Celebrity not taking responsibility for their actions

I posted a thread with this title yesterday and it got quite few responses. I checked it this morning and it was gone. I did a search for the key words and it was listed but the links would not work. Although I was not praising or demeaning them, it did mentioned the name of my travel agent. If this was the reason for the apparent removal of the thread, I am reposting it without the offending text.

Celebrity: Take responsibility for your actions

We signed up for a cruise on Celebrity’s Century’s April 5th sailing going from Dubai, through the Suez Canal to Rome. Exactly one week after booking the cruise Celebrity notified our Travel Agent that the sailing was being cancelled and redeployed. The new itinerary was one night shorter and was going to Singapore with 4 stops in India. We told our travel agent to cancel our booking because we wanted Europe not Asia and we had no desire to see the ports in India. Nine alternative sailings were offered at the lowest available rate but they were Asian itineraries as well.

Imagine our surprise when the travel agent explained that the $3,374 airfare charge would NOT be refunded. We booked the air through Celebrity, and their subsidiary ChoiceAir was the one refusing the refund. The travel agent appealed our case to both Celebrity and ChoiceAir but our claim was flat out rejected. I tried calling Celebrity Customer Service Department myself but they just forwarded my call to Choice Air who continued to stonewall me on the issue.

We are Captains Club Elite Tier cruisers. We did not cancel for our own convenience; Celebrity cancelled the cruise and substituted an itinerary so completely different that it was unusable for us. And they did it within a week of our booking! I can’t believe that (what we thought was) an upstanding cruise line could refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. My advice: choose another cruise line.

As I said yesterday, email contactmichael@celebrity.com with your issue.

If your posting is completely accurate as to the all the details then we would suggest you simply put the Credit Card Charge for your airfare in dispute with your credit card company. We have also had a previous issue with Choice Air when they booked our return flight (for a long back to back cruise) on the wrong date (it was actually a day at sea on the cruise). When we noticed the error and called Choice Air they tried to claim that is was our error, until I pointed out that they made the reservation, confirmed the proper dates of the cruise, and still booked the wrong date. Then when Choice Air tried to change our air to the proper days it turned out that there was a penalty for changing the reservation and the cost of the airfare had increased. They wanted us to pay those additional costs but we insisted that since they had erred it was all their problem. Eventually, after 4 phone calls and nearly 1 1/2 hours on the phone with various Choice Air reps they did correct their error and they also paid the additional cost.

You can certainly keep working with Choice Air (I would call them myself) and you should now document every contact between you and your TA and with Choice Air. Keep a file with names, dates, times, topics discussed. Start thinking like a lawyer.

We would also suggest sending a letter or e-mail directly to the attention of Michael Bayley who is the CEO of Celebrity.

Hank

We would also suggest sending a letter or e-mail directly to the attention of Michael Bayley who is the CEO of Celebrity.

 

Hank

I agree that Celebrity and Choice Air should be accommodating and refund your air fare. :mad:

I do have a question - did you purchase Travel Insurance from a non-cruiseline company? If yes, shouldn't they refund your money?

Good luck

Debbi

Ok I get reposting this...

As I was one of the Posters that told you that it might disappear cause you did name names when it came to the Travel Agent.

But to be fair... As your post stands now it really is misleading on what WAS ACCOMPLISHED with your original post.

You should go back into the post here (you can Edit for 20 Minutes) and give an UPDATE...

Because of all the great help & reassurances you got from other CC Members... Some of whom were booked on the same cruise

AND besides there was that post from CC Member CELEBRITY CRUISES, the Official Rep from Celebrity Social Media who said they would look into your into your situation / get back to you.

I don't think it even has been 24 Hours yet.

Hardly fair IMO, to now present your case as if you are still at square one like you were yesterday

Just my 2 cents Canadian (lol then again we don't even have pennies anymore)

Cheers!

Hello there,

Can you please send an email to concerns@celebrity.com with your reservation number and contact details? Thank you.

This thread was cancelled because it mentioned the name of a travel agency. It was resubmitted under a different title. See http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2100565

Bobnpaty,

Have you yet followed up with an email to this address as suggested by Celebrity Cruises?

concerns@celebrity.com

Till you receive further news from the cruise line, as others have suggested, I think you should stop shaking the tree...

The OP has reported on another one of his threads that he is getting a full refund.

The OP has reported on another one of his threads that he is getting a full refund.

I hope bobnpatty has the decency now to update us fully on the resolution (if any) as suggested above.

Fair enough to gripe when warranted but only seems right that you would give us the final tally when it ends--otherwise one might suspect your real motives?

Hello there,

Can you please send an email to concerns@celebrity.com with your reservation number and contact details? Thank you.

Good suggestion and e-mail address to keep in mind in reaching Celebrity for such issues/questions/needs. Glad to see that things are getting resolved.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

Back from doing a 14-day Celebrity Solstice, Jan. 20-Feb. 3, 2014, Sydney to Auckland adventure on this ship and getting a big sampling for the wonders of "down under” before and after this cruise. Go to:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1974139

for much more information and lots of wonderful pictures on these amazing sights in this great part of the world. Now at 76,604 views for this fun posting.

There is a perception that I opened multiple threads for the same issue. One guy accused me of doing it in an attempt to get my point across; he called it “bombing the board”.

Let me tell you this is NOT the case. My initial thread was submitted on 9/11 at 6:46AM http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2100087. It was removed that night by Cruise Critic. I was not notified that the thread was removed but I suspected the cause was naming a travel agency because one of the posting replies mentioned that as being non compliant with the Community Guidelines.

I removed what I thought was the only offending instance and resubmitted the thread on 9/12 at 7:28AM http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2100565. Unfortunately, I did not do a complete review and one mention of the travel agency name remained in my repost. The resubmitted thread was pulled immediately. Again I was not notified of the removal nor the reason for it.

I found the remaining infraction and again resubmitted the thread on 9/12 at 8:47AM http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2100600. This time I changed the title as well because I was still not sure why the thread was being pulled.

I eventually received an email from Cruise Critic staff telling me why the threads had been pulled. And, since the mention of a specific agency was not in the context of praising or criticizing that agency, they offered to remove the name and merge postings from the previously submitted threads. I said yes.

Apparently the merger did not work as planned because my single issue currently appears as 3 separate threads. I don’t know this can be fixed, but as the OP I consider the thread at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2100600 to be the “official one. That is the place where I will post my comments regarding the final resolution of this issue.

FYI: the only other related thread that I am aware of is the Rollcall thread for the April 5th sailing on the Century. It can be found at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1958631