Birdnutty

My daughter still has one certificate left, and needs to use it. I'm sure she'd appreciate the simplicity of it. Did this mail-in offer apply to everyone? Are there special circumstances?

My daughter still has one certificate left, and needs to use it. I'm sure she'd appreciate the simplicity of it. Did this mail-in offer apply to everyone? Are there special circumstances?

Question? I have a $500 certificate and 4 $100 certificates. When we got the certificates because the old rewards program was being changed to the new program.

 

There is a statement on the back of the $100 certificate that says that the certificate could be for an onboard or upgrade, but for only what was on the front. The front had four upgrades.

 

I was already booked on a cruise for January 2010 on a BA category balcony. I asked them, what do I do with the upgrade credits as BA was tops in their category. They said that I could book a lower category balcony and then move up, but I might lose the room.

I did not want to lose the room and asked if the certificates could be changed to OBCs.

They said, after, checking with other staff (Managers I assume) that I would have to call Bank of America. Bank of America said that only NCL could do it.

 

My wife and I will take a cruise a year and have always used NCL excepting one cruise that we did with others who chose not to go NCL. I am not sure that I want to go with NCL again as they will not put anything down in writing, call Bank of America to get an answer. This is not customer service for someone who makes NCL the Cruise Line of choice.

What has happened with some people is that if they booked the highest cabin in their category, then sent in their 100 POINT -not dollar - upgrade certs, they would get some money either back or applied to onboard credit. Some were rejected. But it doesn't seem to have a rhyme or reason. Seems to vary somewhat. Maybe upon who receives it in the accounting department or what kind of mood they're in that day. I do believe you need to tell them you want to stay in your room

I have the same deal, and I really don't know how they'll handle it. My cruise isn't until January, so I won't send in the certificates until after final payment, but I do not want to switch cabins. Especially since the prices have gone up significantly for my cabin since I booked it. I'm hoping that they'll give me just an onboard credit or a reduction in rate. We'll see....

The forward cabins are usually rockier, for sure. Don't know about the seas you will be travellng through, and it wouldn't really matter. If the weather is bad, the seas will be rocky. If not, they'll more likely be calm. We personally like the rocking - we find it relaxing while going to sleep and fun while traveling down corridors and on dance floors. Part of the joys of cruising. If seasickness is a problem for you, I would suggest paying a little extra and getting a category where you can choose your cabin. Guarantees are a crapshoot.

The most stable cabins are inside cabins midships, or toward the aft. The lower the deck, the less you feel it also.

If you think it might be a problem and you don't want to or can't change, the transderm scop patch works well (altho we didn't like the dry mouth that we got from it), and there's always the steady standby - dramamine.

According to this fine print, your do not get the bonus points until after the cruise is complete.

 

Offer limited to 10,000 points maximum per booking, one booking allowed per cardholder per cruise. Book window for offer is 5/1/09 - 5/31/09. Earned points will be added to a guest account after completion of the cruise. Offer based on dollar amount applied to the reservation within the booking window of the promotion. Cancellation may result in forfeiture of WorldPoints special offer. Offer is for new individual bookings only. Points cannot be redeemed for cash and are non-transferable. Standard payment option applies. Guests who cancel and rebook must accept this promotion's Terms and Conditions. Cancellation Fees for cruise, air, land and other charges will follow NCL schedule listed in the brochure and website. Cancellation Fees also apply based on the booking/sailing date; therefore, NCL strongly recommends the purchase of Travel Protection on all bookings

Not that the print all over the place says BOOK a cruise, not pay for one that's already been booked. I've got one already booked that I have to pay final payment on this week, but if I'm reading it right, I will get no extra points for it, since it was booked before the promotion window. Bummer.

What's the wording of the fine print that says "anything that says NCL will get the points"? (I threw my flyer away - figured it wouldn't apply to me) Maybe I'm wrong. That would be nice.

I got the following from NCL today. Probably many of you did too. It says 4x the points but the example has only 2x the points. What's up with that????

 

Limited Time Offer.

Book any NCL cruise between now and May 31, 2009, using your NCL MasterCard credit card with WorldPoints rewards and receive four times the points. For example, if you spend $2,000, you'll earn 8,000 points instead of the usual 4,000 points. It's the Freestyle way to earn points, all for simply using your credit card.

Normally, if you spend $1, you get 1 point. If you spend $1 on NCL, you get 2 points. So if you spend $1 on the current promotion, you get $4. Therefore,if you spend $2000, you get 8000 points. Interestingly enough, that's what we used to get before they "upgraded" the program to World points. I wonder if they're finally feeling the pinch of people quitting the card. Did this come in an email?

Has anyone actually tried successfully to use the certificates for an actual upgrade (as opposed to $ off an existing reservation and staying inthe saem room). We're in a lower oceanview category and would love to be upgraded to a higher deck - I'd like to know if anyone has tried.

I booked a July cruise through a TA and sent her $2000 in certificates. I have verification from her that she received them. Is the only way I can see if they were credited by NCL is to call her? I haven't figured out how to do it online.

There are two ways - first is the NCL site where you can check your account. Second way is to go onto your Bank of America credit card online account and see if the credit has shown up there. It usually happens pretty much at the same time - at least it has for me.

I spoke to two friends whose accounts were also messed up. One called BoA and was told that the calculations were done ONLY ON THE AMOUNT AFTER HIS DECEMBER STATEMENT, and rounded up, and upgrade certificates awarded accordingly. He was also told that in order to get the balance of what was on his December statement, he had to take copies and document everything and send them to the now-famous NCL rewards resolution Center, on TRYON street, Charlotte.

So different reps believe and are reporting different things, there is no consistency, and it sounds like we are expected to do all the work to get the rewards we are entitled to, and that they promised they would take care of.

He is going to call our state Attorney General tomorrow. Imagine the response we could get if everyone called their Attorney Generals. Or maybe even a few Consumer advocacy TV stations. If the individual consumer has not participated on this board and has no idea what's going on, he/she is more likely to just accept what BoA sent them and be done with it. I hope that's not what the intent was when this plan was issued this way, but it smells of something not quite legal to me. Or maybe legal, but defnitely unethical.

Aha! I think those of you who stopped using the card after the December billing date have gotten the correct certificates! The rest of us only got certificates for the dollars spent the second part of December. Now if we could just get this fixed..........

Not necessarily. I have two cards. One had something like 507 points on it as of my December statement, and the other had 574. Today I got two letters. One gave me a $500 credit along with an upgrade for the remaining 15 (?) The other gave me a single upgrade for 3 points. There isn't even a way to tell which card received what certificates.

::::sigh:::: looks like I have to call too. I hope they figure out a way to straighten this out.

I made sure I got to 500 points by my mid-December statement date because I feared there would be problems and fighting if I relied on points between that date and year-end. I may just go ahead and call and request my 500 point certificate now rather than have them lose them somehow or convert them to Worldpoints! :eek:

 

BobK/Orlando

Did you try to get your certs sent to you yet? I looked on my new statement, and there are no points noted there at all, even though as of my last statement I had over 500 in each of my two accounts. It seems like those points just disappeared altogether, as nobody seems to have received them.

I thought about calling in december to have the certificates sent out, but wanted the extra expiration time allotted for the ones that are supposedly to be sent out in January. I sure hope good ol' Bank of America isn't going to screw us all to the wall. I don't have a real warm fuzzy feeling about this.

Did you get an actual letter, or was it an insert in the statement/bill? I'm wondering if I will get a letter in the mail or if I have to rummage thru the paper recycling to see if I threw an insert away.

Ah, jeez.....

As I check this thread every day or two, I have to wonder if NCL will decide to cancel this deal someday because it's such a great deal! I also wonder if the current financial crisis will affect BOA in a bad way. :eek:

 

So my questions is, I will have 2500 points (after next statement) - 1500 on one and 1000 on the other. We have a cruise booked for December 2009. Should I go ahead and get my certs just to be safe??? :confused:

I can't imagine that they would end the program with no notice at all. Usually when this kind of thing happens, they decide to end the deal as of a certain date, then give you x amount of time to redeem points and redeem certificates. This has happened to me before on a different cruise card. Redeeming your points now might be a little risky, because the certificates are only good for a year after you request them. That means they'd expire by the end of October '09. So if anything happened that would change your cruise in december '09, and you couldn't use them on another, you may be at risk of losing the value of those certificates.

Nope - I'd wait until we got a notice that the sky was falling before I would do anything drastic. Over-reaction is our enemy in times like these.

Let's just hope that BoA is able to ride thru the tempest.

I've already done my bill paying through the individual companies anyway. My reasoning was that I used the "shop safe" feature, generated a different account number for each bill that I needed to pay, and then used that number. If there was a problem with the site's information being stolen, at least they wouldn't know my "real" account number, and the one that they got access to is tied to the original company so that it limited my exposure. Just another way of looking at it,.

I agree. That's the way I do it, too. Shopsafe is wonderful! I have probably used it over a hundred times so far.

I requested one $500 compass reward coupon in early July.. after 3 weeks passed with no coupon at my address I called again and they said they would cancel the original and research it-- then issue a 2nd one, I requested that they over nite it because I want to have it in place when my final payment is due mid august. They told me that they couldn't do it another way. I am supposed to get the new coupon in 2 weeks. Has anyone else had this problem? I have received before without any issues.

 

Does anyone have a contact NAME that I can call if this does not get resolved??

 

Thank you

 

Chris Mitchell

I just went through this. What a nightmare! I had 2 $500 certificates being sent to me, one from each account. To make a very long story much shorter, after 31 days and 4 phone calls , I had still not received them. I had to speak to supervisors 4 levels up before I got anywhere, and I'm still not sure it's completely resolved. (The saga of the first part of my experience is back about 12 posts) And we're sailing in 7 days!

Don't fret about having the certificates in before final payment. Just pay the balance with your credit card, and send the certs immediately upon getting them (Priority with delivery confirmation, or some other form of delivery to have proof that they were received)As long as the certs are received by NCL before you sail, they will still credit your account. I have done this many times - never a problem.

However, I suggest that the INSTANT the two weeks is up if you haven't received them, call BoA again and make sure that they track them down and re-issue. Record days, dates and times as well as who you speak to. I ended up speaking to 10 different people, over 30 days, taking a total of over 6 hours of my time. (Can you tell I'm a bit annoyed?). Don't believe them when they say a coupon # is good enough for NCL to make the deduction. It isn't. They must have the original certificates (not faxed, either). It is also NOT NCL's responsibility to get the certificates to you. It's BoA's. Don't let them try to tell you otherwise. Don't let them connect you with the "points" dept. That is the "WorldPoints" dept and has no connection to the Compass points whatsoever. Also, don't let them send you back to NCL, no matter what department. They can't help you. (Believe me, I spoke to them all.)

I got so many stories that my head was spinning. I can't give you a name, because thir cust service department is huge and spread out, I believe, but if you are not getting satisfaction, ask to talk to the boss. And his boss, and her boss, until you get resolution. I finally did end up with someone who listened and seemed to care. my situation was unique, however, because I had so little time before sailing.

You should be fine. I usually get my certs in 5 days or so. You have plenty of time. It'll work out. Good luck!

Hi - I'm hoping someone can help me. A search of this thread didn't help. I ordered one $500 certificate on each of my 2 accounts on July 1. July 15, they hadn't arrived (but the points had been removed from my account). So I called, the woman I spoke to said that due to the July 4 holiday, maybe they were delayed. OK, fine, so I waited until the 22nd, and called again. The person I spoke to sad that it looked like they had never been sent, and she would re-issue and send them Priority. Yesterday, the 27th, I tried again, the rep said she could find no record of my July 22 phone call, and at that moment the system went down for updating. Called this AM, went thru my whole story AGAIN, and the rep said she could re-issue them and I would get them in 10 - 15 days. Only problem is that we are leaving for our cruise in 9 days, and it will be much too late by then. I asked if they could be sent Priority and she no. I asked if I could pay for overnighting them, and she said no. I asked to speak to a manager, and she said no, but a manager would call me back in 24 to 48 hours. 24 to 48 HOURS?????

Is there a phone number I can call to get to a higher level of supervision more quickly? Each of these calls has taken me at least 15 minutes on the phone as each one researches it, and I can't get to a higher level. HELP!!!!

BTW - we booked our trip quite late, so I didn't know I would need the certs until July 1, which is why the whole thing is happening so late. This is the 10th time that I have redeemed certificates, and have never had a problem before. I guess I'm making up for it now......

ANy ideas on what I can do?

Hi Molly and Chris,

 

I'll wait to hear from both of you after you've been on your cruise since we won't be there until December 23. It does sound as this is definitely the place to go. Like you, we'd rather go on our own and avoid the ship's crowds and cost. Thanks for letting us know after you've been. :)

 

Connie

Been watching this thread and waiting for your return. There have been conflicting reports. What was your take on it?

We did this tour last week off the Pearl (ship excursion) and loved it. It had rained heavily prior to our arrival in Lamanai, and the paths, though wide enough for easy passage, were quite muddy and therefore somewhat slippery in places. One woman needed a walking stick for stability, and those in flip flops were challenged as the mud kept threatening to suck them off their feet. I would recommend a pair of very sturdy hiking sandals as opposed to flip flops, as they are dunkable in the water to get mud off. Our sneakers were caked with it, and our room steward was very sweet in getting them cleaned for us. But had I known, I would've worn Tevas or the like.

One thing I was surprised at was that a vast majority of the boat ride was high speed. I was hoping for much more of a nature tour, but I understand that since they need to travel 24 miles in about an hour, they can't dawdle much. I don't know that initially.

We did this tour last week off the Pearl (ship excursion) and loved it. It had rained heavily prior to our arrival in Lamanai, and the paths, though wide enough for easy passage, were quite muddy and therefore somewhat slippery in places. One woman needed a walking stick for stability, and those in flip flops were challenged as the mud kept threatening to suck them off their feet. I would recommend a pair of very sturdy hiking sandals as opposed to flip flops, as they are dunkable in the water to get mud off. Our sneakers were caked with it, and our room steward was very sweet in getting them cleaned for us. But had I known, I would've worn Tevas or the like.

One thing I was surprised at was that a vast majority of the boat ride was high speed. I was hoping for much more of a nature tour, but I understand that since they need to travel 24 miles in about an hour, they can't dawdle much. I don't know that initially.

I was looking at NCL's excursions and they have a clear kayak and snorkel excursion with food and drinks, it sounds alot like playa uvas. Does anyone know if they do take the ships excursions here? Does this make a large difference with the amount of people that are visiting for the day? TIA!

Costs about half of the port's parking charges - $40 for 5 days. I found it on the internet. Is anybody familiar with it? They claim to be 10 to 15 minutes from the port, with free shuttle service. Suggestions?

Thanks!