Phantom credit card charge by Carnival

[Knights on the Beach]

6 hours ago, n6uqqq said:

Quite a racket charging 40 something dollars for the towels that are usually ratty worn out looking things. I don't know who would even want to take them. 

 

I guess we've been lucky because I don't recall ever getting ratty worn out pool towels. We had the brand new ones (new style/color) in April but even prior to that, our towels have been newish.

[n6uqqq]

48 minutes ago, Knights on the Beach said:

 

I guess we've been lucky because I don't recall ever getting ratty worn out pool towels. We had the brand new ones (new style/color) in April but even prior to that, our towels have been newish.

I mostly travel on the older Spirit class ships and most of the time the pool towels seem as old as the ship 😜

[ontheweb]

10 hours ago, n6uqqq said:

They will take care of you, it will just take some time. 

OTOH, some may not bother to contest the charge with Carnival, which will mean that they collect money for towels that were returned, and they still have. Not having an attendant there to check the towels back in is just wrong.

[jimbo5544]

On 8/19/2024 at 8:29 PM, tonit964 said:

They should not be able to just willy nilly charge you for something without a signature, especially when the charge showed up once you were off the ship. There should be a cut - off time.

I wonder how much they get on each sailing by doing this.

Probably a lot less than people taking towels.

[angelsfort]

18 hours ago, DeniseTr said:

Sure, if there is someone there to check it in. However last carnival cruise I went on, the towel area was unmanned a lot of the time. I got so I just grabbed a new one and tossed oldone in basket.

if there's nobody there to "check out" a towel and you just grab one, that's completely different.  You didn't give them a cabin number to "assign" it to - so there is no record of it even being in your possession.  No chance of you being charged for that towel.

and to me, if I did have to give my cabin number when I got it...  and there was nobody there to check it back in when I was finished, I'd hold on to it until it COULD be checked back in.  (usually that means taking it back to my cabin and mentioning it to my cabin steward)

[Elaine5715]

56 minutes ago, angelsfort said:

if there's nobody there to "check out" a towel and you just grab one, that's completely different.  You didn't give them a cabin number to "assign" it to - so there is no record of it even being in your possession.  No chance of you being charged for that towel.

and to me, if I did have to give my cabin number when I got it...  and there was nobody there to check it back in when I was finished, I'd hold on to it until it COULD be checked back in.  (usually that means taking it back to my cabin and mentioning it to my cabin steward)

Exactly 

[jlawrence01]

We had a similar situation on our first Carnival cruise.  We were issued a towel in the evening prior to a film.  We turned it in at the end of the movie.  We were charged for it.

 

We did not have to pay for it when we protested.

[coo359a2]

On 8/15/2024 at 9:43 AM, tonit964 said:

This is the exact reason why I do a cash account. I go to GS the night before debarkation and cash out my account, if there is an issue, it gets resolved then.

Never a problem this way.

First time (Nov) to attempt a cash account.  Who determines how much cash, above the amount of your OBC,  is needed to set up your cash account  Do you give the cash while checking in at the terminal or once on board at GS.  I am on a B2B (6 day and 8 day).  Thanks 

[tonit964]

1 hour ago, coo359a2 said:

First time (Nov) to attempt a cash account.  Who determines how much cash, above the amount of your OBC,  is needed to set up your cash account  Do you give the cash while checking in at the terminal or once on board at GS.  I am on a B2B (6 day and 8 day).  Thanks 

I think Carnival’s minimum amount required is $200 but I always just do $500. On your boarding pass it will say cash account on it and I only know at the Long Beach, Ca terminal, they will direct you to an agent that takes your cash, registers it and gives you a receipt. This is before you board the ship and only takes a few minutes. 

 

I don’t know how other ports handle it. 

[DeniseTr]

On 8/20/2024 at 2:40 PM, mfs2k said:

RF tracking is very expensive. 

If it were that expensive, hotels wouldn't be doing it. In the kind of bulk we are talking about, it would be a few cents per towel. But given that Carnival is clearly MAKING money from current system, they are unlikely to implement it.

[mfs2k]

59 minutes ago, DeniseTr said:

In the kind of bulk we are talking about, it would be a few cents per towel.

 

No

[dallasdan]

14 hours ago, tonit964 said:

I think Carnival’s minimum amount required is $200 but I always just do $500. On your boarding pass it will say cash account on it and I only know at the Long Beach, Ca terminal, they will direct you to an agent that takes your cash, registers it and gives you a receipt. This is before you board the ship and only takes a few minutes. 

 

I don’t know how other ports handle it. 

$200 is the recommended amount.  There is no minimum amount you have to add.  You can add cash once onboard at the kiosk or guest services.  Just be aware if you don't have enough cash on your account they may deny you service on board until you add more cash.

[aborgman]

On 8/20/2024 at 2:29 PM, staceyglow said:

Have you ever been to Cozumel and noticed that many of the cabs have their seats covered with old Carnival towels? 

 

I've been to Cozumel about 20 times over a 25 year period.Usually 10-14 days at a time.

 

I've taken taxis and rented cars.

 

They all have blankets or towels on the seats.

 

Never once have I seen a Carnival towel.

[aborgman]

On 8/20/2024 at 4:40 PM, mfs2k said:

RF tracking is very expensive. 

 

About 0.10 or less per RFID tag in the sorts of quantities Carnival would be buying.

[aborgman]

3 hours ago, mfs2k said:

 

No

 

As someone who just went through the process of RFID tagging every bit of inventory in our building (several thousand items)... Yeah, it's cheap.

 

Like $0.10 a tag in high quantities(10K+), and about $0.20 a tag if you buy them 100 at a time 

[mfs2k]

52 minutes ago, aborgman said:

 

As someone who just went through the process of RFID tagging every bit of inventory in our building (several thousand items)... Yeah, it's cheap.

 

Like $0.10 a tag in high quantities(10K+), and about $0.20 a tag if you buy them 100 at a time 

Did you buy waterproof tags that can withstand high heat, water and bleach, and sew them into every sheet and towel?  unlikely. 

[mfs2k]

59 minutes ago, aborgman said:

Like $0.10 a tag in high quantities(10K+), and about $0.20 a tag if you buy them 100 at a time 

 

This is one company's tags.  Im sure Carnival can buy them cheaper, but this doesn't even include the labor costs to sew them into garments which go in the wash.  And they're not going to remove and reuse the tags months later when the linen items are taken out of service because they are not to Carnival standards for their guests. They probably only last 3-4 months. 

$0.71 ea is not close to your cost of $0.10 each.

 

[aborgman]

1 hour ago, mfs2k said:

Did you buy waterproof tags that can withstand high heat, water and bleach, and sew them into every sheet and towel?  unlikely. 

 

No... we bought waterproof tags, on a puffy sticker, with a printed barcode and our university logo. They were less than 1/3 the price of the ones you listed.
 

... and sewing them into towels would have been much cheaper than having multiple people who make $45+ an hour searching 40,000 square feet across three buildings for objects visually, that we weren't sure were even there, then tagging them.

 

I wouldn't recommend sewing in the RFID tags though - you can buy pre-made bath towels with RFID tags already in them for about $4 each. I doubt swim towels are a lot more expensive.

 

[Elaine5715]

2 hours ago, aborgman said:

 

As someone who just went through the process of RFID tagging every bit of inventory in our building (several thousand items)... Yeah, it's cheap.

 

Like $0.10 a tag in high quantities(10K+), and about $0.20 a tag if you buy them 100 at a time 

Several thousand tags?...how much for a million tags

[mfs2k]

The technology isn't new.  If the cost was less than the lost towels, don't you think Carnival would have done it by now?  Anyone stealing sheets and towels in their suitcases could be caught by scanners.   

[aborgman]

13 minutes ago, Elaine5715 said:

Several thousand tags?...how much for a million tags

 

The tags we bought were about 1/3 the cost we paid if you bought more than 100,000 units (down to about $0.08 each), but they did not list price breaks for quantities greater than 100,000.

 

 

[aborgman]

11 minutes ago, mfs2k said:

The technology isn't new.  If the cost was less than the lost towels, don't you think Carnival would have done it by now?  Anyone stealing sheets and towels in their suitcases could be caught by scanners.   

I mean - the first hotels I know of that have used this started about 15 years ago.

One of the first hotels to use it in Honolulu went from losing 4,000 towels a month to just 750, at a savings of $16,000 per month.

[mfs2k]

11 minutes ago, aborgman said:

One of the first hotels to use it in Honolulu went from losing 4,000 towels a month to just 750, at a savings of $16,000 per month.

 

The primary purpose of tagging linen is for hotels (and some large restaurants) to track the linen when they use outside companies for laundry services.  If they're being charged for the service, they want to make sure the charges are accurate and linen isn't disappearing at outside vendor locations on purpose or accidentally. Tagging is a faster and more efficient method of counting than by hand but despite what you assert, it is costly when they all end up in the garbage when the linen is worn torn and permanently stained.  Weighing dirty linen as a counting method doesn't work because much of it is wet. Theft control is a side benefit when they put scanners on guest and employee exits. 

 

Cruise ships don't send their linen out to be cleaned.  It's all done in-house so RFID tagging would be a huge waste of expense.  Theft isn't as much of a cost as wear and tear of sheets and

towels. 

 

If it was cost effective, don't you think you would see some cruise lines using this technology?  I have not.  Maybe you have. 

 

Edited August 22 by mfs2k

[aborgman]

14 hours ago, mfs2k said:

If it was cost effective, don't you think you would see some cruise lines using this technology?  I have not.  Maybe you have. 

 

 

Maybe.

 

"Cost effective", and "Benefits outweigh the costs significantly enough to do it given our chosen time horizon" aren't the same thing.

 

Just because a capital investment is "cost effective" doesn't mean a business will do it, or that it even makes sense to do it depending on time horizon.

 

 

[mfs2k]

1 hour ago, aborgman said:

Just because a capital investment is "cost effective" doesn't mean a business will do it, or that it even makes sense to do it depending on time horizon.

We're talking about having RFID tags sewn into bed and terry linen with a life of about 3-5 months on a cruise ship. That's not a capital investment.  That's an operating expense.

Your own situation is different when you talk about tagging fixed objects. You're not adding chips/tags to disposible items.

I don't think I have much else to contribute on this topic.  We may just have to agree to disagree. In 2024 nobody convinces anyone to change their mind. 

Edited August 23 by mfs2k