Has anyone else had this much trouble with Princess?

We have had so much trouble with Princess on our most recent booking that I am about to cancel and never sail with them again!

I am curious to find out if others have had similar problems.

We were given a "share the wealth" form when we were on the Caribbean Princess in Sept. since we booked a future cruise with them by paying our $100 pp deposit. This is to be given to a family member or friend so they too can have a reduced deposit of $100 and a shipboard credit of either $25 for an inside stateroom or $50 for an oceanview for a 7-9 day cruise.

The form is somewhat confusing since it is designed to give it to someone who has not booked. It says "We would like for you to join us!" "From your friends__________________Our booking number__________________

"Yes, I want to join my friends on their cruise with Princess and receive this special offer!

Your name(s)________________Your booking number_______________

THIS CERTIFICATE MUST BE RECEIVED BY PRINCESS CRUISES FOR OFFER TO APPLY."

What is really strange about this whole incentive program is the person you are inviting must write in their booking number before mailing it to Princess to get the reduced $100 pp deposit and shipboard credit. But you can't book the cruise with the reduced deposit until Princess gets it! So, basically, you have to pay the normal deposit until Princess gets the card and then they credit back the difference? This does not make sense. My agent went ahead and just charged the $100 pp knowing Princess would be getting the card in the mail. Well, this program apparently isn't working so well since they cancelled my in-law's booking because they say they did not receive the card.

So, when we returned home, we immediately contacted our travel agent to book the Sapphire Princess. When we offered the "share the wealth" program to my husband's parents, they wanted to go, but only to the Eastern Caribbean. We contacted our travel agent to change the ship and date and also to let them know my in-laws would also be booking a cabin using this promotion offered by Princess. Two weeks ago, I completed the pre-paid postcard at the bottom of the form and mailed it to Princess to the address pre-printed on the form.

Prior to doing this, we were told about the referral program while on the ship and since the in-laws had never sailed with Princess, we qualified for the referral program as well. We completed this on-line, sent the invitations to our in-laws via e-mail and they replied. We both received a reply back from Princess stating they already had booking numbers. I called Princess to explain they booked and replied all on the same day. They said "sorry, since the booking came through before the referral did, they are not eligible." I explained it was all within hours in the same day. After arguing for a while with the Princess rep., I asked to speak to a supervisor. After explaining what had happened, she looked up the bookings and said the in-laws were not even set up yet with their Captain's Circle Accounts, so she would send it through manually.

Today, I get a call from our travel agent saying that Princess cancelled my in-law's booking because in my agent's words they "vehemently deny" they ever received the "share the wealth" postcard that I personally mailed to them at the pre-printed address on the postcard. So, they temporarily lost their cabin, the referral bonus that I worked so hard to get and the on-board credit associated with the "share the wealth" program. They also credited back the $200 deposit they paid when they booked the cruise. My agent had to call them back and plead with them to get the same cabin and since my agent has a promotion going on right now for a reduced deposit of $100 pp, she will just have to charge the card again for this amount. The problem is the credits won't get credited back for a while and the charge is immediate. How do I explain this to my elderly in-law's? The rate for the cruise has also gone up since we booked, which is another issue.

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is, if you get a "share the wealth" certificate while on the ship, make sure you send it certified mail requiring a signature receipt even though it is a pre-paid postcard. Also, if you are referring someone, make sure the person you are referring replies back to Princess prior to contacting your agent to book the cruise.

Yes, this is a very common problem with the "share the wealth" system, you're not the only one whose friend/family's booking has been cancelled because the card didn't get to Princess quickly enough. As I understand the system (and this is totally from a non-travel-professional perspective, so if I'm getting it wrong, someone please correct me!), the way the booking works is that because $100 is not the normal deposit amount, when a TA make a booking for someone who's sending in a Share the Wealth coupon, the Princess system puts it down as a hold, rather than as a confirmed booking, because the full deposit amount hasn't been paid. When the coupon comes in, they adjust the require deposit amount and the booking becomes finalized. The problem is, they'll only let you hold a cabin for so many days (2? 3? I don't remember) and of course it takes a lot longer for a postage paid postcard to get through the mail system than the amount of time they allow you to hold a cabin. So, the booking gets cancelled because the person didn't pay the full deposit amount, and the $100 per person gets refunded to the person's credit card. In order to avoid this problem, you basically have to overnight mail the postcard thingy to Princess, rather than sending it through the regular mail.

I wouldn't let a friend use a "Share the Wealth" coupon of mine unless they were going to be going through a very sharp TA who understands this problem and is going to be really anal about making sure the booking is handled properly. If my friend is booking through my TA, she has me send the Share the Wealth coupon to her rather than directly to Princess, so she can overnight the coupon to Princess as soon as she's made the booking and make sure everything gets credited properly.

This is one of those areas where Princess could probably use a little improvement in its system. Personally, I think it would be better if the whole thing could be handled electronically, since bookings seem to be done all electronically nowadays, but I think that would probably require a big upgrade in Princess's computer systems. I'm hopeful that the Princess PR folks who we now know read these boards will pass this feedback onto the IT department over there! :)

WOW what a nightmare!

What's even more crazy is that I work with these Share The Wealth Coupons all the time and have never had any problems. All I've ever needed to do to get the ball rolling is give them the code at the bottom of the coupon and some other, minimal, info and that's that.

It really IS a good deal any way you look at it though. We never leave the ship without buying some future cruise credit and getting some STW coupons.

Sorry you had to go through all that. Ick!

This happened to me. A good thing I had mailed certified but it did take my CA getting ahold of someone in authority to get my parents booking back.

Having had this happen I now know to mail overnight but if you are doing this for the first time, the chances or greater then not that there will be a booking problem, if the card is sent through regular mail. I would think this is an ongoing problem for Princess, getting calls that a booking was canceled and that just to cut down on the extra work, they would come up with a better way.

Have done a referral and then the referred couple used our Share the Wealth and it worked great. No problems here, but I think doing the referral online, then letting the referred couple ACCEPT the referral online BEFORE booking the cruise is the key. Have also done just the Share the Wealth and it has worked great each time.

Have done a referral and then the referred couple used our Share the Wealth and it worked great. No problems here, but I think doing the referral online, then letting the referred couple ACCEPT the referral online BEFORE booking the cruise is the key. Have also done just the Share the Wealth and it has worked great each time.

We did everything with the referral electronically. Maybe we are just unlucky!

Well,

Guess what? My husband and I invited my good friends to go with us for 3/4/06 and I decided to check the cruise personalizer this evening for

us as well as for them (because I happen to have their booking number as well) And the cruise personalizer states that my friends' cruise has been

CANCELLED.

Curiously, they booked with the $100 deposit promo, not even RELATED to

STW promotion!! It was me who mailed the coupon myself to princess

3 months ago with all of our respective booking numbers on the STW coupon.

This was not even BOOKED as a STW booking and they STILL cancelled this

cruise. My friends don't even know yet. I just e-mailed the TA to have

her rectify this situation. She said all the STW people get cancelled, or a great majority of them because of this computer glitch.

Does anyone smell a class action lawsuit coming??? Now my friends might

have to re-book and get a lesser cabin for the same price or even a higher

price.

Well,

Guess what? My husband and I invited my good friends to go with us for 3/4/06 and I decided to check the cruise personalizer this evening for

us as well as for them (because I happen to have their booking number as well) And the cruise personalizer states that my friends' cruise has been

CANCELLED.

Curiously, they booked with the $100 deposit promo, not even RELATED to

STW promotion!! It was me who mailed the coupon myself to princess

3 months ago with all of our respective booking numbers on the STW coupon.

This was not even BOOKED as a STW booking and they STILL cancelled this

cruise. My friends don't even know yet. I just e-mailed the TA to have

her rectify this situation. She said all the STW people get cancelled, or a great majority of them because of this computer glitch.

Does anyone smell a class action lawsuit coming??? Now my friends might

have to re-book and get a lesser cabin for the same price or even a higher

price.

Sounds like it would be easier to give people who book on board an electronic referral number that could be linked to the original booking. What a nightmare this has to be. After reading this, the only way I might consider using a STW coupon would be for people that I really don't want to be friends with anymore.

I just noticed that Princess has changed their website and it does not have a link to the cruise personalizer on the main screen. You have to click on "Prepare" and then click on the "Cruise Personalizer" link.

Well,

Guess what? My husband and I invited my good friends to go with us for 3/4/06 and I decided to check the cruise personalizer this evening for

us as well as for them (because I happen to have their booking number as well) And the cruise personalizer states that my friends' cruise has been

CANCELLED.

 

Curiously, they booked with the $100 deposit promo, not even RELATED to

STW promotion!! It was me who mailed the coupon myself to princess

3 months ago with all of our respective booking numbers on the STW coupon.

 

This was not even BOOKED as a STW booking and they STILL cancelled this

cruise. My friends don't even know yet. I just e-mailed the TA to have

her rectify this situation. She said all the STW people get cancelled, or a great majority of them because of this computer glitch.

 

Does anyone smell a class action lawsuit coming??? Now my friends might

have to re-book and get a lesser cabin for the same price or even a higher

price.

This is so frustrating, and embarrassing. I had to try to explain it to my mother and father-in-law after they cancelled them. I referred them to Princess in the first place. It doesn't give a very favorable impression of Princess when they cancel the cruise and make it so difficult to take advantage of incentives to offer family and friends. While you are on the ship, they really push booking a cruise for the lower deposit and giving your friends or family the same offer. They should spend more time trying to fix this problem. It is almost not worth it.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I have not tried the referral credits but did recently use the stw card. I waited about 3 weeks and did not see anything listed in my cruise savings account or any other place on the personalizer. I called Princess and they said I definitely had the obc in my account but they don't show up because they are tied to my friends booking. My TA checked within her online system and she told me not to worry and the credits are definitely there. While it was a bit of a hassle, it was worth it since I was able to get the $100 deposit and onboard credits.

We've only used the Share The Wealth referral system once, years ago, and had no problems - but that was when most of the paperwork was in fact paper, and not computers, which often compound errors.

Well,

Guess what? My husband and I invited my good friends to go with us for 3/4/06 and I decided to check the cruise personalizer this evening for

us as well as for them (because I happen to have their booking number as well) And the cruise personalizer states that my friends' cruise has been

CANCELLED.

 

Curiously, they booked with the $100 deposit promo, not even RELATED to

STW promotion!! It was me who mailed the coupon myself to princess

3 months ago with all of our respective booking numbers on the STW coupon.

 

This was not even BOOKED as a STW booking and they STILL cancelled this

cruise. My friends don't even know yet. I just e-mailed the TA to have

her rectify this situation. She said all the STW people get cancelled, or a great majority of them because of this computer glitch.

 

Does anyone smell a class action lawsuit coming??? Now my friends might

have to re-book and get a lesser cabin for the same price or even a higher

price.

Great, now I'm worried. Our friends booked to go with us on the 3/19/06 sailing on the Star and booked with a reduced deposit because of a special that an on-line agency was having and then we sent in the Share the weath coupon, I'll have to make sure and tell him to check his cruise and make sure it's there.

I've read about the STW program on Princess and thought it sounded like a great idea.

Here's my problem. I am going with on my first Princess cruise in January with "family away from home" when I was in University (just a few years ago:rolleyes: ). We leave January 21.

I am in the process of booking a cruise in March to go with my DH and 4 stepkids for March break.

As I will have taken the first cruise before we go on the second, is there any way I can use the STW for the cruise with the kids?

Thanks for any tips.

Elin

The way my TA explained it, is that when you give a STW coupon to someone the TA places what is really a courtesy hold on the cabin, which is the $100.00. That coupon must reach the right party within the hold period for the booking to go through and not show additional deposit owing. If the STW

coupon does not reach them within that allowed period on the hold, the whole cruise becomes a cancel. I did not know this and mailed the coupon 2 days after all of the reservations had been made. When you add mail time it did not get there in time. When they did get it they had no reservation to match it to and I was told the coupon is tossed, if it cannot be matched to an active reservation. This really leaves a lot of room for things to go wrong.

I recommend that the TA be the one to mail at the very same time the reservation is placed. It should be mailed overnight, certified. This should take care of the timing issue. If there is a problem later on you have back up proof it was sent. Also, check right away. Do not know what the outcome would be if this was not noticed for three months. Please let us know if your friends were able to rebook at the reduced deposit in the same category. Best of luck to those having a problem.

Carol