Pre-tipping vs paying at the end of trip?

[Snowcat1]

If you don’t prepay the tip, is it just added to your bill at the end of the cruise. Is it the same amount? Or do you get a discount for pre-paying your tip?

[MELSMOM47]

No difference. I think some people are able to use their OBC. 

[CDR2001]

Onboard, you can adjust the amount you’d like to pay for gratuities, more or less at your discretion. We prefer not to prepay, so that any remaining onboard credit or excursion refunds can be used for the tips. We settle up on the second to last day onboard. We also hand deliver a gratuity to our room steward and helpful servers. 

[The Other Tom]

Viking issued us some non-refundable OBC, which went straight to paying "tips".  If we had pre-paid, we would have lost the OBC. 

[-Lew-]

1 hour ago, The Other Tom said:

Viking issued us some non-refundable OBC, which went straight to paying "tips".  If we had pre-paid, we would have lost the OBC. 

 

Would you kindly explain why your OBC would have been lost?  We have some OBC on a future cruise and expect to use it once onboard.

[RonWY]

Stepping in here. There are two types of OBC, refundable and non-refundable. At the end of the cruise the unused refundable will go back onto the credit card you have on file, while the remaining non-refundable will be lost. Viking uses the non-refundable first which is good. For example, if you cancel a paid excursion onboard you will be issued refundable OBC. An example of non-refundable OBC, is a credit you may be issued if you book another cruise while onboard. Very nice to have not prepaid gratuities to eat up any potential non-refundable OBC you may unexpectedly receive. 

Edited March 18, 2023 by RonWY
Spelling

[-Lew-]

13 minutes ago, RonWY said:

Stepping in here.

 

Thank you, @RonWY, for your explanation...much appreciated.

[Clay Clayton]

19 hours ago, RonWY said:

Stepping in here. There are two types of OBC, refundable and non-refundable. At the end of the cruise the unused refundable will go back onto the credit card you have on file, while the remaining non-refundable will be lost. Viking uses the non-refundable first which is good. For example, if you cancel a paid excursion onboard you will be issued refundable OBC. An example of non-refundable OBC, is a credit you may be issued if you book another cruise while onboard. Very nice to have not prepaid gratuities to eat up any potential non-refundable OBC you may unexpectedly receive. 

 

19 hours ago, -Lew- said:

 

Thank you, @RonWY, for your explanation...much appreciated.

No real disagreement but just an FYI in our case (three different times) our remaining refundable credit was not refunded to the credit card on record, rather we received a check from Viking two or three weeks after the cruise. 

[RonWY]

20 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

 

No real disagreement but just an FYI in our case (three different times) our remaining refundable credit was not refunded to the credit card on record, rather we received a check from Viking two or three weeks after the cruise. 

Interesting about your experience getting checks mailed. We have had only one experience of refundable OBC going to our credit card, which was on Ocean. Were your experiences Ocean or River? I have the impression onboard credit card transactions are handled very locally. 

[Clay Clayton]

4 hours ago, RonWY said:

Interesting about your experience getting checks mailed. We have had only one experience of refundable OBC going to our credit card, which was on Ocean. Were your experiences Ocean or River? I have the impression onboard credit card transactions are handled very locally. 

This was on Ocean cruises. One in Asia and two transatlantics. Would probably have been three but didn’t realize the travel agent provided credit was refundable on our first cruise so we worked hard 🥃🍸🍷 to spend it all! 😂

[zalusky]

6 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

 

No real disagreement but just an FYI in our case (three different times) our remaining refundable credit was not refunded to the credit card on record, rather we received a check from Viking two or three weeks after the cruise. 

 

And thats a good thing because you get to keep the CC points generated where as if it went back to the card you lose them.  Say a 14 night cruise at $17/day = $476.  3% = $14.28 and higher depending on longer itineraries.  Do cancelled excursions come back in the check as well?

[formernuke]

Our cancelled excursions came back on board as an adjustment to our bill. I suppose perhaps an excursion cancelled on the (next to) last day might come as a check or back to your CC...

[Mich3554]

8 hours ago, RonWY said:

Interesting about your experience getting checks mailed. We have had only one experience of refundable OBC going to our credit card, which was on Ocean. Were your experiences Ocean or River? I have the impression onboard credit card transactions are handled very locally. 

We received checks of our refundable OBC Dec 2021. We both received a nice sized check.  It was an ocean cruise, actually 3….Athens to Santiago on the Jupiter. 

[Heidi13]

9 hours ago, RonWY said:

Interesting about your experience getting checks mailed. We have had only one experience of refundable OBC going to our credit card, which was on Ocean. Were your experiences Ocean or River? I have the impression onboard credit card transactions are handled very locally. 

 

After the 2020 World Cruise we also received a cheque for the refundable OBC. Arrived about 6 weeks after we disembarked.

[uktog]

16 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

 

No real disagreement but just an FYI in our case (three different times) our remaining refundable credit was not refunded to the credit card on record, rather we received a check from Viking two or three weeks after the cruise. 

Same here but it took 8 weeks and several phone calls 

[Clay Clayton]

5 hours ago, uktog said:

Same here but it took 8 weeks and several phone calls 

We only had that problem with getting refunded the prepaid gratuities after our transatlantic turned back to Miami in March 2020 and ended up being three days shorter than what we had paid for.  Got an almost immediate refund of the prorated cruise fair but like you it too a couple of months and many emails, tweets, and phone calls to get the gratuities back. 
 

That’s the other reason we don’t prepay anymore. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Clay Clayton