Rebooking an excursion with OBC

[ColonyGirl2]

Has anyone had a happy experience with getting a credit card booked excursion, rebooked (and refunded) once on board and replacing it with OBC?  I realize if the excursion is sold out by boarding time it would not work, but does HAL have a policy in place that allows you to rebook with OBC?

 

We are on a Med cruise this fall and have a lot of OBC plus $300 excursion credit (already used)  from Have it All, plus stock credit.  We will need to use some of it for excursions, but I worry about the interesting ones being sold out, if we wait.   I really don't want to spend the OBC on store stuff.

[FOPMan]

One thing to be very careful of is HAL’s cancellation policy. We have done just as you described on a multi-week cruise early on, with the excursion being near the end, so we weren’t running into what was then a 3 day cancellation rule. It was effectively a cancellation and a new booking,  not a change of payment (which is what youd need, not really a cancel/rebook).

[REOVA]

Have excursion desk do it on board. They can rebook your prepaid excursion with OBC so you dont lose your tour (if its full and waiisted). You will have a refundable balance of the original credit card amount on your cabin statement. You can then apply that to any expenses, get cash back before disembarkment or have it returned to credit card after the cruise. Sometimes tour prices increase onboard but the ability to have a popular tour booked (precruise) and then being able to use OBC is worth any slight increase. 

[gregma60]

Quick question.  From other threads, I'm confused about OBC.  Some say it's use it or lose it, some say you get the cash back at the end.  Are there different situations that would cause one or the other?  

 

-gregma

[bennybear]

We did this as well,  it was early on and the excursion was still available so we had no issues.  
 

@gregma60 there are two types of OBC, refundable usually from your TA and non refundable usually from HAL.  So it depends what type, they usually draw down the non refundable first.

Edited March 29, 2023 by bennybear

[Ellencruise]

1 hour ago, REOVA said:

Have excursion desk do it on board. They can rebook your prepaid excursion with OBC so you dont lose your tour (if its full and waiisted). You will have a refundable balance of the original credit card amount on your cabin statement. You can then apply that to any expenses, get cash back before disembarkment or have it returned to credit card after the cruise. Sometimes tour prices increase onboard but the ability to have a popular tour booked (precruise) and then being able to use OBC is worth any slight increase. 

Oh good to know. Thanks

[gregma60]

1 hour ago, bennybear said:

We did this as well,  it was early on and the excursion was still available so we had no issues.  
 

@gregma60 there are two types of OBC, refundable usually from your TA and non refundable usually from HAL.  So it depends what type, they usually draw down the non refundable first.

Thank you so much!

 

-gregma

[ColonyGirl2]

Thanks everyone.  This is a B2B and most of the ship's excursions that we are interested in are for the second half, so better chance we can cancel and rebook, or just wait until we are on board.  

[jaapie]

Can OBC be used for the daily service charge of $16 each per day?

[Cruise Suzy]

12 minutes ago, jaapie said:

Can OBC be used for the daily service charge of $16 each per day?

Yes

[3rdGenCunarder]

1 hour ago, ColonyGirl2 said:

Thanks everyone.  This is a B2B and most of the ship's excursions that we are interested in are for the second half, so better chance we can cancel and rebook, or just wait until we are on board.  

 

You might not be able to cancel and rebook the second leg excursions until you're on the second leg. People have been reporting difficulties with booking tours (and maybe also specialty restaurants) for the second leg while they're on the first leg. Not a HAL rule, just a glitch in the system.

[jaapie]

46 minutes ago, Cruise Suzy said:

Yes

Thank you Cruise Suzy. It has been 12 years since my last HAL cruise so I couldn't remember.

[Haljo1935]

Yes, I have done this several times, as recently as last month on Nieuw Statendam, Dec on Koningsdam and October on Nieuw Amsterdam all to lock in excursions we wanted and had OBC we wanted to use.

Procedure is to pay online in advance and once onboard immediately go to Shore Excursions desk - tell them which excursions you want paid w/OBC. They will do the cancel/refund/rebook for you. The refund will show up in your cabin statement as refundable OBC; any not used will be refunded back to the credit card you put on file w/HAL for the cruise, which may or may not be the original card used to pay for it online (you have to remember that so you don't go looking for a credit on a different card).

It's very important you don't cancel the excursions yourself and try to rebook, let Excursions desk do that, because if the excursion is showing full, you won't be able to rebook and will lose out on it.

And yes, OBC can be used for daily gratuities.

[Ellencruise]

9 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

Yes, I have done this several times, as recently as last month on Nieuw Statendam, Dec on Koningsdam and October on Nieuw Amsterdam all to lock in excursions we wanted and had OBC we wanted to use.

Procedure is to pay online in advance and once onboard immediately go to Shore Excursions desk - tell them which excursions you want paid w/OBC. They will do the cancel/refund/rebook for you. The refund will show up in your cabin statement as refundable OBC; any not used will be refunded back to the credit card you put on file w/HAL for the cruise, which may or may not be the original card used to pay for it online (you have to remember that so you don't go looking for a credit on a different card).

It's very important you don't cancel the excursions yourself and try to rebook, let Excursions desk do that, because if the excursion is showing full, you won't be able to rebook and will lose out on it.

And yes, OBC can be used for daily gratuities.

Wow good info!!

[ColonyGirl2]

On 3/30/2023 at 9:32 AM, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

You might not be able to cancel and rebook the second leg excursions until you're on the second leg. People have been reporting difficulties with booking tours (and maybe also specialty restaurants) for the second leg while they're on the first leg. Not a HAL rule, just a glitch in the system.

I misspoke in that, even though this is offered as two 12 cruises, it was also available as one 24 day cruise.   We booked it as the 24 day cruise, so I hope I should be able to change things in the second half.

[M&L-Colorado]

You will not be able to. The fact that you have a single booking number only matters in that since you have started your cruise you can not go online and book excursions for any part of it. The fact that it can be booked as two separate cruises means that the excursion desk computer system will only have one of those loaded at a time that being your first half. Thus, they will not be able to see the second part excursions during the first part of your cruise. You get the worst of both worlds. Not only that, but while you are on the first part of your cruise people who are not onboard yet but will be on the second part, at least prior to online booking cutoff can book and potentially fill up the excursions on your second part.

 

You can talk to the excursion desk and they may take note of what you want on the second part. They may then book you or contact you as soon as they have the excursions loaded for the second half of your cruise. That could even be the day before the second half starts.

 

This situation is on both HAL and Princess.

[M&L-Colorado]

ColonyGirl2

I feel for you in that I have the same situation. My November cruise is booked as a 21 day but is sailing as a 10 followed by an 11. I am making sure that I have any of the second part excursions that I really want booked prior getting on the ship even if I have to use credit card having used up the 300 dollar excursion credit on other excursions. Then when the second leg starts, I'll talk to the excursion desk to try to change payment to onboard credit which we have alot of.

 

Thus, I'll be trying the procedure mentioned by Haljo 1935 in post #13 twice. Once when first on the ship for the first 10 days and then as soon as the second 11 days starts.

[Haljo1935]

On 4/2/2023 at 1:39 AM, M&L-Colorado said:

...I'll be trying the procedure mentioned by Haljo 1935 in post #13 twice. Once when first on the ship for the first 10 days and then as soon as the second 11 days starts.

Sounds like you have the right plan in place - book 2nd leg excursions now w/CC then have payment method changed once on board. It's unfortunate and frustrating that you can't book excursions for a 2nd (or 3rd) leg once on the first, but until HAL changes it, well shave to continue to find workarounds.

Hope you enjoy the trip and get the excursions you want!!