Viking Terrible Referral Program

[echoxiaxu]

I seldom use social media and seldom share my reviews/opinions in the social media. The experience with Viking regarding my referral credits pushes me to post this review. I wish my unfortunate experience will help the people like me, who loves Viking cruises and promotes it, and finally looses all the referral credits for no reason.

 

I had done two cruises with Viking last year, and really enjoyed the trips. Since then I was promoting Viking cruises to several friends and family members. They all used my referrals and I had earned a few referral dollars. When I tried to use the referral dollars to my next Viking trip lately, I was told all the referrals are "VOID". Reason is "the application is not valid". According to one agent, there was a sentence says that I had done a 42 referrals under the same booking number. Then all my legitimate referrals were taken away. I'm not a travel agent, and I seldom use the social media, not mention to promote anything in social media. How can I refer 42 people for the same trip. I believe I was penalized by the mistake made by Viking itself. After so long talks with several Viking agents, no one can tell me why my legitimate referrals were "invalid applications". Like the other reviews had stated, when the referral dollars were taken away, no notifications were sent to me; no investigations were done. Viking just simply took away the referral dollars like a thief. It is ok to make a mistake. At least, I should be notified and there should be an investigation done before removal of the credits. I have called several Viking agents and was given different excuses, from "system cannot handle it" to "no reason, final decision". The "42 referrals under one booking" was the one I heard that makes the most sense. The Viking referral system is just a mess. Finally there was one responsible agent agreed to send my referrals for review. Will update once I hear anything from Viking.

 

I was shocked by such business approach done by such a "reputable" company. After this incident, I searched and found several similar cases posted in this forum. I wish I had read them earlier. This is the reason I make this review. Hopefully people can be alert when using the Viking referral program.

[TayanaLorna]

I only referred people twice.  The first time the credit was applied to our cruise and our friends cruise immediately.  The second time the credit was applied to our friends cruise but not ours.  When I called our Viking agent he said it won't be applied to ours until our friends complete the Guest Info form on MVJ.  Huh?  They booked a cruuse and it was fully paid up, why does Viking need an on line form completed?  My friends were not very tech savvy so I walked them through downloading MVJ and where to find the form.  They said they completed the form but Viking said they did not so no credit forthcoming.  This happened several times.  You can't make this stuff up.  We did finally get our credit.  But boy has the Viking LA office gone downhill since we took our first cruise.

[Mich3554]

In my experience, I referred people and all was good (2 couples we went on a river cruise with which was booked during Covid).  All of us got appropriate credits.  
 

At the end of last year, I referred another person.  The process had changed.  She had to call Viking and tell them she had been referred and give my customer number.  Everything went through ok, but I had no idea what my customer number was and had to call and ask so I could give it to her.  Viking did not tell her, *I* asked my agent about her reservation and whether she got the credit (and whether I got it too) and he told me the process.  I had to contact her and explain it.
 

I will say though that while we were on the world cruise this past year, I heard a lot of under the breath grumbling about problems that the LA office was causing wrt administrative dealings at the Explorer’s desk.  I have also had to ask in a specific way to the Viking agent I use about making sure my bookings have a 6 month out pay in full date.  In addition, I noticed that he reminds me on each call that our conversations are recorded.  So apparently there is a lot of stuff going on in the administrative side of things that have gotten a lot of people frustrated.  

[Mackdogmolly]

I am still chasing referral $$ from Azamara six months after the friends I referred completed their cruise. So this problem is not limited to Viking!

[Azulann]

6 hours ago, echoxiaxu said:

I had done two cruises with Viking last year, and really enjoyed the trips. Since then I was promoting Viking cruises to several friends and family members. They all used my referrals and I had earned a few referral dollars.

Welcome to Cruise Critic.  Did you cruise on Viking River or Ocean.? Just asking because originally, River cruise folks could refer people and after so many referral they got a free River cruise. See the  pinned thread at the top of the Viking Ocean  ocean forum. I don't think that referral program works like in the past. 

I referred my  sister and brother in-law when they also booked  the same cruise I had booked. I asked the Viking rep about  the referral. He said I had to asked for it , it was not automatic. So  I got $100 per person for this couple, and they got the same. He gave me a future voucher . We were beyond final payment  and close to sailing. I used  this $200 voucher   later when I booked on board: it showed up on  my last cruise invoice  for June of 2023.

This was all on Viking Ocean. 

[echoxiaxu]

I did both Viking River and Viking Ocean last year. I think Viking's referral program applies to both River and Ocean. 

[Peregrina651]

Let's be honest; 42 referrals in one year is a red flag.  Viking assumes that anyone who gets that many referrals in one year is doing something wrong.  

 

Forget chat and forget the call center.  Provided that you not offer online to share your number, contact Viking via tellus@vikingcruises.com.  Explain the problem and tell them you would like a clean,  concise, jargon free answer as to why this is happening to you and what you need to do prove that you acted in good faith so as to get your referral awards reinstated. Include your guest number and a phone number.  

[echoxiaxu]

2 minutes ago, Peregrina651 said:

Let's be honest; 42 referrals in one year is a red flag.  Viking assumes that anyone who gets that many referrals in one year is doing something wrong.  

 

Forget chat and forget the call center.  Provided that you not offer online to share your number, contact Viking via tellus@vikingcruises.com.  Explain the problem and tell them you would like a clean,  concise, jargon free answer as to why this is happening to you and what you need to do prove that you acted in good faith so as to get your referral awards reinstated. Include your guest number and a phone number.  

Thank you for the kind suggestion. I have provided all the booking numbers (also the guests' names, but Viking didn't take it)  that I have referred, and invite Viking to check one by one. I will write an email to tellus@vikingcruises.com as well. thanks again. 

[Peregrina651]

Good luck. Let us know how you make out.

[CDNPolar]

I have not pursued this yet, but have friends that have booked a cruise as a referral from us and the silly part is that one referral credit was given to one of our friends and my husband's name on our booking but the other credit has not been issued to the second guest and to me.

 

We also - as we had in the past - given our friends our booking number and they were told that has no use to Viking, they need our individual customer numbers?  We did not even know where to get those.

 

We have referred twice in the past and the application of the referral bonus was done efficiently and quickly and without hassle.

 

Now, this just confirms that there are problems inside Viking with more than just this program.

 

I am NOT going to spend my time calling or emailing Viking for a measly $100.  It is just not worth my time. 

 

Viking now have some repeat guests from our referrals but my referrals stop when I have to chase them for something that they should be executing quickly and efficiently.  This is supposed to be a "Thank you" for referring someone, not something that I have to chase for.

 

IMO Viking should be considering a loyalty program - that is retroactive - for their repeat guests, rather than this $100 pp referral bonus.

 

[Meander Ingwa]

It sounds like you have run in to a series of help line folks who saw what sounds like an obvious data system issue and have no knowledge or agency to move the issue to someone who does know how to deal with it.  More experienced reps likely do know how to hand on .

 

I have found follow through on my two questions ( general technology health and safety on ship) to be lacking even with the obvious scripted promise of follow through