NAP79

I would be very cautious about purchasing the packages. We did after being promised the full amount of the credit could be applied to the cruise rooms we were interested in even if we booked through a travel agent instead of directly with Princess. We purchased two packages for two rooms on a cruise for next year but when we went to book, Princess would only allow a portion of each credit to be applied to each room (even though they were much more expensive rooms than the credit values). This was three days after purchase and well within the 7 day cancellation and refund window so we immediately called to cancel and get refunds for the packages. It’s been 10 days since we requested our refunds (only 3 days into our 7 day cancellation and refund window) and we are being ghosted. No refunds issued and no response to emails or phone messages. All calls to the person who is supposedly the one to issue the refunds go straight to voicemail since the first time we talked to him and no one else seems to be able to help in any way. We have filed all our documentation of everything with our credit card company at this point to let them resolve it. I’m confident it will get taken care of by them (American Express is awesome with resolving disputes) but it’s just an unnecessary headache caused by an absolutely ridiculous lack of honesty and transparency on the part of Princess Promotions. I can’t believe Princess cruises is associated with this, but they are - all the info on the packages came directly from their travel rep and website and the contact number to request the cancellations and refunds is posted on their website. It may be managed by a third party (I can’t speak to that) but when I’m calling 1-800-Princess I assume I’m dealing with Princess employees. The cruise we were going to book with these credits was going to be our first Princess cruise. We will not be booking it, or any other with Princess, after this hassle.

Update on getting our refunds from the packages we cancelled -10 days since we requested our refunds (only 3 days into our 7 day cancellation and refund window) and we are being ghosted. No refunds issued and no response to emails or phone messages. All calls to the person who is supposedly the one to issue the refunds go straight to voicemail and no one else seems to be able to help in any way. We have filed all our documentation of everything with our credit card company at this point to let them resolve it. I’m confident it will get taken care of by them (American Express is awesome with resolving disputes) but it’s just an unnecessary headache caused by an absolutely ridiculous lack of honesty and transparency on the part of Princess Promotions. I can’t believe Princess cruises is associated with this, but they are - all the info on the packages came directly from their travel rep and website and the contact number to request the cancellations and refunds is posted on their website. It may be managed by a third party (I can’t speak to that) but when I’m calling 1-800-Princess I assume I’m dealing directly with Princess cruise employees. The cruise we were going to book with these credits was going to be our first Princess cruise. We will not be booking it, or any other with Princess, after this hassle.

I’m glad they aren’t all doing it! We obviously won’t be using the same guy again.

BTW- the person who sold us our packages (that we cancelled 3 days later when we tried to use them to book and realized we had been give incorrect information) was a Santa Clarita, CA number and was our Princess personal travel representative for the cruise line. I think they have them all pushing it now. It may be managed by an outside company but the basic FAQs for it are also on Princess’s website and the number to call to cancel is on the Princess website too.

I can’t speak to other people’s experiences with this, and I do hope someone has had good luck with it, but we did not. We were looking at booking a Princess cruise for 2025 and were contacted by a Princess Cruise Travel Expert (I don’t know their official title). We asked for best pricing he could offer on the cruise and he gave it and then told me how we could save even more by buying a FCC package before booking, showed us samples of the hotel website and broke everything down. He kept trying to push the higher priced packages but they made zero sense for the cruise we wanted to book, but the $3499 with $3000 FCC package did make sense. We would be booking two specific rooms on a specific cruise and we priced it all out and talked about how the full $3000 from two FCC packages would be able to be applied (one to each room since my husband and I would each buy one and we would each be assigned to the associated staterooms). I had read this and other boards and asked him flat out if the full credit could be applied to each of the rooms based on the price and whether it was applicable to the full room fee or just the portion for the person who’s name was on the FCC. He told me it applied to the full room fee as long as the FCC holder was in that room. He said it applied to all costs associated with booking the room including Princess Plus and travel protection and that we could use the FCCs the same way whether booking through Princess or with a different travel agent/company of our choosing. And we could cancel within 7 days if we changed our minds (this he did not tell me but I found it on their website before we purchased the packages). On Tue we bought two of the $3000 FCC packages, one in my name and one in my husband’s name. Tonight (3 days later) I went to book the cruise we wanted with the very rooms we discussed and, surprise surprise, even with one room cost of $4400+ they would only apply $2300 of the one $3000 FCC to that room. Hmmm. Not what I was told. The $4400 rate quote included Princess Plus and taxes only for the room with double occupancy. Even if taxes and fees are excluded, they are nowhere near the remaining $2100 of the room rate we were quoted that they excluded from eligibility for FCC use. After a long discussion with Princess Cruises themselves, I find out that the $2300 really was the absolute max they would apply to the $4400 room. I would be stuck paying an additional $700 (per room) to book this cruise and have $700 FCC remaining (per package) that I already paid for wasted unless I booked another cruise that would fit the criteria to use them in full before the expiration date. We bought these specifically for this cruise and these rooms as the sales guy knew so I finished with Princess (and DID NOT book the cruise) and immediately called the number listed online to cancel both FCC purchases. Those requests have been submitted (3 days after purchase and well within the 7 day cancelation grace period). Of course, the person they have you talk to to cancel can’t actually issue the refund, they just submit the request. We’re supposed to be contacted by the department who can issue the refund on Monday where they want to ask questions and find out why we’re cancelling. The other hang up is we can’t book anything with Princess without using the FCCs until they are removed from our Princess accounts so the rooms we want could disappear before this gets resolved. We’ll see how it goes. If they drag their feet or give me the run around in the refunds, I’ll file with my credit card company and will never sail with Princess. Fingers crossed it won’t come to that. Like I said before, I hope our experience is not representative of the experiences of others but the Princess Travel “expert” flat out lied, repeatedly and to very direct questions. I really hope they all aren’t doing that. Not ok.