.  It looks to be a go and was a fantastic deal with all the discounts from the March 2020 canceled  sailing. It took a while to get sorted out but my pcc stepped up and was able to help me after the travel agent disappeared. If I’ve learned anything from all this it’s that patience pays off. Ncl has done right by me and I have faith in them as a company. Kinda nice now reaping the benefits from taking the credits vs the cash back.  Did the same with canceled airfares and came out ahead. 

[DCGuy64]

Congratulations, @JamieLogical. That's great news.

On a related topic, I saw that the price for our upcoming cruise on the Gem had gone down. I contacted our TA and he got our price reduced by almost $600. 😃

[graphicguy]

Wonderfull news.  Thanks for sharing.  NCL made me whole, too.  And, then some on top of it.

[AKR2011]

Congrats, @JamieLogical! Side note, did you ever post your review of the resort you went to? I really wanted to read it.

[JamieLogical]

6 minutes ago, AKR2011 said:

Congrats, @JamieLogical! Side note, did you ever post your review of the resort you went to? I really wanted to read it.

 

I did not. I wrote about 1/5 of it and lost steam. I think I might try to post a more brief version of what I had planned.

[seemoreroyals]

Nice to hear a positive report in regards to actions taken by NCL.  About this time a year ago we were getting a little nervous as we had put 2 cruise certificates plus $1000 on deposit for a haven sailing.  We knew the writing was on the wall and that our cruise out of NOLA in December was going to be cancelled due to COVID.  A lot of negative detractors on here were predicting BK for NCL so we did not know what to expect.  

 

We contacted CAS where we had made the arrangements and were told it would take a couple of months to have our deposit returned.  If I remember correctly we received our deposit back in less than a month.  We are glad we never lost confidence in NCL.  They have always been fair and above board with us.  We are rescheduled for this coming December.  Can't wait.  We are both fully vaccinated and looking forward to the resumption of cruising.