Moving Pre-Booked Shore Excursions to OBC once onboard

[CNSJ]

Have not had the luxury of excess onboard credit in the past, but expect to have a large amount of non-Casino/non-refundable OBC on an upcoming cruise.  I will pre-book some shore excursions where I think they are must do's, and want a ship excursion for return guarantee, but only HIA OBC can be used for them in advance.  My main question is (1) How do I go about (assuming you can) get sure-booked with credit card  shore excursions refunded (or a thermal spa pass for that matter) and recharged to my OBC?  I realized I could cancel and rebook, but that may cause me to loose a spot due to waitlisters.  (2) How successful have people been in recent years at getting this done?

 

Thanks in advance. 

[CruiserBruce]

This has been discussed a few times. If you cancel once on board in order to rebook using OBC, you run the risk of running into a waiting list. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

I wouldn't worry about the thermal pass. If you go right away on embarkation day, you should be able to buy the pass. That's what I do. I don't recall anyone here saying passes were sold out in advance. 

[terrydtx]

You can go to guest services or the shore excursions desk once onboard to do this. We have done it for specialty restaurants booked prior to boarding.

[Cruise Suzy]

3 hours ago, CNSJ said:

My main question is (1) How do I go about (assuming you can) get sure-booked with credit card  shore excursions refunded (or a thermal spa pass for that matter) and recharged to my OBC?  I realized I could cancel and rebook, but that may cause me to loose a spot due to waitlisters.  (2) How successful have people been in recent years at getting this done?

 

You must go to the Shore Excursions desk once onboard to swap the credit card shore excursion booking for one using non-fundable OBC. (Guest Services cannot handle this.) Do not ask them to cancel and re-book. The amount will be deposited as refundable OBC to your account. If you haven't used it by the end of the cruise, the refundable OBC will credited to the credit card you have on file for the cruise - not necessarily the one used to book the excursion.

 

I am not sure if the thermal pass uses the same procedure.

 

Quite a few cruisers have reported being able to do this for shore excursions.

[NCTribeFan]

Let's see if I understand this.

 

I have some NR OBC.  Since I have HIA, I'm not sure how/when I'd use it all (except for some spa time; I don't shop on board).

 

Am I correct that y'all are saying I can book excursions, paying via credit card, and once I board, go to Shore Ex desk, ask to have the payment changed from my CC to my NR OBC.  The CC payment will then appear in my folio as a refundable OBC.

 

I then can use that refundable OBC in the casino?. And if I don't use it all (Ha!), it gets refunded to the credit card backing my account.

 

Cruise I'm concerned about isn't until next January. so I'm not sure I want to charge multiple expensive Hawaii excursions this early.  But I don't want to wait too long and miss out.  I'll use my HIA to book the 3 I really want to do and maybe purchase a couple of extras (although I much prefer independent excursions).

 

If anyone can confirm that this works with spa services/passes, that would be really helpful!

 

Sure would be great if HAL would just let us book things pre-cruise using OBC.  Carnival does and it's so easy to do.

[40yearcruiser]

I wish HAL would hire the web developers that Princess uses. When you book a shore excursion on their website, if you have OBC it automatically asks if you want to use that for the excursion. Why should we have to put another charge on our credit card and then go to the trouble of trying to get it converted to use our OBC? We cruise with multiple lines and the Princess website is the most informative and easy to navigate of any we've used. When you are signed in, their travel summary puts in one document everything related to your reservation including booking information, flights, prebooked shore excursions, dining reservations, spa reservations , OBC and what are the sources of each if several, Itinerary, visa and any other pre-cruise information needed. I print it before we leave and have everything I need to remember. If this information is available on the HAL website I have yet to find it. Is it there somewhere?

[josumello]

47 minutes ago, NCTribeFan said:

Let's see if I understand this.

 

I have some NR OBC.  Since I have HIA, I'm not sure how/when I'd use it all (except for some spa time; I don't shop on board).

 

Am I correct that y'all are saying I can book excursions, paying via credit card, and once I board, go to Shore Ex desk, ask to have the payment changed from my CC to my NR OBC.  The CC payment will then appear in my folio as a refundable OBC.

 

I then can use that refundable OBC in the casino?. And if I don't use it all (Ha!), it gets refunded to the credit card backing my account.

 

Cruise I'm concerned about isn't until next January. so I'm not sure I want to charge multiple expensive Hawaii excursions this early.  But I don't want to wait too long and miss out.  I'll use my HIA to book the 3 I really want to do and maybe purchase a couple of extras (although I much prefer independent excursions).

 

If anyone can confirm that this works with spa services/passes, that would be really helpful!

 

Sure would be great if HAL would just let us book things pre-cruise using OBC.  Carnival does and it's so easy to do.

Celebrity and Royal also ask if you would like to use OBC when making precruise purchases. That includes just about anything. They also have the amount listed which is convenient. We are taking our first HAL cruise and it is difficult to know what our finances are.