NCLH Shareholder Discount

[Candy Apple 12]

1 hour ago, UKstages said:

i would never add a tip for a member of staff to my room charges.,. i have zero faith that they would ever actually receive it or that the tip would not be reduced in some way, with a portion of it siphoned off the top for "employee welfare" or whatever slush fund NCL allegedly puts the onboard service charge into.

I was specifically told by the concierge, assistant concierge, and on board account crew member that additional gratuities cannot be paid for with non-refundable OBC. I did add gratuities to my account. The assistant concierge gave me a guest copy of the receipts and envelopes in which to place the receipts to give them to each respective crew member. I’ve redacted some information, but the receipt clearly shows the crew member who is to receive the gratuity along with their ID number and crew cabin number. If the crew member doesn’t receive it on their account, they have the receipt. 
 

 

[Fogfog]

This is all helpful.

We have OBC from the TA

and $250 from stockholder. 

I gather instead of prepaying to upgrade bev, wifi etc, we will have to do it onboard the first day to make use of the OBC

 

I can upgrade the FAS bev to the Pre + or whatever they are calling it - correct? - on embarkation day with OBC?

[dbrown84]

21 minutes ago, Fogfog said:

I can upgrade the FAS bev to the Pre + or whatever they are calling it - correct? - on embarkation day with OBC?

yes

[bones774]

On 2/9/2024 at 7:17 PM, dbrown84 said:

if you have the $50 excursion credit, sign up (once onboard) for excursions that cost $50 or less.  The cost of the excursion will be taken from your non-refundable OBC.  When the credit is returned to you after the excursion (you don't actually have to go on the excursion if you don't want to), it will be returned at refundable OBC.  Once it has been "converted", you can then use it for the casino, DSC, or buying cruise next certs if you want.  Since I don't make any charges onboard, I just cash out the refundable OBC.  

I have been doing this also. You don't have to go on excursion but I have been present to give the vendor the ticket, the ticket has your name printed on it (the vendor doesn't care if you go, he still gets reimbursed for the ticket), just to be sure. 

PS-I believe this only works when booking excursion onboard. If you book online it becomes more messy. They have to cancel and reissue ticket.

Also figure out your latitudes discount in the equation, and even if excursion costs more than $50 it still takes the $50 out of the N/R obc and returns it as refundable

Edited February 24 by bones774

[dbrown84]

18 minutes ago, bones774 said:

I have been doing this also. You don't have to go on excursion but I have been present to give the vendor the ticket, the ticket has your name printed on it (the vendor doesn't care if you go, he still gets reimbursed for the ticket), just to be sure. 

PS-I believe this only works when booking excursion onboard. If you book online it becomes more messy. They have to cancel and reissue ticket.

Also figure out your latitudes discount in the equation, and even if excursion costs more than $50 it still takes the $50 out of the N/R obc and returns it as refundable

yes, it has to be onboard (I pointed that out in my post).  And since I only pick excursions less than $50, the latitudes discount doesn't matter.

[bones774]

With the $50 credit excursion prices went up too, hard to find at that price

[dbrown84]

14 minutes ago, bones774 said:

With the $50 credit excursion prices went up too, hard to find at that price

yeah.  on my last cruise (10 days) there were 3 the whole trip.  Two for $35 and one for $50, which was good enough for me to convert my OBC

[ontheweb]

25 minutes ago, dbrown84 said:

yeah.  on my last cruise (10 days) there were 3 the whole trip.  Two for $35 and one for $50, which was good enough for me to convert my OBC

Our last cruise, London (Southampton) to Reykjavik on the Prima had absolutely ZERO excursions priced at $50 or less.

[dlh015]

4 hours ago, dbrown84 said:

yeah.  on my last cruise (10 days) there were 3 the whole trip.  Two for $35 and one for $50, which was good enough for me to convert my OBC

OT: Wow. I'm doing the Hawaii to Polynesia in October on the Sun. There are NO excursions less than $100. And darn few of those. I am finding that NCL has the most expensive excursions I've encountered. By far. Fortunately, I usually roll my own. (But then I've only cruised Celebrity, Princess, and Cunard.)

 

Going back to the topic, I am grateful that the OP started this thread. I was unaware of the shareholder OBC and I am indeed a shareholder.

Edited February 24 by dlh015

[lapol]

17 hours ago, bones774 said:

You don't have to go on excursion but I have been present to give the vendor the ticket, the ticket has your name printed on it (the vendor doesn't care if you go, he still gets reimbursed for the ticket), just to be sure.

 

Where exactly do you do this ticket handover? Is it at the meeting point on the ship? Is it off the ship when getting on the bus? Some of the excursions on my upcoming cruise are at times where I might already be off the ship doing something else if I want to take advantage of this trick. 😅

[MagnoliaBlossom]

On 2/11/2024 at 2:41 PM, julig22 said:

AFAIK, yes. Can be used for any optional charge to your account, other than DSC, casino charges or CruiseNext certificates. And depending on the ship, it can sometimes be used for CN.

Julie, I was told this month that SHOBC could not be used for CNs or DSC. I wish there was some consistency at NCL 😵‍💫

[julig22]

2 hours ago, MagnoliaBlossom said:

Julie, I was told this month that SHOBC could not be used for CNs or DSC. I wish there was some consistency at NCL 😵‍💫

Uh, ok. Nothing new, that's been the policy for quite some time. The only inconsistency is that CN purchases slip through on some ships, depends on the onboard software.

[MagnoliaBlossom]

9 hours ago, julig22 said:

Uh, ok. Nothing new, that's been the policy for quite some time. The only inconsistency is that CN purchases slip through on some ships, depends on the onboard software.

And so often yu read posts from people wh said they were allowed to use it, yu just don’t know what the real story is? 🤨

[littlelulu01]

If you have any pre paid shore excursions the cn staff can exchange with the shareholder $. 

[lapol]

@dbrown84@bones774 I wonder if it would work to book an $50 excursion onboard (deducted from non-refundable OBC) and then cancel it prior to the excursion (credited as refundable OBC?).

[julig22]

11 minutes ago, lapol said:

@dbrown84@bones774 I wonder if it would work to book an $50 excursion onboard (deducted from non-refundable OBC) and then cancel it prior to the excursion (credited as refundable OBC?).

Pretty sure if you cancel an excursion you booked onboard it's just taken off of your bill, no refund.

[dbrown84]

5 hours ago, lapol said:

@dbrown84@bones774 I wonder if it would work to book an $50 excursion onboard (deducted from non-refundable OBC) and then cancel it prior to the excursion (credited as refundable OBC?).

no, it would just reverse the charge.  but why cancel?  just don't go

[9tee2Sea]

I used my shareholder OBC to buy a very nice pair of binoculars.  Came in quite handy for whale watching off the balcony.  All these trick that folks are talking about on how to convert the OBC into something else is just to confusing for this old school mind frame.  I just consider the OBC as splurge money.  What would I buy with it, that I would never buy on my own.

[julig22]

4 minutes ago, 9tee2Sea said:

I used my shareholder OBC to buy a very nice pair of binoculars.  Came in quite handy for whale watching off the balcony.  All these trick that folks are talking about on how to convert the OBC into something else is just to confusing for this old school mind frame.  I just consider the OBC as splurge money.  What would I buy with it, that I would never buy on my own.

Exactly. I used mine to upgrade to unlimited wifi on my last cruise. I can usually manage with the FAS but I must say I enjoyed not having to worry about logging out!

 

 

[lapol]

8 hours ago, dbrown84 said:

no, it would just reverse the charge.  but why cancel?  just don't go

 

Isn't the $50 credit only given after shorex confirms you went on the excursion? Hence you'd be out $50 if you don't go.

 

I saw this comment from 2019:

 

On 10/2/2019 at 3:31 PM, InfrequentPNWCruiser said:

Shore excursion credits only occur when proof of your attendance is recorded. If you booked an excursion but skipped it, you wouldn't get the credit.

 

[dbrown84]

13 minutes ago, lapol said:

Isn't the $50 credit only given after shorex confirms you went on the excursion? Hence you'd be out $50 if you don't go.

no.  well, I can say that I've always received the credit back whether or not I actually went.  I don't know if others have experienced the opposite

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, lapol said:

 

Isn't the $50 credit only given after shorex confirms you went on the excursion? Hence you'd be out $50 if you don't go.

 

I saw this comment from 2019:

 

 

We had my $50 credit credited when we booked excursions for our last cruise. The only exception was the excursion to the airport with a stop. That was booked onboard and took a while to show up, but obviously before the excursion as it was an excursion leaving the ship.

[julig22]

19 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

We had my $50 credit credited when we booked excursions for our last cruise. The only exception was the excursion to the airport with a stop. That was booked onboard and took a while to show up, but obviously before the excursion as it was an excursion leaving the ship.

The question would be whether or not the excursion people report back to the ship and give them the ticket stubs. Otherwise NCL has no idea if you actually took the excursion or not. And I highly doubt they actually go through the tickets - or check the records to see if you actually got off of the ship. They really don't care, you paid (or not in the case of a $50 excursion).

[smillerholmes]

On 2/26/2024 at 3:29 PM, dbrown84 said:

no.  well, I can say that I've always received the credit back whether or not I actually went.  I don't know if others have experienced the opposite

I am going to give this a whirl on my upcoming cruise.  This could be helpful on cruises when you have been to the ports multiple times.

[tedbearz]

Anyone know if you apply for the Shareholder discount OBC and you change your sailing, do you need to reapply or does it carryover to the new sailing?