TN Fem

I'm 45. We chose HAL for the itinerary. On cruising days I like to use the thermal spa and just relax. I don't need anything fancy. A little trivia and good food will keep me happy. 

We have a New Zealand/Aus cruise booked on the Oosterdam for Christmas. It seems highly unlikely that it will actually allow Americans onboard. 

When deciding which cruise to do this year our other choice was the Singapore to Hong Kong cruise at Christmas. 

Now in the time of Covid... what to do. Hope that we get to go to NZ/Aus? Move to the Asia cruise? or play it safe at book something out of Florida for Christmas?  

FWIW we are sitting on about $10k in FCC that can't be applied to our currently booked cruise because we booked it before Covid. 

15 minutes ago, DaveOKC said:

My best advice to novice traders is to also learn the TAX implications of your trades.  Can make a huge difference.  Also, learn about options, as they can be great tools to increase your returns plus to aid in tax management.

Good thing his mother was a tax attorney before kids 😛 

We bought our 100 shares when it tanked back in March. My 15 year old bought some too at even lower price than we did... he thinks he's an investing genius now. 

I checked my account this morning and Chase has reversed all the charges not just the temporary reverse. 

When I filed my dispute with Chase, I attached the email from HAL from 3/13 when they canceled our 3/14 cruise in which they stated I would be refunded 100%.  Chase still has us with a conditional credit. 

We have the Aukland to Sydney cruise booked for Christmas but I'm doubtful if it will happen.  I'm going to wait a few more months before I decide what to do but I wonder if the Panama Canal cruise over the same period may be a safer bet as far as actually happening. 

this should have been communicated months ago.  

9 hours ago, rafinmd said:

How about HAL and Cunard.  I think they have a lot more in common than HAL and Princess.

 

Roy

this seems more likely. They are very similar.

Why not rebrand HAL and Princess under the Cunard brand. 

it seems to me that many of the agents aren't aware of what compensation each customer got and don't read notes in the file or something. 

I called yesterday and was told I was either getting refund OR FCC and I had to explain to her that the email I got from HAL said I would get both, she had to escalate me. 

i'm still on hold with HAL but they are saying because we disputed with our CC we won't get the FCC that the email they sent us said we would get.  Meanwhile the CC is asking for more information and we haven't actually seen any $$ returned, just don't have to pay our bill. 

I'm still on hold but the CC dispute doesn't explain why we haven't been refunded our expenses related to having turn around after arriving in California because our flight was canceled while we in the air. 

1 hour ago, VMax1700 said:

If you look at the latest Travel Advisory on the HAL site it mentions....

 

Please note: Refunds are being processed by sailing date of the cancelled voyages with the earliest departures being refunded first. We ask for your continued patience in affording us the time to work through the refunds properly. Because we are not able to use our usual automated process, our team is manually handling a large volume of requests while working from home. 

 

We are still waiting on our March 14th refund which was was canceled on March 13th so much be one of the "earlier" sailings. We are on day 55. 

35 minutes ago, Stateroom_Sailor said:

I would take the offer, but don't book directly with HAL.  I figure with their equity and Saudi investments, CCL will overcome this, and honor all these transactions.  I just purchased a $1,000 gift card, and applied the $200 bonus giftcard towards our April 2022 OBC.

now this is interesting... could you buy the gift cards with the 20% bonus and pay off your cruise balance for the 10% discount? + $250 OBC? 

11 minutes ago, ellbelle said:

Did you book directly with HAL? We also have a December cruise but did not receive the offer although we booked with VTG and my cruise consultant appears to be furloughed or laid off. With the company operating with a severely reduced staff I wonder if I’d ever get the offer (if it was offered) We do not owe much anyway since we had a FCC to use due to a wonky Hawaii cruise (not HAL’s fault). 

we booked directly with HAL.  

Part of me is interested.. we have $600 OBC per cabin and free gratuities already so I'm not sure we could spend more since we usually like to have our excursions nailed down well in advance and don't drink. 

but I still want the almost 10k they owe me from my canceled March cruise. 

I just got an email from HAL offering me up to $250 OBC if I put more $$ down on my Dec cruise ($750) or if I pay the balance now 10% off + $250 OBC. 

I just want my $$$ back from the cruise HAL canceled. I was going to use some of it to purchase 1 excursion for our December cruise. 

5 hours ago, shaunly said:

In case anyone's interested, here's the boilerplate response the HAL office of the president is using in response to BBB complaints (read it in two responses so far):

 

"We understand that you are awaiting a refund for this booking due to the suspension of our cruise operations, and we are sorry for any delay in receipt of these funds. As you have been previously advised, due to the unprecedented volume of bookings which were cancelled due to COVID-19 that our team is managing, processing this refund may take up to 60?days.

 

We have escalated your case and submitted a request for these refunds to be expedited so we can ensure that you receive your money as soon as possible. We would like to reiterate that this is only a request to be reviewed by management, and we cannot guarantee a date which these will be processed. Please be assured that our Accounting Department is working to finalize this as quickly as possible, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or frustration caused by this delay.

 

Thank you for your patience and flexibility in these extraordinary circumstances."

so the squeaky wheel gets their refund faster? I stopped calling after originally being told 7-10 days and then being told 7-14 days and finally 30-60 days. It has been a month since I called HAL to check on my refund.

Brasil may lose a lot of people but come out of this pandemic faster if in fact they are doing nothing. They may have the Philadelphia 1918 flu spike with no second wave.

I'm 45 yrs old with kids. We like HAL because it usually has ports other cruise lines don't   I like interesting itineraries and decent food.  My kids are perfectly content on the Lido deck with the ping pong table, chess and pool. We don't need water slides and rock walls.  

Our first HAL was South America and Antartica cruising. Honestly the educational programming was great and it was great value. We've since done a Cuba cruise and a Central American cruise.  Both great with ports most other ships don't stop at and we had a great experience booking our own excursions on those cruises.  

We booked Mexican Riviera this year fairly last minute (January) because I wanted warmth and decent food for spring break and the price was right (our cruise was canceled). 

I'm hoping our NZ/AUS cruise happens at Christmas. We thought about flying and driving NZ for winter break, but realized we could cover a lot more ground cruising and the price was significantly cheaper.   

The next cruise we want to do is Asia (probably HK to Singapore). It has interesting ports but I have a shellfish allergy and some of us are picky eaters so being able to eat breakfast and dinner onboard is appealing particularly for that part of the world. 

We are probably not normal travelers and don't fit neatly into any bucket. We try to cruise every other Christmas and then do an in-depth country on the odd years (last two trips have Sri Lanka and Jordan). 

2 hours ago, garsny said:

There is hope.Got my credit yesterday.Took 7 weeks.

when did you cancel and when were you to sail? 

We are still waiting for our 3/13 cancellation of our 3/14 cruise. 

12 hours ago, Vacation00 said:

Hey all. Just looking to see how everyone else was doing with their refund. Our cruise would have been March 13. We have FCC but we’re supposed to get our taxes and port fees credited within 10 business days. Well 10 days came and went and I was told that i should receive within 60 day mark. And so we wait. But Interestingly, I was credited back for spa passes, cabana etc, within the first week. I would feel a lot better about booking a new cruise (to use my FCC) if I had the money they still owe me. 

Our cruise was supposed to be 3/14 and was cancelled 3/13. We have contested with our CC company but so far we've only seen our internet packages refunded--no refund of the cabana, still waiting on thousands of dollars to be refunded.  We were supposed to get 100% back plus 100% FCC. I haven't tried checking on the FCC but I check my CC daily and at first they said 7-10 days for refund and last time I called they said up to 60 days.  Personally I think they should be refunding in order of cruise date but who knows if they are refunding at all right now or just holding everyone's cash and will do a big dump on May 12th.  I'm doubting that it should be taking this long to process all these refunds. 

9 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

December/January is peak holiday season in Aus and NZ and I would be surprised if cruises aren't operating then. In addition, it is peak season for people escaping the Northern winter.  

I was just socially distancing chatting with my neighbor from NZ. She's planning to go home the same time we are headed there. She is hopeful they will reopen by then but also worried they won't let her in since although a citizen they are no longer residents. 

1 hour ago, Ellen495 said:

We put in a dispute with the credit card company. That will hurry them up.

We did that too and most of of what we are owed still hasn't come back.. just the internet packages we purchased. 

We have an Australia and New Zealand cruise planned for Christmas. I really hope we can go. It is the kids' last continent and it is getting harder and harder to do long family trips as they transition to high school/college.

we received refunds on the internet packages we purchased on 3/11 for our 3/14 cruise, but now we are 31 days after the fact and no refund of the thousands we paid even though we were told we would be refunded 100% within 7-10 days.