Onboard Spend

[Laurenish]

Hi All,

I'm a little worried, my partner and I are heading on the Ventura very shortly, whilst we're onboard we'll be paid, so we haven't been very diligent in saving for our onboard spend. I've just found out that P&O pre-authorises daily. We'll have around £100 each for the first 4 days. Should we be worried, or will there only be a ringfenced pre-check of £50 on the first day and then payment at the end? We're with Barclays and Natwest if that makes any difference and were planning on paying via our debit cards.

Any info gratefully received!

[Jennizor]

Hi Laurenish, I must admit I don’t know anything about pre-authorisation. We have been on several P & O cruises and just received an account at the end of the cruise and we paid the balance then. You can also request a statement of your spend at any point in the cruise. I hope this helps.

[Trevor Fountain]

If it were me, I would register with a credit card, but then pay the final bill with whichever card you want to.

[BrianI]

P&O do a daily pre-authorisation based on your actual spend at the time which ring fences the sum of money on your card. Normally you do not see this on your card unless you bump into your credit limit or amount in your account.

I highly recommend that you register a credit card rather than a debit card then you don’t get this problem as most credit cards have a high credit limit.

Brian

[grapau27]

7 hours ago, Laurenish said:

Hi All,

I'm a little worried, my partner and I are heading on the Ventura very shortly, whilst we're onboard we'll be paid, so we haven't been very diligent in saving for our onboard spend. I've just found out that P&O pre-authorises daily. We'll have around £100 each for the first 4 days. Should we be worried, or will there only be a ringfenced pre-check of £50 on the first day and then payment at the end? We're with Barclays and Natwest if that makes any difference and were planning on paying via our debit cards.

Any info gratefully received!

We were on P&O Iona in March and Britannia in April and registered a credit card.

I checked on my banking app daily and each day's spend a request was put on our credit card for the amount spent on that day.

At the end of our 14 night's the total bill was charged to our credit card.

BUT.

The 14 days accounts were in pending for 30 days so for this period my card was charged twice.

A warning if you use your debit card that for example let's say your bill was £700 your available balance would be £1400 short for 30 days.

Fortunately it did not affect us as we used a credit card but anyone using a Debit card might have a problem.

Wishing you a wonderful cruise.

Graham.

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by grapau27

[gsmt47471015]

Only a personal opinion ,I would never use a debit card for our on board account ,always a credit card, in fact we use it for all major purchases and settle it at the end of the month, its a useful tool if anything is faulty or is not what you ordered.

Hope you enjoy your cruise on Ventura😃 

[Bazrat]

We only registered a credit card and at the end of the cruise the total amount that we owed was requested from our card.

[david63]

15 hours ago, grapau27 said:

I checked on my banking app daily and each day's spend a request was put on our credit card for the amount spent on that day.

But only after your OBC was used up.

 

15 hours ago, grapau27 said:

The 14 days accounts were in pending for 30 days so for this period my card was charged twice.

That is dependant on your CC company - some (most?) clear the pending amount when the final account is submitted

[grapau27]

8 hours ago, david63 said:

But only after your OBC was used up.

 

That is dependant on your CC company - some (most?) clear the pending amount when the final account is submitted

MasterCard said to contact P&O but the pending requests usually disappear after 30 days from when the final bill is requested.

It has never been a problem using our credit card on 58 cruises but for the op who said they were using a Debit card it could be an issue.

[terrierjohn]

8 hours ago, david63 said:

But only after your OBC was used up.

 

That is dependant on your CC company - some (most?) clear the pending amount when the final account is submitted

I have never seen a pending amount on my credit card in all the 30+ cruises I have done, or have I not looked in the right places?

[Josy1953]

9 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

I have never seen a pending amount on my credit card in all the 30+ cruises I have done, or have I not looked in the right places?

I have never seen / noticed a pending amount on my credit card either but it could be that it disappears before I check my account.  I do not do online banking when I am away from home as I think that the risk of being hacked is too high on an public network.

[Trevor Fountain]

1 hour ago, Josy1953 said:

I have never seen / noticed a pending amount on my credit card either but it could be that it disappears before I check my account.  I do not do online banking when I am away from home as I think that the risk of being hacked is too high on an public network.

It's not always easy to spot. I currently have £1300 pending for an Etihad Airways ticket, even though that amount has already been taken. I only spotted it online because I noticed my "available to spend" was £1300 less than the difference between my credit limit and my balance. Under my recent transactions" is a very small "pending transactions". which I have never noticed before. When clicked on, there was indeed the very same £1300 pending.

[grapau27]

8 minutes ago, Trevor Fountain said:

It's not always easy to spot. I currently have £1300 pending for an Etihad Airways ticket, even though that amount has already been taken. I only spotted it online because I noticed my "available to spend" was £1300 less than the difference between my credit limit and my balance. Under my recent transactions" is a very small "pending transactions". which I have never noticed before. When clicked on, there was indeed the very same £1300 pending.

That is exactly what I experienced.

P&O did this on Iona in March and Britannia in April but Royal Caribbean Anthem of the seas in May did not do this.

With online banking app I get an instant notification of any transactions in or out of my account.

Graham 

[BouncingWheel]

1 hour ago, grapau27 said:

That is exactly what I experienced.

P&O did this on Iona in March and Britannia in April but Royal Caribbean Anthem of the seas in May did not do this.

With online banking app I get an instant notification of any transactions in or out of my account.

Graham 

it might seem that some do not do this but some in fact do it so quickly that you do not even notice or you only notice it when it goes wrong. I believe timings also have a lot to do with this. Some are presented and dropped quickly but if weekend, bank holidays or later in the day then some of the ones that usually disappear will hang around longer than normal. 

 

[grapau27]

2 hours ago, BouncingWheel said:

it might seem that some do not do this but some in fact do it so quickly that you do not even notice or you only notice it when it goes wrong. I believe timings also have a lot to do with this. Some are presented and dropped quickly but if weekend, bank holidays or later in the day then some of the ones that usually disappear will hang around longer than normal. 

 

Fortunately we always use a credit card with a good credit limit but like a previous poster said and I verified was that P&O put a request to our credit card company every day a balance shows and at the end of the cruise they ask for full payment on the day we get off the ship.

The issue is that for 30 days the available balance on a card still has the daily transactions deducted even though the bill is paid.

 

 

[Megabear2]

I can confirm reservations appear almost immediately with Halifax.

 

I also use an Amex card onboard and on one occasion found my account locked.  On investigating it was because the card was registered to our cabin and they were holding duplicated amounts for shore excursions which my mother had actually paid for in cash posted to her onboard account.  When I explained this it was met with a shrug that until the accounts were made final at the end of the voyage the hold would remain.  These excursions actually amounted to several thousand pounds and as a result I had to remove my Amex from the account and replace it with my credit card. 

 

On completion of the cruise it took 14 days for P&O to remove their hold.  I was very relieved I only use the card while travelling.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Megabear2

[david63]

I use Barclaycard and I can see daily amounts as pending. At the end of the cruise the final balance is taken from my CC and all the pending amounts are removed - no waiting 30, or any other, days.

 

It is all about how different CC companies handle the removal request when the final balance is processed.

2 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

it took 14 days for P&O to remove their hold.

No - it took 14 days for your CC company to remove the hold - P&O request it to be removed when they submit the final account.

[Megabear2]

1 hour ago, david63 said:

I use Barclaycard and I can see daily amounts as pending. At the end of the cruise the final balance is taken from my CC and all the pending amounts are removed - no waiting 30, or any other, days.

 

It is all about how different CC companies handle the removal request when the final balance is processed.

No - it took 14 days for your CC company to remove the hold - P&O request it to be removed when they submit the final account.

I can assure you it wasn't on this occasion.  My husband was abroad at the time and wanted the charges released so the card was clear.  We had a lot of communication over 48 hours when I returned and documentation was provided to prove P&O had not released it.

 

Point in question: I currently have £700 of charges held by Viator for excursions in Rome payable on 14th June.  I recently cancelled one and my reserved Amex amount reduced within minutes.  

 

 

[grapau27]

2 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

I can assure you it wasn't on this occasion.  My husband was abroad at the time and wanted the charges released so the card was clear.  We had a lot of communication over 48 hours when I returned and documentation was provided to prove P&O had not released it.

 

Point in question: I currently have £700 of charges held by Viator for excursions in Rome payable on 14th June.  I recently cancelled one and my reserved Amex amount reduced within minutes.  

 

 

It took 30 days in our case with P&O.

I only noticed because I had put the credit card app on my phone.

When I rang the credit card company they said it should disappear in 30 days so this must happen regularly.