Another question about OBC and pre purchase of shore excursions

[SeaSickCecil]

I think the title says it all.  Yes Sea Sick Cecil is back with another stupid question.  I thank you all for your patience with me.

For once I have a lot of OBC to use for shore excursions; but I'm seeing that 9 months out they are selling out quickly.  I think I remember in the 'before' times, that one could book/pay for the SE prior to boarding and then go to the SE desk cancel, get refunded and then repurchase using the OBC.  Is this still possible?  

Many thanks to all who respond.

 

[crystalspin]

55 minutes ago, SeaSickCecil said:

I think I remember in the 'before' times, that one could book/pay for the SE prior to boarding and then go to the SE desk cancel, get refunded and then repurchase using the OBC.  Is this still possible?  

It is recently reported as possible!

[SeaSickCecil]

I knew I could count on you crystalspin.  You are the Wikipedia of HAL info LOL. That makes my stress levels go way down.  

 

[crystalspin]

12 minutes ago, SeaSickCecil said:

I knew I could count on you crystalspin.  You are the Wikipedia of HAL info LOL. That makes my stress levels go way down.  

Well, {blush}, I don't read everything on the board(s), and I try not to answer outside of my knowledge base... but attention to detail is a blessing and a curse!

[kazu]

1 hour ago, crystalspin said:

It is recently reported as possible!

 

It is definitely possible.  I did it with both specialty dining and excursions.

[crystalspin]

10 minutes ago, kazu said:

 

It is definitely possible.  I did it with both specialty dining and excursions.

I knew it was someone I trusted!

 

I believe for switching dining over you go to the Front Desk (Guest Services) and for SE it's for sure the Excursion desk?

[kazu]

8 minutes ago, crystalspin said:

I knew it was someone I trusted!

 

I believe for switching dining over you go to the Front Desk (Guest Services) and for SE it's for sure the Excursion desk?

 

Absolutely correct.  Specialty restaurant podium can’t fix specialty dining.  You MUST got to Guest Services.   On the other hand Only Shore Excursions can fix the shore excursion scenario.  

[darjeff]

We took four cruises last year. On all cruises we were allowed to use OBC for pre-purchased excursions and our costs were reimbursed back to our VISA once we took each respective excursion. With have-it-all it's tough to spend down OBC so we were grateful for the "cash back".

[SeaSickCecil]

Thanks Kazu (another trusted voice).  But I'm with the folks complaining on the other earlier thread (I have a bad habit of not reading down too far) who wonder why HAL makes it so complicated when other lines let you use it as soon as you've booked.  But I choose HAL so their ship/their rules.  

And darajeff...thanks for the confirmation.  I don't do HIA so my OBC goes to tips and wifi first and the rest goes to shore excursions since I also like to book private tours.  

I love that HAL has one of the most active, informative and friendly boards here on CC.  You all have made my cruising life so much easier.

 

[Nodakboiler]

As stated before it is ONboard credit not PREboard credit. A lot of people cancel before final payment. This lets shore excursions know who is really planning to participate.

[SeaMatesNYC]

In 2023, on one voyage of ours, ShoreEx staff would do this and on another they would not.  The "would not" scenario was the Head of ShorEx onboard.  I do hope that it has now become routine on all ships, but I did experience an exception.  Note that when it was permitted, it did not immediately go back to the pre-charged card, but rather onto the shipboard account as a refundable credit, which would go back to the card on file for the shipboard account (which can be a different card), assuming you don't spend it on something else!

[pghflyer]

I was able to do the refund / apply OBC on the Noordam in Jan 2023, but they acted like it was a one-time exception and they were doing me a favor.

[Ken the cruiser]

It’s been awhile since we have cruised with HAL (Oct 2019), and have of course never used the app. Would it be possible to go to the excursion desk, cancel an applicable pre-booked excursion, walk away from the excursion desk, and then rebook the excursion using the App, which of course would use any nonrefundable OBC that was present in our shipboard account first.
 

Just trying to come up with a workable option in case we run into one of “those” excursion desk folks, as we just booked a bunch of excursions on our April 2025 Eurodam cruise which we used our HIA Excursion OBC but was not allowed to use our military and AARP OBC and in turn had to use our CC to pay the rest.

 

Edited February 28 by Ken the cruiser

[pghflyer]

That is feasible in theory if they have openings on your selected tour & time, but on our sailing, the vast majority of excursions were sold-out prior to sailing and already had an established waitlist.......so the only safe way was to do it in person at the desk.