NCL Mastercard FAQ

[karinad]

12 minutes ago, MagnoliaBlossom said:

Katrina,  the problem, as you will find, is that agents, whether it is WP or NCL, may give you wrong answers.  In a perfect world every agent would give you the same, correct answer.  But I would be very cautious in this going forward.   Call another agent, try one at NCL outside of the WP dept and see what they tell you.

Yes, I do realize this with anything and wouldn't trust the answer unless everything was refundable. Do you mean to call my or a travel agent to ask them about it. I don't know that if once you put money down and it's in final payment, do they allow you 24 hours to cancel if things fall through?

[karinad]

17 minutes ago, MagnoliaBlossom said:

Katrina,  the problem, as you will find, is that agents, whether it is WP or NCL, may give you wrong answers.  In a perfect world every agent would give you the same, correct answer.  But I would be very cautious in this going forward.   Call another agent, try one at NCL outside of the WP dept and see what they tell you.

Ok, yes, I'll ask NCL directly if they know anything about it. Thanks!

[mscdivina2016]

2 hours ago, karinad said:

Do you work for World Points or a travel agent or have you tried to do this? I'm only repeating what she answered me. The first girl I talked to handed me over to a specialist.

No I do not work for NCL or world points but have used in excess of 2 million points.

 I unfortunately was the one who knocked over the apple cart on b2bs+..

 

I have tried everything including trying to go from a balcony to what's now called a B1 (aft balcony) to only find out when you are on the phone it's the last thing that fails it all.

 Then you run the risk of losing your current cabin, losing your old reservation then having to go thru grief to get it out back.

 Keep in mind that if it does go thru and they catch it, they will rescind it. I know from experience.

 

 

[MagnoliaBlossom]

18 hours ago, mscdivina2016 said:

No I do not work for NCL or world points but have used in excess of 2 million points.

 I unfortunately was the one who knocked over the apple cart on b2bs+..

 

I have tried everything including trying to go from a balcony to what's now called a B1 (aft balcony) to only find out when you are on the phone it's the last thing that fails it all.

 Then you run the risk of losing your current cabin, losing your old reservation then having to go thru grief to get it out back.

 Keep in mind that if it does go thru and they catch it, they will rescind it. I know from experience.

 

 

Off topic, MSC, but wow you some nice cruises coming up! 😁

[mscdivina2016]

9 hours ago, MagnoliaBlossom said:

Off topic, MSC, but wow you some nice cruises coming up! 😁

Thanks,

That doesn't include my land vacations. We are gone 200 days a year.

[julig22]

Not sure if this has been asked before but with over 5K in responses...

Has anyone been able to use points to upgrade for family members?  I've booked 2 OV rooms for us, planning to upgrade mine to balcony but if I can upgrade the other room as well that would be a plus.  NCL won't let me put both rooms under my name but the last names are all the same....

And I will have a diamond upgrade available to use for my upgrade so I could go that route if they would balk at 2 upgrades for the same cruise.

Edited July 31, 2023 by julig22

[mscdivina2016]

46 minutes ago, julig22 said:

Not sure if this has been asked before but with over 5K in responses...

Has anyone been able to use points to upgrade for family members?  I've booked 2 OV rooms for us, planning to upgrade mine to balcony but if I can upgrade the other room as well that would be a plus.  NCL won't let me put both rooms under my name but the last names are all the same....

And I will have a diamond upgrade available to use for my upgrade so I could go that route if they would balk at 2 upgrades for the same cruise.

Yes, I have done it for my family.

 

It's not balking because it's two separate cruises.

 

Now I did have an issue in the past that I don't totally remember but I needed to get an additional card as an additional user for my daughter but I just cut it up when I got it.

 Not sure why???? Might have been a free cruise?? Old age is knocking on my door.

[smillerholmes]

On 2/20/2023 at 9:03 PM, MagnoliaBlossom said:

Good questions all

1. Upgrade (such as 30,000 single meta or 60,000 double meta) are for the. Cabin.  Whether single or maximum occupancy, it is the one amount of points

2.  Any length cruise, but if it is a B2B cruise that is two cruises.  If you have a 7 day or a 20 day, it’s the same price if it is one cruise.

3. this used to be easy, pre covid.  The previous answer would be, no problem, they just reverted to your account.  I’ve done it several times, no problem.   However, when I upgraded a few months ago, as the young man was reading me the legalese portion it said if you cancel your points may be forfeited.  I stopped and we had a discussion, as this was new.  He said yes, during covid they added that and it doesn’t mean you will automatically lose your points but it is up to management.  He said he did not know of a case where that had happened but as it is now in the legal verbage it could.  He said if we had to cancel to call and speak to a supervisor about it.   
 

we have not had a cancellation since this new policy started so I have no first hand experience, but I can tell you that in the past I did my upgrades right away so I could get a preferred cabin.  But now, if I’m the least bit iffy about whether this cruise is going to happen, I hold off a bit.  Hopefully we will get more reports as time goes by.  And possibly it has not been instituted but the suits decided to cover their hineys in the event of too many cancellations at once.   Only the Norwegian gods understand the logic behind these things.

 

bottom line, I wouldn’t sweat that part too much.  I think it’s just CYA.

 

I am about to test this - I cancelled a cruise with a 60K point upgrade.  Pre-cancellation I called and was told the same info.  It's been two days - my Cruise First has been redeposited to my account, but not my WP points.  Starting to get nervous.... 

[MagnoliaBlossom]

5 hours ago, smillerholmes said:

I am about to test this - I cancelled a cruise with a 60K point upgrade.  Pre-cancellation I called and was told the same info.  It's been two days - my Cruise First has been redeposited to my account, but not my WP points.  Starting to get nervous.... 

the redeposited takes a while since the big shut down.  Not every agent can do a poin redeposited, it takes a manager with approval to do so.   Lately I have had it happen very quickly or a week or so.  Be patient.

[smillerholmes]

9 hours ago, MagnoliaBlossom said:

the redeposited takes a while since the big shut down.  Not every agent can do a poin redeposited, it takes a manager with approval to do so.   Lately I have had it happen very quickly or a week or so.  Be patient.

Thanks for the support, I appreciate it.  And now....⏲️

[MagnoliaBlossom]

Breathe in, breathe out.  No need to panic for two weeks or so.  Some people have become addicted to instant gratification (aka the internet) but not all institutions, who are able to do instantaneous reactions.  This is not life and deaths , it will come to fruition but it’s going to take a while, and that is the process with his website.   No point getting spun up about it.  Mix yourself a pitcher of margaritas, pretend you’re on the poop deck, and plan for your cruise.  Sweating the issue gets you no where.  If after two weeks, then five them a call, but in the meantime go get a pedicure at a place that offers cheap white wine.

[karinad]

I had to come back to tell you about what I decided to do about my 30,000 points. The cruise I'm booking is a little over a month away. I have never booked a cruise this close to sailing. From what I'm seeing with the other NE/Ca. cruises they are not dropping in price. Instead of even taking a gamble and trying to use my points to upgrade I am just going to cash them in for a sure thing and not worry about having to cancel and lose points/money. I haven't asked any other agent about upgrading from inside to outside and then trying to see if NCL would let me pay to upgrade to a balcony from outside with cash. NCL should have something in black and white as to what's allowed like redepositing the points if needed to cancel. As any of us know that points are more precious than money. I have always used miles to book flights ever since we started travelling and the airlines have it written down if you can change or cancel a flight with miles. As one of the other posters has said not to trust what one person has told you.

[alwalaska]

On 8/4/2023 at 3:47 AM, smillerholmes said:

I am about to test this - I cancelled a cruise with a 60K point upgrade.  Pre-cancellation I called and was told the same info.  It's been two days - my Cruise First has been redeposited to my account, but not my WP points.  Starting to get nervous.... 

I did not cancel my cruise, NCL canceled my cruise where I had done a double meta.  I was going to be rebooking as soon as the 20% code for our cancelation was available and I too wanted a preferred cabin where there are only 2 of them and one was already gone, so I wanted my points back.  It took 2 days for my cruise to show up in the NCL site as fully canceled.  Another 2 business days after that, I still didn't see anything happening with my points.  I called the World Points number and nicely explained the situation.  They looked it up and said, "No one has processed your points cancelation.  I can do that for you, please give me a minute."  She processed it and said that it could take a couple of days to show up, but it was there within hours.  As my TA recently said when I asked if it was worth checking on getting something for a price decrease, "It never hurts to ask."

[alwalaska]

8 hours ago, karinad said:

I had to come back to tell you about what I decided to do about my 30,000 points. The cruise I'm booking is a little over a month away. I have never booked a cruise this close to sailing. From what I'm seeing with the other NE/Ca. cruises they are not dropping in price. Instead of even taking a gamble and trying to use my points to upgrade I am just going to cash them in for a sure thing and not worry about having to cancel and lose points/money. I haven't asked any other agent about upgrading from inside to outside and then trying to see if NCL would let me pay to upgrade to a balcony from outside with cash. NCL should have something in black and white as to what's allowed like redepositing the points if needed to cancel. As any of us know that points are more precious than money. I have always used miles to book flights ever since we started travelling and the airlines have it written down if you can change or cancel a flight with miles. As one of the other posters has said not to trust what one person has told you.

Let us know how the booking of the cruise goes and have an amazing time.  We did NE/CA quite a few years ago and loved the itinerary.  The only thing we found were horrible lines trying to get off of the ship at almost every port.  This was on the Dawn and we sailed the Dawn again recently and didn't experience congestion getting off of the ship except for final debarkation, so other than most port days starting a bit later in the morning, I'm not sure what the problems were.  

[3dogmom]

9 hours ago, karinad said:

I had to come back to tell you about what I decided to do about my 30,000 points. The cruise I'm booking is a little over a month away. I have never booked a cruise this close to sailing. From what I'm seeing with the other NE/Ca. cruises they are not dropping in price. Instead of even taking a gamble and trying to use my points to upgrade I am just going to cash them in for a sure thing and not worry about having to cancel and lose points/money. I haven't asked any other agent about upgrading from inside to outside and then trying to see if NCL would let me pay to upgrade to a balcony from outside with cash. NCL should have something in black and white as to what's allowed like redepositing the points if needed to cancel. As any of us know that points are more precious than money. I have always used miles to book flights ever since we started travelling and the airlines have it written down if you can change or cancel a flight with miles. As one of the other posters has said not to trust what one person has told you.

 

For my CA/NE Oct cruise, I used 30k points to upgrade from an Inside to Outside and then paid $593 to upgrade and choose my balcony.

[karinad]

43 minutes ago, 3dogmom said:

 

For my CA/NE Oct cruise, I used 30k points to upgrade from an Inside to Outside and then paid $593 to upgrade and choose my balcony.

That's what I was wanting to do and another poster told me that it can't be done. I had called World points and asked them and they told me it can be done. If you read a few posts up you can see where I asked the question.

[smillerholmes]

1 hour ago, alwalaska said:

Let us know how the booking of the cruise goes and have an amazing time.  We did NE/CA quite a few years ago and loved the itinerary.  The only thing we found were horrible lines trying to get off of the ship at almost every port.  This was on the Dawn and we sailed the Dawn again recently and didn't experience congestion getting off of the ship except for final debarkation, so other than most port days starting a bit later in the morning, I'm not sure what the problems were.  

I am going to go ahead and provide fuller detail in case a similar situation comes up for someone else.  I booked Spirit/Hawaii to Alaska/April 2024 in December 2022.  I booked an Inside cabin and it was still almost 6K so of course points are a really good option for a double meta on that cruise.  A balcony was almost 12K.  I received my first Casino offer in July 2022 and I was told it had to be used no later than December 31, 2022/10 days or less/No Hawaii. 

 

So I am exclusively/mostly cruising through the Casino now, but a friend of mine wanted to do the Fire & Ice cruise so I booked it through my PCC.  Fast forward and I am on the phone with CAS asking how many cruises can I have booked through them and he tells me 3 and depending upon your play they can get approval for 4 or 5.  So I tell him I will call back after my upcoming November 2023 cruise.  He takes a look at my bookings and says "why are you paying full price for that cruise in April?'  I explain what was told to me and he states that is what may have been said, but what was meant was no PRIDE of AMERICA because there is no Casino on that ship.   I ask what about the 10 days?  He says that 's flexible and since I am solo it shouldn't be a problem.  Details.  Details.  Details.

 

He prices my cruise and needless to say it is quite a bit cheaper.  He says he can't transfer the original but I can cancel and he will book a new reservation.  So prior to cancellation I call WP and lay out my situation and while I acknowledge I was told points could be forfeit, he stated he had never heard of that happening.  So, I wait (drumming fingers!)

 

p.s. Thanks for the reminder that in your situation NCL actually canceled your cruise

 

[julig22]

1 hour ago, 3dogmom said:

 

For my CA/NE Oct cruise, I used 30k points to upgrade from an Inside to Outside and then paid $593 to upgrade and choose my balcony.

The question is how much would it have been to simply upgrade from an inside to balcony?

Or to rephrase, how much did the points upgrade contribute to the price of the upgrade to balcony?

[3dogmom]

4 minutes ago, julig22 said:

The question is how much would it have been to simply upgrade from an inside to balcony?

Or to rephrase, how much did the points upgrade contribute to the price of the upgrade to balcony?

 

For me to pay for an upgrade, it would have been around $3,000.

Instead, I used 30k points to upgrade to an Oceanview and then paid $593.00 to choose my balcony cabin. If I let NCL choose the cabin it would have been $24 less.

[karinad]

3 hours ago, 3dogmom said:

 

For my CA/NE Oct cruise, I used 30k points to upgrade from an Inside to Outside and then paid $593 to upgrade and choose my balcony.

Did you go through a travel agent or directly through NCL? So, the process for this to be done would be to book the inside with my agent, call WP to upgrade the inside to the outside and then call back my agent to buy the upgrade to balcony? With the agency I'm going to use it is only the balcony and higher that comes with paid gratuities and $150.OBC. I understand that when using points to upgrade that you only get the benefits of the original booking but if I pay to upgrade from outside to balcony would I get the benefits that go along with the balcony because I am paying for it? With my math I'd be saving $500. to do this process rather than cash the points out and put it towards the balcony. I'm hesitant since the cruise is only a little more than a month away. The availability seems to be all there for all categories using the next lower to the family category.

[3dogmom]

27 minutes ago, karinad said:

Did you go through a travel agent or directly through NCL? So, the process for this to be done would be to book the inside with my agent, call WP to upgrade the inside to the outside and then call back my agent to buy the upgrade to balcony? With the agency I'm going to use it is only the balcony and higher that comes with paid gratuities and $150.OBC. I understand that when using points to upgrade that you only get the benefits of the original booking but if I pay to upgrade from outside to balcony would I get the benefits that go along with the balcony because I am paying for it? With my math I'd be saving $500. to do this process rather than cash the points out and put it towards the balcony. I'm hesitant since the cruise is only a little more than a month away. The availability seems to be all there for all categories using the next lower to the family category.

 

I booked directly with NCL. I called WP, used my points to upgrade to the OV, and then chose my balcony and paid for that upgrade. I didn't know WP could handle anything other than upgrading using points, but she was able to handle the entire transaction. I *think* you would use your agent for anything not point related, but possibly you can have the WP rep book the entire transaction and then transfer the booking to your TA? Not really sure how that works.

 

As far as benefits, I lost the 3x point accrual bonus that I received when originally booked. This didn't bother me since I'm pretty low-level on NCL....I don't even know the names of the levels! 

[karinad]

16 minutes ago, 3dogmom said:

 

I booked directly with NCL. I called WP, used my points to upgrade to the OV, and then chose my balcony and paid for that upgrade. I didn't know WP could handle anything other than upgrading using points, but she was able to handle the entire transaction. I *think* you would use your agent for anything not point related, but possibly you can have the WP rep book the entire transaction and then transfer the booking to your TA? Not really sure how that works.

 

As far as benefits, I lost the 3x point accrual bonus that I received when originally booked. This didn't bother me since I'm pretty low-level on NCL....I don't even know the names of the levels! 

Thank you! I wish it was all black and white with no question about what's allowed and what isn't. We earned the points! When I talked to WP the other day I asked her if the availability to upgrade was there. She couldn't tell me unless I had a booking number. They are probably limited to just doing the upgrade and then your travel agent has to handle the rest.

[Beaumont Barbie]

58 minutes ago, karinad said:With the agency I'm going to use it is only the balcony and higher that comes with paid gratuities and $150.OBC. I understand that when using points to upgrade that you only get the benefits of the original booking but if I pay to upgrade from outside to balcony would I get the benefits that go along with the balcony because I am paying for it?

The OBC is a TA perk. You need to ask your TA if you would get it. 

[alwalaska]

1 hour ago, karinad said:

Thank you! I wish it was all black and white with no question about what's allowed and what isn't. We earned the points! When I talked to WP the other day I asked her if the availability to upgrade was there. She couldn't tell me unless I had a booking number. They are probably limited to just doing the upgrade and then your travel agent has to handle the rest.

We all wish for clear black and white clear rules.  It would make things so much easier. 

 

And just like with any phone support, some of them don't know what they are doing, or say they can't do something just because they don't want to do something.  When I called to see when my points would be refunded on the cruise that NCL canceled, the lady I was talking to was able to look and say that one of the two cabins that I really wanted was still available at that time. If you know what category the upgrade works for on a particular ship, you can check availability for yourself too.  It does not seem to be like airlines where once x% of the cabins are booked, you can no longer do upgrades.  Based on the category you book, you can upgrade to a specific level or anything below that level.  When I called to actually make the upgrade, I was told 1) that I couldn't upgrade until AFTER final payment was made.  When I told her I had previously upgraded long before final payment,  she said she would try, but knew it wouldn't work.  Well, guess what, it worked.  Then she told me the cabin I wanted was not available.  I asked her to try typing in the cabin number to see. She said that wasn't possible. Even though the first time I booked the upgrade the person typed in the cabin number I wanted. Since I couldn't tell her how to type in the number, I picked the best cabin from her list.   I then emailed my TA and low and behold, she could move me to the cabin I wanted because it was available, NCL just hadn't fixed the bug yet for the newish cabins on deck 10 to show up on the maps, they only showed up if you manually typed them in. 

Lesson to be learned, if you aren't sure of an answer, call back and talk to someone else. 

[mscdivina2016]

On 8/5/2023 at 10:54 AM, 3dogmom said:

 

For my CA/NE Oct cruise, I used 30k points to upgrade from an Inside to Outside and then paid $593 to upgrade and choose my balcony.

 I tend to believe you unnecessarily lost 30,000 points.

But maybe you can help me understand better.

 

In the same day, you booked an inside, used points to get an OV and then you were able to pay $593 to get a balcony?

 

Or did you book sometime ago, at some point used points and just recently paid to go from OV to Balcony?

 

Where I am lost is what did they use as the cash basis for your upgrade?

 

The points are a complementary upgrade and half the time it even states that on the confirmation.  So how do they value complementary?

 

Did you get more than one confirmation from the day you booked to the day you got the balcony?

 

You might be the first ever to pull that off. 

 I had almost 10 canceled on me by then because I got caught playing the b2b2b2b game using one booking number.