Cunard website and payments: frustrated

[maggielou362]

Hello Wise Cunard Voyagers,

Does anyone else find the Cunard website frustrating?

I am in Australia and have tried several times unsuccessfully to pay my outstanding balance.

via the website. My details appear to be accepted; the page then says "please wait while your payment is processing..."

Then an error message comes up. Just says try again, or "try again later, there may be a technical issue".

What other option is there to pay my balance? 

The only phone number I can find seems to be in either USA or UK.

Do they not want me to pay the balance?

Next time I will use a travel agent.

Thanks in anticipation 

[geordiebing]

13 minutes ago, maggielou362 said:

Hello Wise Cunard Voyagers,

Does anyone else find the Cunard website frustrating?

I am in Australia and have tried several times unsuccessfully to pay my outstanding balance.

via the website. My details appear to be accepted; the page then says "please wait while your payment is processing..."

Then an error message comes up. Just says try again, or "try again later, there may be a technical issue".

What other option is there to pay my balance? 

The only phone number I can find seems to be in either USA or UK.

Do they not want me to pay the balance?

Next time I will use a travel agent.

Thanks in anticipation 

I had that problem yesterday trying to check in on my forthcoming cruise. Tried again this morning and had no problem

[maggielou362]

I have now found the phone number in Australia so I will call them when they are open.

Thank you Geordiebing 🙂

[LittleFish1976]

54 minutes ago, maggielou362 said:

I have now found the phone number in Australia so I will call them when they are open.

Thank you Geordiebing 🙂

They'll be open tomorrow morning.

[maggielou362]

Thanks LittleFish1976 🙂

[foodsvcmgr]

My experience in the US is that you can make your initial deposit online but that you need to call to pay the final balance.

[Pushpit]

Different locations use different website front ends.

 

But when I had the same problem as the Original Poster, I initially solved it by trying a new browser (Edge instead of Chrome). When I delved a little bit more, I found out the root cause: the Cunard UK website is not optimised for the current Google Pay + Chrome protocols, but it gives the impression that it is OK from the screen. That is, until you submit and you then get the error message.

 

So on Chrome, and in my UK based case, I simply wrote all the numbers and letters out, rather than let Google Pay auto-fill them. Alternatively, delete the last character on each line, and type it manually. The field goes from grey to white. The drop down date boxes need changing too, so select one random month, then move it back to the correct month. Or switch off Google Pay and go Chrome Incognito and do it all there.

 

[bluemarble]

28 minutes ago, foodsvcmgr said:

My experience in the US is that you can make your initial deposit online but that you need to call to pay the final balance.

 

The other option we have in the US when booking directly with Cunard is to request Cunard to automatically take the final payment on the due date from the credit card used for the deposit. Here is the dialogue from the Cunard US website booking engine.

 

"Balance payment options:

 

( ) Pay automatically

Selecting this option authorizes us to automatically take payment of your balance on the due date.

 

( ) Pay manually

You will need to call our Customer Service Department to pay your balance by the due date."

 

I have to admit to not being all that trusting about this option. I usually book via a travel agent, but one time when I booked directly with Cunard and chose the "Pay automatically" option, I went ahead and called them about a week before the final payment date anyway to make the payment over the phone just to be sure. I suppose others who have booked directly with Cunard in the US have found the automatic payment process works smoothly or else we would have heard reports to the contrary here.

Edited October 13, 2023 by bluemarble

[TouchstoneFeste]

1 hour ago, bluemarble said:

I have to admit to not being all that trusting about this option. I usually book via a travel agent, but one time when I booked directly with Cunard and chose the "Pay automatically" option, I went ahead and called them about a week before the final payment date anyway to make the payment over the phone just to be sure. I suppose others who have booked directly with Cunard in the US have found the automatic payment process works smoothly or else we would have heard reports to the contrary here.

Like you, I didn't trust the autopay last year and paid manually ahead of time. This year I let it ride and everything worked smoothly.

[SedNabokos]

On 10/13/2023 at 12:50 PM, maggielou362 said:

Does anyone else find the Cunard website frustrating?

Very.  I tried twice to book a cruise direct with Cunard instead of going through a third party, but in both cases their website let me get all the way through to the payment page, followed by a "something went wrong, please phone us during business hours"

 

In both cases it was easier to just go ahead and book the same cruise via a Travel Agent website.  Their website makes it much easier to look at cabin availability too.

[martinmct]

I’ve just completed payments for QM2 next year, and received confirmation back from Cunard that all is well! I too, experienced difficulties with the website - particularly making payments using my Windows Desktop. All was well when I used my Apple ipad to carry out the transactions.

Whilst I acknowledge that not everyone has different hardware access to the internet, this worked for me.

It has to be said though, that this solution can be useful with other websites from time to time along with use of different browsers - eg chrome/safari. The technical world is not a perfect one, whatever we may be lead to believe!

 

[NE John]

I just booked Alaska next year direct with Cunard on the phone with a real person and it was very pleasant and easy. Got a great “call only” deal too for PG. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

22 hours ago, NE John said:

I just booked Alaska next year direct with Cunard on the phone with a real person and it was very pleasant and easy. Got a great “call only” deal too for PG. 

 

I booked Alaska on that "call only." Excellent deal and a real person who knew what he was doing. Very little background noise, so I suspect he was working from home or in a quiet office rather than at a call center. When I said I thought this one would put me over one year on Cunard, he said no, I have 377 days already, so he had my World Club info up in front of him. Surprisingly organized for Cunard!

[maggielou362]

All paid for now, I spoke to a PERSON on the phone 😲

Getting very excited...

Many thanks to all who shared their wisdom.

[exlondoner]

Speaking to a person makes such a difference. 🙂

[maggielou362]

Certainly does, exlondoner. Should be an available option in life more often!

[david63]

1 minute ago, maggielou362 said:

Should be an available option in life more often

I believe that Carnival will be having humans available across all their brands in the not too distant future - as a "pay extra" option🤣🤣🤣

[Victoria2]

Easy peasy, I'm with SedNabokos ,  book through a cruise travel agent. They do all the work for you.

[sfred]

FYI for those in Australia, Cunard has added a final balance online payment functionality to the EN-AU website.  I first noticed it a month or so ago, and had the opportunity to try it for the first time this morning.  The "Pay my balance"  link from the "Account" tab on the main menu is shown below:

 

After entering name, dob, booking reference, and card details, it worked fine, and happily accepted my Australia visa debit card.  It correctly did not add the Australia visa credit card surcharge of 1.1%.  The updated booking confirmation email arrived within a minute or two of processing the payment.

 

We complain so often, with justification, about Cunard IT.  Nice to see they get things right now and again.  Of course, it isn't rocket science to have a payment mechanism on a website, but still, thanks Cunard.

 

Not sure if this also now works for our New Zealand mates across the Tasman?

Edited February 4 by sfred