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Any word on an Oceania app yet?


Ken the cruiser
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Please NO!

 

I would guess that the current firewalls around our accounts are fairly significant. Last thing I want is another letter from an airline, hotel, or other services provider telling me their system has been hacked along with all of my personal info! Mobile apps appear to be easy targets for entry.

 

I typically eat way to much food aboard ship anyway, and a stroll down to customer service is good for me.;p

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Please NO!

 

I would guess that the current firewalls around our accounts are fairly significant. Last thing I want is another letter from an airline, hotel, or other services provider telling me their system has been hacked along with all of my personal info! Mobile apps appear to be easy targets for entry.

 

I typically eat way to much food aboard ship anyway, and a stroll down to customer service is good for me.;p

As on most other cruise lines that use this new technology, I would imagine you can only access your account through the ship’s WiFi using your shipboard account rather than via the internet from the shore location.

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Wouldn’t it be simpler just to be able to access this info on your in-room TV (along with many other things like daily MDR menus, etc).

No internet access or walking to the reception required :)

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Wouldn’t it be simpler just to be able to access this info on your in-room TV (along with many other things like daily MDR menus, etc).

No internet access or walking to the reception required :)

I heard somewhere that new circuitry would need to be put in all the cabins to handle upgrading to smart TVs. Not sure how easy that would be in the R class ships.

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It would be better if they could sort out the occasional clunckiness of the website.

 

However, every cruise line site I’ve had to deal with, seems to have issues from time to time.

 

In the EU we now have no data charges when you are in other EU countries, which negates the need for an App. Unfortunately, most cruise websites seems designed for high speed Internet, which currently mobile devices don’t always deliver. So the cruise companies need to recognise the need to service the modern mobile linked society.

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It would be better if they could sort out the occasional clunckiness of the website.

 

However, every cruise line site I’ve had to deal with, seems to have issues from time to time.

 

In the EU we now have no data charges when you are in other EU countries, which negates the need for an App. Unfortunately, most cruise websites seems designed for high speed Internet, which currently mobile devices don’t always deliver. So the cruise companies need to recognise the need to service the modern mobile linked society.

Just to be clear I'm just talking about an Oceania app that would only work on the ship's wifi when you are onboard an Oceania ship. The main purpose of the app would be to give you instant access to your onboard account as well as any other applicable onboard activities.

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It sure would be nice if Oceania had an iPhone app where we could check our account while we’re on the ship rather than going down to guest services and getting a print out. Any word as to whether or not they are working on one?

Have you contacted Oceania they are the ones in the know

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Certainly not rocket science. NCL has one and it even pings you every time you charge something.

OH please no

My car pings & beeps for all kinds of things

 

talk about distracted driving ...:eek:

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All of O ships are small in comparison to other lines, particularly the R ships. I am typically in the near vicinity of customer service, which is open 24/7, several times per day. It escapes me why a very very short walk there is such a major event for some!

 

I go on tours, I return from tours. I eat at Jacques, Red Ginger, or the GDR. I go to the evening shows in the Lounge. I sit in Martinis and have a drink. In all cases , I’m anywhere from a putter to a lob wedge’s distance from customer service!

Edited by pinotlover
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All of O ships are small in comparison to other lines, particularly the R ships. I am typically in the near vicinity of customer service, which is open 24/7, several times per day. It escapes me why a very very short walk there is such a major event for some!

 

I go on tours, I return from tours. I eat at Jacques, Red Ginger, or the GDR. I go to the evening shows in the Lounge. I sit in Martinis and have a drink. In all cases , I’m anywhere from a putter to a lob wedge’s distance from customer service!

Good point and were glad we did stop by customer service on our last b2b cruise.

 

On the first day of our second leg, someone used my birthday and a dummy email account with my last name in it to open an Oceania @ Sea account. Now, we already had our free Internet account going, but it was in my DW's name. I wonder who would have access to that information?:confused::confused: BTW we were the only ones doing this b2b besides our solo friend that also had unlimited internet service.

 

On the first day the person just charged the internet service by the minute. Then the next day they felt embolden and upgraded that account to a 200 minute package. On the 4th day we stopped by customer service just to see how much OBC we had left and we saw these bogus charges. Now, let's say we didn't stop by and waited until the last day when we got our final bill in our room and found $200+ in bogus charges? How much convincing would we have to do to get that charge nullified? All I'm saying is other cruise lines offer an onboard app to instantly check on your account as well as other events going on.

 

When we talked with the CD he mentioned O was working on one. I'm just curious if anyone knows when it might be available. Now, if someone doesn't want to use it when it becomes available, that's cool. However, for us it would be a nice perk.

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Good point and were glad we did stop by customer service on our last b2b cruise.

 

On the first day of our second leg, someone used my birthday and a dummy email account with my last name in it to open an Oceania @ Sea account. Now, we already had our free Internet account going, but it was in my DW's name. I wonder who would have access to that information?:confused::confused: BTW we were the only ones doing this b2b besides our solo friend that also had unlimited internet service.

 

On the first day the person just charged the internet service by the minute. Then the next day they felt embolden and upgraded that account to a 200 minute package. On the 4th day we stopped by customer service just to see how much OBC we had left and we saw these bogus charges. Now, let's say we didn't stop by and waited until the last day when we got our final bill in our room and found $200+ in bogus charges? How much convincing would we have to do to get that charge nullified? All I'm saying is other cruise lines offer an onboard app to instantly check on your account as well as other events going on.

 

This is the first time I am reading about such an outrageous and bold cheating, although little surprises me any more about some peoples’ behavior.

I would like to think that O did something about it and punished the perpetrator but I doubt it.

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Good point and were glad we did stop by customer service on our last b2b cruise.

 

On the first day of our second leg, someone used my birthday and a dummy email account with my last name in it to open an Oceania @ Sea account. Now, we already had our free Internet account going, but it was in my DW's name. I wonder who would have access to that information?:confused::confused: BTW we were the only ones doing this b2b besides our solo friend that also had unlimited internet service.

I wonder how they got your info?

That is very strange indeed

 

I am trying to remember but do you not just use your cabin number & surname to open the account?

 

 

How do you know you were the only B2B pax?

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This is the first time I am reading about such an outrageous and bold cheating, although little surprises me any more about some peoples’ behavior.

I would like to think that O did something about it and punished the perpetrator but I doubt it.

We don't know. We asked the Oceania @ Sea guy and all he said was that he forwarded the issue to the front office. We never heard anything more about that particular issue.

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I wonder how they got your info?

That is very strange indeed

 

I am trying to remember but do you not just use your cabin number & surname to open the account?

 

How do you know you were the only B2B pax?

You need a name, email address and birthdate to create an I@S account, and obviously they don't certify the email address with the one that is on your Oceania account.

 

We, along with our friend who was booked as a solo in the cabin next to us, were the only 3 that did this particular Cuba 7 day and 9 day b2b cruise on the Sirena in May. We had to have separate visas for each cruise. We picked up our new Cuba visas for the second leg of the cruise from guest services the evening before disembarkation, which by the way had our birthdates on them. The email address was "my last name"@gmail.com. Now can you imagine how long ago I would have had to register on gmail to be able to use my very common last name without some unique suffix? That's how we pretty much convinced the O@S guy that I didn't register the account.

 

Wait! There's more! When we disembarked in Miami after the second leg we went to the airport and bought lunch after checking in for our flight. Shortly afterwards my DW got a text alert from her bank as someone earlier in the day had charged a coke for $2 (which was the initial test charge), then made a $75 charge at Tommy Hilfingers and then a $92 charge at a perfume store in Orlando! She was asked to confirm those charges as she just used her card at the Miami airport which is quite a distance away from Orlando. They of course were bogus and she subsequently had her bank cancel the card. My DW then contacted our friend, who was on the cruise with us, for her to check her credit card status and she had 6 bogus charges pending for that day as well, none of which she had initiated. She subsequently canceled her card as well.

 

To make a long story short, we contacted Oceania. They did a thorough review of their procedures to include contacting the Purser and they guaranteed us there was no way the credit card information could be seen by anyone on the cruise.

 

The bottom line (in our minds) is there was a breach in security during the b2b transition as my DW hadn't used that card since we boarded the cruise 17 days ago as we used a different one while onboard to check into our flight home and pay for baggage.

 

Worst case scenario would be if we hadn't noticed those O@S bogus charges until closer to the end of the cruise, the "bad person" could have done a lot more damage if he (or she) would have been able to start making those charges using the bogus I@S account while we were on the cruise.

 

As it turns out and we're of course speculating here, he (or she) had to wait until they were back in port in Miami before they could start charging on our cards using their internet-enabled phones.

 

There is a silver lining though to this story. None of us lost any money and Oceania got a wakeup call that they need to make sure they follow protocol procedures even if there are only 3 people transitioning to the second leg of a cruise, especially if separate visas are involved such as when you go to Cuba. Also, we now have it set up with our bank so that we get an email every time one of our credit cards is used. Hopefully this issue is an isolated one, but it never hurts to be security conscious.

 

I'm not saying an onboard Oceania cruise app would have prevented this, but we would have noticed the initial breach much earlier on instead of casually going by customer service for a different reason.

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Makes you wonder

 

I have had my CC hacked but it was at home never any issues while cruising

I try to use cash in ports just in case the bad guys skim your card

 

Good that is was caught early

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Ken,

I am intrigued by this story as it also involved stealing your (and your friend’s) CC info.

I assume that these purchases were made online and not in person - unless they were able to create a duplicate card, Did your CC have a chip?

If the purchases were made online, there had to be a delivery address that obviously was not yours but that of the thief.

What am I missing?

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Ken,

I am intrigued by this story as it also involved stealing your (and your friend’s) CC info.

I assume that these purchases were made online and not in person - unless they were able to create a duplicate card, Did your CC have a chip?

If the purchases were made online, there had to be a delivery address that obviously was not yours but that of the thief.

What am I missing?

Yes, both of our cards had chips and the charges were made online. The Tommy Hilfinger name on the charge was misspelled and the charges on our friend's card were to some really weird businesses. It had the feel of an organized effort that uses loopholes to create short term "fake" businesses.

 

However, there wasn't much detail information in the online information we could see about these charges. But I'm sure our bank has a lot more info they can pass along to whomever chases these fraud incidents down. My guess is those fake businesses close their accounts and reopen new opens on a regular basis making it hard to track them down.

 

As far as a delivery address, you're probably right. But all we saw was the charge. The fraud folks would have to trace that down. But since the charges were all less than $100, my guess is the motivation to track these folks down would be pretty low.

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In the military we called those that fell out of formation prior to PT SLL. Sick, Lame, or Lazy.

 

Oceania is not an all exclusive liner, but charges ala carte for many of its service s. Drink Packages, shore tours, different levels of internet service, etc.

 

Here’s my win -win solution. Allow all those SLL to sign up and pay for a package that allows them online access, from their PC or phone, to their onboard account. . For those of us not SLL, and have no problem visiting customer service for or needs, allow us to continue doing do with no charge. Pay to play, win-win!

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In the military we called those that fell out of formation prior to PT SLL. Sick, Lame, or Lazy.

 

Oceania is not an all exclusive liner, but charges ala carte for many of its service s. Drink Packages, shore tours, different levels of internet service, etc.

 

Here’s my win -win solution. Allow all those SLL to sign up and pay for a package that allows them online access, from their PC or phone, to their onboard account. . For those of us not SLL, and have no problem visiting customer service for or needs, allow us to continue doing do with no charge. Pay to play, win-win!

Nice thought. Maybe they can make the O App package free for folks booking a concierge cabin or higher to make those cabins more appealing. I like it.;)

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I had a bad experience too. We were on the ship and my husband gave a regular credit card to purchase a watch. This was before chip. Someone in the jewelry shop took the info and gave to someone off the ship and just at the end of the cruise we were informed that our card was maxed out. They had charged about $50,000. All sorts of stuff. The credit card company didn't hold us responsible and of course my husband should have known better. There are many people in this world who will take advantage at any time.

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I wonder how secure some of these APPs are ??

too many people rely on apps for everything

 

I am sure they are convenient but you still need to use them wisely

 

too many people out there trying to get your info

 

JMO

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