Use OBC ahead of cruise?

[mjmagee]

New Azamara cruiser here.  Doing the 9 night Iceland intensive Aug. 7 2022.  Want to pre-book some excursions.  Have plenty of OBC from TA and understand I can't use that before the cruise.  Have $200 "signature" OBC from Azamara and want to use that towards my pre-booked shore excursions but I don't see a way to do that.  Help!

 

Marilyn

[PirateWife]

You can use that OBC before you cruise. You need to go to the Booked tab on the Azamara website. Log-in to your account. If you don't have one, create one. Go to your booked cruise and click on Plan my Voyage. There you will find all of the excursions and you can purchase what you want with your OBC. It keeps track of how much OBC you have. And, remember you can always change your mind between now and August 2022. I always book some excursions before cruising. This is a brief explanation but easy to do.

[Grandma Cruising]

You can always book excursions in your account & pay by credit card, then as soon as you get onboard go to the excursions desk, cancel the booked excursions to get a refund to your credit card & immediately rebook them using your TA provided OBC. Just make sure you give sufficient notice (48hours for most excursions, tho’ a few special ones that involve overnight stays are 30 days).

[mjmagee]

So I just could not see my OBC in Voyage Planner and I knew I had seen it in the past.  I called Azamara customer service.  Did not have to wait too long to talk to someone.  She said that if you want to use your OBC to pre-book an excursion that  you would need to call and have them do it.  Seems the ability to see it and use it online was part of some proprietary software they lost with the break out from RCL.  She said they are working on it.  Happy ending however.  I told her I had booked the excursions using my credit card and that they came to 600 and some dollars.  I knew I had $200 OBC.  She offered to apply it and then I would get that amount refunded to my credit card.  I said "go ahead".  Well then she says, "It looks like the price of your cruise has gone down".  She does some calculations, calls my travel agent, comes back on and says my cruise is now $1500 less and I have $700 in OBC!  Yipee! So excursions booked and credit card to be fully refunded.  Thanks for your help everyone!

[PirateWife]

Glad that worked out for you. I can still book excursions online with my OBC. All of my OBC from TA and Azamara gets combined into one lump for booking shore excursions.

[uktog]

Glad it worked for mjmagee but I am a little confused as I have OBC from Azamara and I just used it to book shore excursions online, it did not need the agent - the cost was part OBC and part credit card.  Not sure why the agent would say the ability to do it was lost.

[mjmagee]

Don't know why or how, just that is what the Azamara rep told me but it all worked out.