Refund of FCD deposit in a timely cancellation?

[Tampa Girl]

Last year we cancelled our booking on the full 2024 WC, on which we had made a $7,000 deposit.  HAL first refunded the deposit by crediting our HAL account.  Our TA directed them to, instead, credit the applicable charge account.  We have recently cancelled three shorter cruises, at least one of which the deposit consisted of FCD's.  Now, thanks to the WC refund, all of the deposits are being credited back to our charge account instead of crediting back the FCD's to our HAL account.  Question:  Can I avoid this in the future, or is it standard practice to not credit back to the HAL account the FCD's when a timely cancellation is made?  It makes a difference when one is looking at substantial deposits on future cruises and your FCD's are no longer available.  Is there a way at the time one buys an FCD aboard ship, to specify that in the event of cancellation, the FCD's will be returned to the HAL account?

[Haljo1935]

Unless it's beyond the 4 years (I think that's still the "shelf life" of FCDs) of FCD usability, and outside penalty, FCD should be put back into your account without you requesting it. Is it possible the FCDs that were refunded to your CC had been purchased more than 4 years ago?

[Tampa Girl]

31 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

Unless it's beyond the 4 years (I think that's still the "shelf life" of FCDs) of FCD usability, and outside penalty, FCD should be put back into your account without you requesting it. Is it possible the FCDs that were refunded to your CC had been purchased more than 4 years ago?

No, They were purchased last November, and, subsequently, I made three booking, using two of them.  All were simply credited to our charge account,  presumably because we had requested last fall that our WC deposit be credited to our charge account.  There were no FCD's used on that booking.  

[REOVA]

It's rare that the FCD gets credited to credit card so maybe something is switched on behind the scenes due to your GWC deposit request but also maybe your TA told HAL to do it based on previous request . Ours got returned to our account to be used within the 4 year period which is nice that we still can book with the low deposit (even though they consistently run low deposit promos). 

[Ken the cruiser]

On 2/13/2024 at 9:36 AM, Haljo1935 said:

Unless it's beyond the 4 years (I think that's still the "shelf life" of FCDs) of FCD usability, and outside penalty, FCD should be put back into your account without you requesting it. Is it possible the FCDs that were refunded to your CC had been purchased more than 4 years ago?

It's been over 6 years since we bought a HAL FCD while onboard. Does anyone know if an FCD is still fully refundable if not used during the 4-year period? I know Princess recently changed the timeframe for their FDC to 1 year, but it's still fully refundable.

 

Edited March 6 by Ken the cruiser