Kallaway

11 hours ago, Rxgrad98 said:

 

I completely understand and share your frustration.  I phoned my Silversea agent today and she acted like the change was news to her.  I was able to rebook our flights and keep Premium Economy with only a $70 fare difference per person, but we now have to drive to and fly out of Atlanta; I hate Atlanta.

 

I think for me this will be a one and done with Silversea.  Fingers crossed the actual product is much better than the land based customer service team.  I wonder though how many passengers may be in the same situation as we are and not aware of it.  I hope you're able to get everything resolved to your satisfaction.  Good luck!

 

I'm glad they were able to work a solution for you, albeit not ideal. They are now trying to get us from Santiago to Ushuaia so I'm guessing more people are discovering this city change and they're trying to find a solution to avoid cancellations.

42 minutes ago, tohru214 said:

 

 

That's too bad. We are planning on waiting until closer to final payment before deciding if we are going to cancel or not. I completely agree with you about not wanting to commit more money to something that most likely wont happen. We booked our airfare through Silversea so at least we don't have to worry about dealing with two companies. Did they give you a hard time about cancelling? 

Well, our Antarctica trip soap opera continues, this time in a good way. I received an email from Silversea this morning saying they are now trying to find a solution to get us from Santiago to Ushuaia. Our final payment is currently set for the end of this month and if they find a solution for us I'm at a loss as to whether we should move forward with that payment or not.

To answer your question, though, no, they have not given me a hard time about canceling.

We put in our request for refund yesterday evening. After speaking to the TA supervisor, he hinted that we should book airfare through him, even if it costs more, in case they need to push the cruise to a later date. That gave me an uneasy feeling. Throw in a couple of rumors on the Silversea passenger Facebook group that they're canceling cruises through October and the Cloud possibly through early November and we're not ready to commit more money to a trip we feel is not likely to happen.

32 minutes ago, tohru214 said:

@Kallaway yes it is. I'm also on the Dec 11 sailing! 

That's great! Hopefully this all works out.

20 minutes ago, tohru214 said:

I'm glad that this means we only have to deal with 1 county letting visitors in rather than 2, but I still don't hold a lot of hope for my December sailing. Argentina is currently not letting any tourists in until September 1st and I think there is a high likelihood that this date will get pushed back. 

I agree with you on all counts. If we go and book airfare to BA, it'll be on an airline we feel comfortable getting flight credit from for future use. Out of curiosity, is the 214 in your handle a reference to Dallas? We're in Austin and on the Dec 11 sailing.

3 minutes ago, jpalbny said:

Kallaway, I feel for you. What a colossal blunder and a real pain to try to rearrange your entire flight plan.

 

I wonder if SS pulled the Cloud departures out of Santiago due to conditions there? We are intermittently in touch with acquaintances we've met through travel and touring there, and I hear that conditions in the city are not optimal for tourism these days.

 

Good luck and I hope you can sort it out.

 

 

Thank you, jbalbany. The TA supervisor we've been working with said it was to make the transfer to Ushuaia easier since it would be a domestic flight. While conditions in Santiago and/or the pandemic could very well be factors, he didn't mention those.

9 hours ago, Rxgrad98 said:

 

Thanks for the info Kallaway.  Much like you, we never received an email detailing the change and I just happened to notice it a couple of weeks ago when I randomly logged in and looked at the booking.  The reason I logged into Cruisecritic tonight is to ask if anyone else had noticed the change.  I immediately sent an email to my travel consultant at Silversea and still have not heard back.  I have not been impressed with Silversea customer service and have debated with all that is going on and now this, canceling our booking.  Has Silversea been cooperative in your dealings with them on arriving at a solution?  We live in a smaller town and Business Class is always astronomical for us, but we were able to get a great deal on Premium Economy to Santiago.   Looking at flights today I see that fares for Economy to Buenos Aires are more than we paid for PE to Santiago.  Please keep us posted on the progress.  Guess I'll be calling Silversea tomorrow. 

So this has beed a three day ordeal for me. To answer your question, our initial Silversea TA was great but was furloughed during the pandemic. The TA to whom our account was moved has been awful. I don't know if that's due to the remaining TAs being overwhelmed or if we just got a bad one. For this issue we've been working directly with his supervisor who has been much more responsive. They have offered things like paying airline change fees, if you can't get those waived by the airline, and/or picking up an extra night hotel in BA but their hands are tied by the senior management to do more (at least that's what we've been told).

Like you, we're not in any airline's hub city so prices are usually high here but I was able to get business class tickets at a great price using credit card points at the height of the pandemic. The fare difference (cash) now costs more than purchasing new tickets on a different airline. I filed a waiver request yesterday with our airline to tried to get the points refunded back but that takes a few days for review and won't hear back until tomorrow at the earliest. Our travel insurance will not cover any costs to us due to Silversea moving the embarkation city but will give us a refund if we have to cancel due to this move.

For us, we can't justify a 30% increase in the cost of the trip if our airline doesn't refund back the points as the airline credit which must be used by the first half of next year is useless to us. If we do get the refund back and can still find reasonable fares to BA, we plan on going even though the reasonable fares now are twice what we initially paid (but still cheaper and a better route than what Silversea can get us). Otherwise we'll cancel the cruise and use that airline credit to go somewhere else in December.

I know these are extraordinary times but I have been nothing but annoyed/frustrated with Silversea since our initial TA got furloughed. This will (hopefully!) be our first cruise with any cruise line and I thought I had every angle covered but they definitely caught me off guard by moving cities. And then not notifying me about it with our full payment due at the end of this month has limited the time I could spend looking for alternative flights. Having no plan whatsoever for passengers that already booked into Santiago has been the icing on the cake.

57 minutes ago, vcd said:

I am on the Silver Wind and it shows  the transfer city is still Santiago...

Two things interesting about this, and please confirm with your TA. The Silversea customer service supervisor I'm working with said, (1) they're planning on Ushuaia cruise departures this season transferring through Buenos Aires, and (2) they don't believe the Silver Wind will be ready for Antarctica cruises (he didn't say if this is for the whole season or just early in the season).

5 minutes ago, Stumblefoot said:

Thank you for the heads up.  

 

Do you know what hotel SS is going to host guests at in Buenos Aires?

It's showing the Alvear Palace Hotel for the night pre-transfer and the Plaza Central Canning for the dayroom post cruise.

As an FYI for those that did not get this notification from Silversea last month, as we did not, the Silver Cloud Antarctica transfer city this upcoming season has been moved from Santiago to Buenos Aires. It has also not yet been updated on the Silversea website. Luckily I was poking around the MySilversea site and noticed the change. Unfortunately we had independently purchased business class tickets to Santiago and are now working with Silversea on a solution. If you're unaware of this change and also independently booked international travel, you'll want to reach out to your TA to do the same.

I don't know if this will help you but this is how we're protecting ourselves. We're booked on the Dec 11 Antarctica cruise. We paid the deposit when SS were offering full cash refund (minus $200) up to 30 days before the trip. I have since spoken to my TA (and confirmed this with his manager) and we are grandfathered in to that refund policy instead of the new one as our 30 day refund policy is written into our confirmation. I've also purchased travel insurance (with AXA) which covers insolvency/bankruptcy. I have confirmed with them that insolvency/bankruptcy due to the events surrounding the coronavirus are still covered.