Has anyone else had carnival lose one of your FCCs/OBCs?

[Eli_6]

So,  I have had a total of 9 cruises canceled going back to 2019 when the Mardi Gras Transatlantic was canceled.  My immaculate records show that I have applied 6 of these 9 to future cruises.  I called to apply another and guess what...they say it has already been applied. Only it hasn't. I have been keeping records and should have a total of about $6290 in "future cruise credits" and only 5390 has been applied.  I am not even talking about "on board credit" but just the amount of money I have given Carnival in cold, hard cash that I let them keep for the last 1-2 years that I should be able to credit towards a future cruise.  I just spent 50 minutes on the phone with the rudest (borderline verbally abusive) customer service rep I have ever encountered anywhere who insists ALL of my FCC have been applied from every single cruise I have ever had canceled.  They show me as only having $3350 in OBC and $5390 in FCC.  I contacted my TA and she can't seem to make sense of it either.  I don't really even know who to contact at this point as they are sitting there arguing with me that everything has been applied when I NEVER applied anything from 3 of my 9 canceled sailings. I can't even tell exactly what was applied from what cruise to where because of the goofy way that Carnival applied it.  All I know is that I am short about $900 in cold hard cash and $1800 in OBC according to my own records.  Frankly, I am not even that concerned about the OBC, but I definitely am upset about the missing $900 because that represents money I gave them that I should be getting back.  It was $400 each came from a June 4th sailing on the Legend (so $800 total) and another $100 from a panorama sailing.  They say the June 4th was already applied (even though I never applied it and neither did my TA!!!) to a sailing and they have no record at all of my deposit on the Panorama sailing. 

 

To those of you who took your cash back: You made the right decision!  I will never take FCC and OBC again.  I also will never again buy another Carnival gift card.    

[ultrafighter]

Yikes.  I'd be furious.

[bdever]

Sounds like an issue might be the application and reconciliation of gift cards to the account. When my first cruise was cancelled prior to me getting a PVP I distinctly remember the tone in the Carnival Customer Care rep’s voice when she said “ohhhh…you have paid down your balance in gift cards…” 

[BlerkOne]

Were any of the cancelled cruises rolled over to other cruises that were cancelled? You don't get to keep adding up OBC. Did you pay with different credit cards, gift cards, etc? With some of my refunds, they mysteriously appeared with dates in the past. When I looked at prior statements I found them all.

[NCTribeFan]

Are you sure they didn't refund some of it?

 

I was originally on Legend Med/TA October 2020.  That was cancelled and FCCs/OBCs applied to Med/TA October 2021.  Those were cancelled.  I applied the TA FCC to TA October 2022.  But I applied the Med Oct 2021 cancellation to Breeze that ended up being cancelled when Carnival switched Breeze for Radiance.

 

My TA just booked the Pride to add to my Med/TA to make a B2B2B, but told me that I didn't have the FCC from the Legend/Breeze any longer.  Carnival told her they refunded it.  But we NEVER requested a refund.

 

When I look at my Breeze confirmation, it shows a $250 deposit and a $500 credit, which was from Legend.

 

Sure enough, I checked my Amex statement from last June and there was the $500 refund.

 

She says she has several clients who have issues with FCCs.

 

I'm a CPA and have kept every original confirmation, logged every FCC and OBC on my cruise spreadsheet, and listed when and where it was applied, and what I have remaining.

 

Except I missed the refund.  At least Carnival still shows the OBC.

 

What I don't understand is why Carnival can't do what some other lines have done.  For HAL, you log in to your account and there are your FCCs and OBCs listed.  It's all there for you to see.  With Carnival, you have no idea what they've done.

[N7786W Flyer]

1 hour ago, Eli_6 said:

I can't even tell exactly what was applied from what cruise to where because of the goofy way that Carnival applied it. 

 

I'm sure you probably asked this, but can they give you an accounting of where each of the cancelled 9 cruises FCC/OBC's were applied?  At a minimum, I would think it would be Carnival's responsibility to give a line-by-line accounting of where each $ went.  Also, It would seem that if you had 9 cruises cancelled, to use up all of the FCC's and OBC's you had, you should now have a minimum of 9 new cruises booked.

 

Regardless, I empathize with your issues....with all the myriad of cancellations that happened in 2020/21, I'm surprised more people aren't having the same issues you are. 

 

I know my wife and I had almost 20 cruises cancelled and it's been extremely difficult to keep track of where all the $ went....especially, when a rebooked cruise ALSO gets cancelled and the $ you spent on the original cruise is now removed another 'generation' from the original.

 

I hope you get this all sorted out.

 

Garnett

[BlerkOne]

14 minutes ago, NCTribeFan said:

Are you sure they didn't refund some of it?

 

Yes. Carnival did that to some of mine. Only part of what I paid rolled forward as an FCC and they refunded the rest.

[sailingships]

2 hours ago, Eli_6 said:

So,  I have had a total of 9 cruises canceled going back to 2019 when the Mardi Gras Transatlantic was canceled.  My immaculate records show that I have applied 6 of these 9 to future cruises.  I called to apply another and guess what...they say it has already been applied. Only it hasn't. I have been keeping records and should have a total of about $6290 in "future cruise credits" and only 5390 has been applied.  I am not even talking about "on board credit" but just the amount of money I have given Carnival in cold, hard cash that I let them keep for the last 1-2 years that I should be able to credit towards a future cruise.  I just spent 50 minutes on the phone with the rudest (borderline verbally abusive) customer service rep I have ever encountered anywhere who insists ALL of my FCC have been applied from every single cruise I have ever had canceled.  They show me as only having $3350 in OBC and $5390 in FCC.  I contacted my TA and she can't seem to make sense of it either.  I don't really even know who to contact at this point as they are sitting there arguing with me that everything has been applied when I NEVER applied anything from 3 of my 9 canceled sailings. I can't even tell exactly what was applied from what cruise to where because of the goofy way that Carnival applied it.  All I know is that I am short about $900 in cold hard cash and $1800 in OBC according to my own records.  Frankly, I am not even that concerned about the OBC, but I definitely am upset about the missing $900 because that represents money I gave them that I should be getting back.  It was $400 each came from a June 4th sailing on the Legend (so $800 total) and another $100 from a panorama sailing.  They say the June 4th was already applied (even though I never applied it and neither did my TA!!!) to a sailing and they have no record at all of my deposit on the Panorama sailing. 

 

To those of you who took your cash back: You made the right decision!  I will never take FCC and OBC again.  I also will never again buy another Carnival gift card.    

A couple of things. Check all your rebooked cruises to see if you have an extra lot there. Once when I rebooked a cruise the woman at Carnival just applied one of my many to the new  booking. When I looked at my new EMail and saw it there she said that's what she's suppose to do. I got her to take it off right then. Actually that cruise got cancelled too. 

 

Also you might have got the deposit back on that cruise. I ended up with 20 cancellations. After applying and reapplying the FCC for a third time I just got that money back and realize I was going to have to take a lot of notes and track where the FCC/OBC went and not apply them to any more cruises until we were actually going to cruise. Except for the Celebration TA because that $800 looks nice. The $200 for booking the first day and the $600 for the cancelled cruise.

 

Like you I have a large amount of FCC and quite a lot of lovely $600 OBC and not enough time to use it all. But for the past year I have kept good accounting of where every penny of those FCC/OBC is. After just about going nuts because the cancellations were piling up, I had to do something constructive to keep my sanity. After all, I couldnt take a cruise to relax. 

[Eli_6]

1 hour ago, N7786W Flyer said:

 

I'm sure you probably asked this, but can they give you an accounting of where each of the cancelled 9 cruises FCC/OBC's were applied?  At a minimum, I would think it would be Carnival's responsibility to give a line-by-line accounting of where each $ went.  Also, It would seem that if you had 9 cruises cancelled, to use up all of the FCC's and OBC's you had, you should now have a minimum of 9 new cruises booked.

 

Regardless, I empathize with your issues....with all the myriad of cancellations that happened in 2020/21, I'm surprised more people aren't having the same issues you are. 

 

I know my wife and I had almost 20 cruises cancelled and it's been extremely difficult to keep track of where all the $ went....especially, when a rebooked cruise ALSO gets cancelled and the $ you spent on the original cruise is now removed another 'generation' from the original.

 

I hope you get this all sorted out.

 

Garnett

You hit the nail on the head right there!  That's wherein I think the problem lies.  It is like the worst game of telephone ever. For example, I had my Mardi Gras TA canceled in 2019. I applied $1300+ to a Carnival Legend Europe sailing for summer 2020 plus I paid for the cruise.  It was paid almost in full when canceled.  Then I used that money to book two cabins on a Carnival Legend sailing for summer 2021. I also booked an additional sailing (a b2b) immediately behind it in the same two rooms and paid a deposit for those rooms.  Last January, when summer 21 Europe was canceled. I applied two of those four rooms to two rooms on a Europe 2022 sailing.  I also applied two more from an Iceland sailing where I had paid a $1050 deposit to the immediate cruise following that.  Now they are telling me that I basically applied 6 rooms to four!  Only I didn't. I applied 4 FCCs to 4 rooms.  So, basically, they lost two $400 room deposits and two $600 OBCs.  It is the biggest cluster.  And all I can do is talk to people on the phone. Nothing else.   

 

Oh, and they have no record of a $100 deposit I made on a panorama sailing (which would also have gotten me another $600 obc) last September at all. It is almost like they are saying that I canceled and lost my deposit!  Only I didn't. Carnival canceled the sailing before the final payment was due.  Sigh.     

[Eli_6]

1 hour ago, NCTribeFan said:

Are you sure they didn't refund some of it?

 

I was originally on Legend Med/TA October 2020.  That was cancelled and FCCs/OBCs applied to Med/TA October 2021.  Those were cancelled.  I applied the TA FCC to TA October 2022.  But I applied the Med Oct 2021 cancellation to Breeze that ended up being cancelled when Carnival switched Breeze for Radiance.

 

My TA just booked the Pride to add to my Med/TA to make a B2B2B, but told me that I didn't have the FCC from the Legend/Breeze any longer.  Carnival told her they refunded it.  But we NEVER requested a refund.

 

When I look at my Breeze confirmation, it shows a $250 deposit and a $500 credit, which was from Legend.

 

Sure enough, I checked my Amex statement from last June and there was the $500 refund.

 

She says she has several clients who have issues with FCCs.

 

I'm a CPA and have kept every original confirmation, logged every FCC and OBC on my cruise spreadsheet, and listed when and where it was applied, and what I have remaining.

 

Except I missed the refund.  At least Carnival still shows the OBC.

 

What I don't understand is why Carnival can't do what some other lines have done.  For HAL, you log in to your account and there are your FCCs and OBCs listed.  It's all there for you to see.  With Carnival, you have no idea what they've done.

I never requested a refund, but then I never requested FCC either as I thought if you automatically got OBC/FCC if you didn't call.  It is a possibility they refunded to a card and I missed it and I assumed that I was getting FCC/OBC because that is what the first letters said.  I have also had about 10k in airfare refunded to cards so there has been a lot of refunds going on to cards. 

[Eli_6]

1 hour ago, BlerkOne said:

Were any of the cancelled cruises rolled over to other cruises that were cancelled? You don't get to keep adding up OBC. Did you pay with different credit cards, gift cards, etc? With some of my refunds, they mysteriously appeared with dates in the past. When I looked at prior statements I found them all.

Yes, I realize you don't get to double dip in terms of OBC. But in terms of the $900, I am talking about money I actually paid to them for deposits or for the full cruise fare.  I am right at $900 short which I believe are two $400 deposits for two cabins on June 4th 2021 Norwegian Fjords cruise that I never transferred to another cruise and $100 for a Sept 2020 Pan sailing that I never transferred.  With them comes $1800 in OBC, but I am more concerned about the $900 in actual money I paid that they are (in the case of the $800) saying was already applied to a future sailing (and it wasn't and the numbers don't line up) and, in the case of the $100, saying they don't have a record of the sailing at all...because that isn't just a lost "gift," but money I paid to them that has been lost.  

 

It is all a huge mess.  And, as PP said, this all would be much easier if they would simply allow us to see their accounting and keep track of it ourselves like the other cruise lines.  I have credits with another cruise line and it clearly shows up on my account where I can keep track of it. Carnival doesn't do that and it makes this entire process a million times more difficult.

[TomCruise48]

We have had nine cruises canceled most of which were paid with Carnival Gift Cards.  We applied some of these as FCC on future cruises and took refunds on others.  In spite of Carnival saying that refunds were to be applied to the original form of payment, twice they refunded our credit card when we paid with gift cards.   A couple of previous posters said this happened to them as well.   On one cruise, we had a third guest in our cabin, and even though we paid separately, they refunded part of our payment to the other person.

 

It has been a nightmare trying to keep track of things.  Luckily we kept records of every gift card and where the gift card was applied.  I also created a large Excel Workbook tracking all of the refunds.  After many long phone calls to Carnival, everything is now good until the next cancelled cruise.  Most of our issues were disconnects between Carnival and the third party issuing refunds on gift cards.  Luckily, we have never encountered a rude customer service rep.  If we did, Christine Duffy would be getting a letter.

 

If you used a TA, your TA should have provided documentation for the deposits that were made on the two cruises that Carnival is disputing.  When we make a deposit or payment, our TA always sends us an e-mail showing how much has been paid and what balance is due.  The Carnival TA website (goccl) automatically generates this information for the TA.  I think that our TA told us that once the cruise is cancelled, they no longer have access to this information.

[iamsteph]

Yes, I had this happen, but it was only having to deal with 4 cruises that were cancelled.  I was missing money, same as you.  I think we had the same Carnival customer service rep.  It was after a round of cancellations that I called and I knew they were probably stressed so I was sure to be as pleasant as possible.  But the person I got was quite condescending right off the bat and I eventually called her out on it.  I'd kept records of everything and had had no money whatsoever refunded from any of them.  It basically came down to me walking her through each and every cruise and payment and total paid for the cruise and then where did all that money/credit applied to the next cruise go.  It took forever but she eventually found the missing money and applied it.  Of course that cruise was cancelled.  Lesson learned, I took the refund that time lol.  

Edited June 23, 2021 by iamsteph

[kdr69]

Were they all refundable deposits? Maybe some got eaten up as non refundable deposits?  Just a guess not saying thats what happened.

[NCTribeFan]

Again, why can't they show this in our accounts when we log in?  Other lines have been able to do that?  It's in their system.  Just show us what they have!!

 

Yes, rolling cancellations into another sailing that is then cancelled makes tracking it difficult.

 

I also had some purchased OBC (back when they were having a "sale" and you could buy at a discount).  They refunded that without asking me.  I much would've preferred to roll that to a new booking.

 

I had an $800 deposit on one of my Med or TA sailings.  They insisted on refunded half and applying the other half to my rebooking.  No idea why.  That's the only cruise where they wouldn't roll the entire deposit.

 

When things are done differently for what "should" be the same sort of transaction, it makes things even more confusing.

 

Oh, and HAL also lets you stack FCCs!  I had 3 (two were very small since they were from "free" casino bookings where I'd paid only $200 for the fare).  I was able to roll all three into a 12-night December sailing with their Have It All promo.  As a solo, it typically would've been way out of my budget to include the perks.  Then they had a promo where if you paid a certain sum on the balance, you got additional OBC, so I did that.  Their FCCs have been 125% but their OBC is less, so that's a trade-off.

[SRQbeachgirl]

After having three cruises canceled, I got most of my money back. But after multiple phone calls with Carnival totaling over 7 hours, I gave up on ever seeing the remaining $230 that even a Carnival rep agreed was owed to me. After that phone call I waited three months for the refund. Never got it. Called again and a rep said they had no record of it. 🤦‍♀️

 

I gave up. My time and sanity is worth more than the $230.