A word and a caution about NCLA air program

[beachchick]

Aloha everyone. DH and I are booked on the PoH this winter. So far, so good...we are happy with the cruise fare and have an NCL agent assigned to our booking. Everything was looking good. We had also booked our air and hotel stay with them. This was a first, as we always book our own air and hotels.

 

Last week, my mom generously gave us enough of her air miles to book our own flights (an early Christmas present). (We have already used all our miles for previous Hawaii trips.) We were thrilled, especially because I was able to book the flights we wanted on the dates we wanted--that's tough to do for Hawaii. I was especially glad because last time we had to do an overnight flight home, and we hated it. We don't have to do that this time. Next I went online and found a better deals for hotels that we prefer and that NCL doesn't offer.

 

I called our NCL agent today to remove both the hotels and the air. Here's where the problems began. She went into the computer to do that and came back with a cruise-only total that was higher than it should have been (I checked prices right before calling and the rate is the same). It turns out that there's a $50 p/p cancellation fee for the air, even though no tickets have been issued or any reservations made. This is on NCLA only. She asked if we'd seen a notice while booking online or on our booking confirmation or invoice. We had not, and I checked again just to confirm that it is not there. I told her we would not pay the cancellation fee. She contacted the air department and will get back to me. (I should mention that we are not in any penalty period and have not made our final payment.)

 

I checked the NCL website and after quite a bit of searching found a place where it says that NCLA air will have this cancellation fee if it's less than 6 months before the cruise date. The thing is, not everyone is going to go through all the web pages to find this. This cancellation penalty is NOT listed or mentioned anywhere when you do an online booking. It's not noted on the booking web pages; it's not noted on the confirmation; it's not on the invoice. If it's not a contracted item, then they cannot charge the fee. As basic business law, a contract has an offer and an acceptance of terms. These terms must be specified in the contract, there's no such thing as in implied contract item or "well, it's hidden on the website." This item is not even in fine print on the cruise paperwork. You cannot accept terms that aren't on the offer (cruise confirmation/invoice/paperwork). Therefore, it is unenforceable. We intend to see this through and, sorry to say, would cancel the cruise before we pay a fee that's not listed on the cruise contract.

 

The second problem is related, but not to cancellation penalties. We had decided to fly to Maui pre-cruise and stay a few days at our favorite Maui hotel. I called our NCL agent about 10 days ago to ask about air deviations and fees. There is a $50 p/p fee, plus any airfare difference; neither of these is a surprise to us, so no problem. We asked her to go ahead and have the air department work up a deviation offer. She told us they would email it and we would have 48 hours to accept. By yesterday morning, we still hadn't heard from the air department, but it was a moot point by then anyway.

 

This afternoon, I checked our email and they had sent the offer. Just for fun, I checked it. We would not have taken it because with the fee and the increase in airfare, it would have cost at least as much as simply booking on our own. What really amazed me though was the flight schedule they sent. We do not live near a big hub and have to fly from our regional airport to LAX or SFO. The thing is that the flight schedule NCL sent had us leaving our regional airport after the flight to Hawaii had already departed from LAX. So we would have arrived at LAX more than an hour after our next flight departed. That's kind of a problem. I could not believe that no one noticed this little discrepancy. You can't take a flight from point B when you haven't even departed from point A.

 

So my warning is to check your flight plans thoroughly. I have no idea how often this happens, but I can't believe we are the first to encounter it. Our NCL agent called me about the other issue, and I told her about the air deviation problem. She asked me to email a copy to her so she could pass it along to the air department manager. Her response to me was, "Well, that is a serious problem. I need to let him know about this." Maybe it will help; maybe not.

 

Finally, I am not here to bash NCL/NCLA by any means. We are looking forward to our PoH cruise and will no doubt have a great time. As long as the issue of the air cancellation fee is settled, we will keep our booking. If not, we will cancel the booking and dispute any cancellation charges. I have heard stories about problems with NCL CS, and certainly have never had any reason to doubt them. I also know that all mass-market cruise lines have similar CS issues and problems. So, I figure that some people will have problems and others won't. Well, right now we're on the "having problems" list, but I am hopeful that NCL will resolve this right away.:)

 

I'll keep you posted.

 

beachchick

[garycarla]

Over and over, we see reports of problems booking air with the cruiseline. Seems like the best answer is DON'T DO IT!

 

We always pass as we do not like to be "manhandled" by their air transport departments.

[tomluvsaida]

Sorry you had such problems. This is a matter that they really needs to be fixed. Afterall, unless a passenger for NCLA lives in Hawaii they are going to first fly there one way or another.

I think most people like myself will book through the cruise line (or as I did, through a TA that then books NCLA) inorder to save money and be assured of not missing the ship or getting NCLA to cover hotel and air transfer expenses if they do miss the ship.

[Rada_CMH]

I've had a case of taking a flight from point B when I hadn't even departed from point A - it was due to the time difference between airport A and B which were in different time zones!

 

Maybe this is not the case for you, but it is possible simply because the policy is to list departure times as local times of the departure airport.

 

My favorite is when I fly a short flight (less than an hour) to a place which is in the next time zone - technically I arrive before I have left....

[bubiesmom]

Oh, shoreguy. Please tell me that what beachchick posted is not the norm. I booked through NCL for cruise and air. I told the agent that I would be checking into air on my own. He said that I could just cancel the air by 10/01 (POH 1/1/07) with "no problem". I told him I was not interested in NCL priority air and was doing some checking for making my own air arrangements. He said just to book the air to lock in the price and he could "hold it" until October 1st.! Any comments? I was going to call and cancel the air this weekend anyway. My DH will have a stroke if they try to charge us another $200 just to cancel.... :(

[beachchick]

I've had a case of taking a flight from point B when I hadn't even departed from point A - it was due to the time difference between airport A and B which were in different time zones!

 

Maybe this is not the case for you, but it is possible simply because the policy is to list departure times as local times of the departure airport.

 

My favorite is when I fly a short flight (less than an hour) to a place which is in the next time zone - technically I arrive before I have left....

 

You are correct. This is not the case for us. We live on the CA central coast, same time zone as LAX. It's basically a straight shot south. (I actually do take those things into account when flying; just so you know.) You are right though that some people forget to take that into account. Believe me, flying from a regional airport, you don't have many choices (and it can get pretty $$$), so you pretty well know who flies where and when.

 

bubiesmom: I truly didn't mean to scare you. However, if you cancel NCLA (Hawaii only of course) air with them, they will try to charge you a $50 p/p cancellation fee if it's less than 180 days before the cruise. If that happens to you, tell them flat that you will not pay it and that you will dispute the charge because it is not included in the terms and conditions you agreed to when you accepted the cruise "contract" (booking). It's not written on the paperwork; it cannot be enforced; they cannot just assume that everyone will slog through all the web pages unrelated to booking to find the little notation (not to mention that, oh horror, not everyone has internet access).

 

BTW, I'm not a lawyer ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), but I do know a teeny bit about contract law simply by experience. Please, don't take what I'm saying as legal advice. I can only tell you that court decisions say that contracts are to be interpreted narrowly according to the written and accepted terms, and that where terms or caveats are vague or non-specific, they are to be interpreted in favor of the "buyer."

 

I can tell you that we will never book cruise air again. We never have in the past precisely because of concerns over scheduling, problems, etc. We took a chance when we booked because it's so expensive to fly from our little commuter airport and their price would have saved us $600.

 

To Everyone: Just want to follow up that first thing this morning, our NCLA cruise agent called to tell me that the fee had been "waived" for us and that she had shown our air deviation scheduling boo-boo to the air department and told them "that could certainly be another reason why they don't want to book air with us!" In addition, the computer made her do a new booking for us instead of just removing the non-cruise components (because of the way we booked it online), which would have meant that we would lose our OBC (I booked the day I booked specifically to get that dang OBC!). I told her in that case, we would just cancel the booking because this was getting ridiculous, that we were not upset with her, and that we would have to carefully consider booking with NCL in the future. She said, "Give me a little time; trust me, I'll take care of it." And she did! We still have our OBC and the good fare I found and no air cancellation "fee."

 

So, looks like we will be onboard PoH this winter!:D We're really looking forward to it. We've been trying to do a Hawaii only cruise for years, but had the worst luck. First time, I broke my leg on day 3 and had to go home; second time, the cruise line declared bankruptcy 3 weeks before our cruise. We had to scramble and put together a land trip (this was a trip to make up for the one where we had to go home, and we were not going to miss Hawaii again). We always buy travel insurance, which covered everything on both those trips (and then some because the cruise when I broke my leg, the ship also broke and the insurance company credited us for that loss from our medical expenses and cruise time lost, but the cruise line credited us for the ship breaking).

 

Anyway, I guess you could say we are Hawaii enthusiasts who love the land trips, but really do want to do the cruise this time.

 

I'm so happy to report a quick resolution to our problems.:)

 

beachchick

[randlandk]

Beachchick...glad to hear of your good news. We of course are also flying in with NCL for our November Cruise. We got a special through CruiseDeals.com. We live in Tulsa, so let me tell you I was thrilled to see that the airfare would only be costing us $300 per person.....we pretty much bought the whole cruise package for what it would have cost us to make our own flight arrangements to Hawaii!! :) I think that is why all the little things that are bothering other cruisers.....won't bother us very much. Especialy food issues. I would not care if they were serving McDonald's for breakfast, lunch and dinner as long as we got to see the islands!! LOL

 

Letha

[shoreguy]

Oh, shoreguy. Please tell me that what beachchick posted is not the norm. I booked through NCL for cruise and air. I told the agent that I would be checking into air on my own. He said that I could just cancel the air by 10/01 (POH 1/1/07) with "no problem". I told him I was not interested in NCL priority air and was doing some checking for making my own air arrangements. He said just to book the air to lock in the price and he could "hold it" until October 1st.! Any comments? I was going to call and cancel the air this weekend anyway. My DH will have a stroke if they try to charge us another $200 just to cancel.... :(

 

HI only has a $50 fee from the time of deposit. After final on all cruises you are looking at $100-$200 pp

 

http://www.ncl.com/more/terms.htm#payment

[ArizonaTracie]

beachchick, sorry you had to go through that whole ordeal...what a headache! I am just sorry your NCLA personal consultant was not upfront with you about the air. I just booked our POH cruise last week for 2008 and I was going to book the air also so I could lock in the price, but when I mentioned to my consultant that I had plenty of time to shop around for my own air to compare prices, she immediately told me not to book the air now because of the cancellation penalties. So, I thanked her for the info and booked the cruise only. I appreciated her honesty she could have easily neglected to tell me that bit of info and I would have been in your shoes!!

[beachchick]

T&KCruisers: I just want to clarify that we did our booking entirely online. The cruise consultant was only assigned to us after we had booked. It wasn't that she wasn't up front about it; it was that the NCL website wasn't (and it still doesn't show up on any documentation). She assumed we knew about the fee, but I explained to her how it doesn't appear anywhere when you do an online booking, so NCL must somehow assume that we will magically know this or will have read through every web page unrelated to booking. It really needs to be included in the terms and conditions when booking. Had I booked by phone, I have no idea if the cruise agents would have told me about the fee. I just wanted to clarify that in this case, it was not the NCL cruise agent's fault because she did not book our cruise for us.

 

randlandk: I'm sure that everything will go smoothly and that you will have a wonderful time in the beautiful islands. I understand why you couldn't resist those prices. It's just not something we will do in the future.

 

beachchick

[mbettyboop]

Hi Beachchick,

 

I was wondering if you could post the link where it says that NCLA air will have the cancellation fee if it's less than 6 months before the cruise date. I booked my cruise for May 2007 with air. After reading these boards, I'm not sure this is a good idea because eventhough Sacramento, CA has a direct flight to Hawaii with Hawaiian Airlines, we might be sent to San Francisco or Los Angeles first. I would like to cancel my air and book my own flights with Hawaiian Airlines and I want to have that info before I call NCL. I have been checking around the website and cannot find what you did.

 

Thank you

[bubiesmom]

HI only has a $50 fee from the time of deposit. After final on all cruises you are looking at $100-$200 pp

 

http://www.ncl.com/more/terms.htm#payment

 

I didn't look at the link you sent yet, but like beachchick said, if I booked online then it's not in writing. The NCL agent said that I could cancel the air anytime before 10/1 for the 1/1/07 cruise, which is only 90 days...:mad: He said we could cancel with no penalty and I even asked since I booked in June when would be the last day to cancel and he said October 1st.:confused: :confused: :confused:

[beachchick]

Just a quick follow up. We got the new invoice for the cruise only and there were no penalties or cancellation fees for the air. However, our new invoice doesn't show our OBC (the old one did), so I've got to call and get that corrected. Other than that, it looks good.

 

mbettyboop: I'm afraid I don't have a link to that page handy. I found it on NCL's website by going through the air program pages and at one point one page had something like "Hawaii" as a destination to click on. That took you to yet another sub-page (I think by then I had already gone in about 4 or 5 layers from the website's home page). I really don't remember more than that. If I have time and think about it, I'll check next time I'm on the site. Edited: I'm pretty sure I found the air program by selecting "More Information" (or similar) on the home page. I remember that it brought up a long list of topics and that the air program was one of them. Hope that helps.

 

beachchick