Retroactive Charge -- what should I do?

[Fury1995]

Well, I can do a search on these boards too that will tell me inaccurate information on just about every question ever asked here, it doesn't make it true. If I wanted to go to the effort, I would scan the vouchers that I didn't pass out but alas, it isn't worth it. The OP has never said who they spoke to on board about prepaid gratuties. If they asked at the MTD desk in the MDR, I doubt anyone actually checked their account. Gratuities are listed separately on their invoice if they were billed. They are not hard to find at all but you would know that if you actually have had MTD now wouldn't you?

 

You're right. The OP didn't say who they asked. I'm going with some assumption here. I assumed MTD was chosen prior to boarding since the OP didn't say they had to change anything in their dining arrangements after boarding. I'm assuming pre-paid gratuities are mandatory if MTD is chosen. I'm assuming the OP asked someone who would have access to their Seapass account and any charges due from them while on board. I'm assuming Guest Services was who they asked. Last but not least, I'm assuming most of what I read from other peoples' experiences have some semblance of truth which is why I believe what you said about vouchers being provided whether gratuities were paid prior to boarding or prior to the last night while on board.

 

One thing I learned from you though. When checking on the status of pre-paid gratuities, it must be done at the BTD desk in the MDR. Not Guest Services.

[reallyitsmema]

You're right. The OP didn't say who they asked. I'm going with some assumption here. I assumed MTD was chosen prior to boarding since the OP didn't say they had to change anything in their dining arrangements after boarding. I'm assuming pre-paid gratuities are mandatory if MTD is chosen. I'm assuming the OP asked someone who would have access to their Seapass account and any charges due from them while on board. I'm assuming Guest Services was who they asked. Last but not least, I'm assuming most of what I read from other peoples' experiences have some semblance of truth which is why I believe what you said about vouchers being provided whether gratuities were paid prior to boarding or prior to the last night while on board.

 

One thing I learned from you though. When checking on the status of pre-paid gratuities, it must be done at the BTD desk in the MDR. Not Guest Services.

No, I asked if they checked at MTD and if they did, I doubt anyone checked. The head waiter at the MTD desk on our cruise was less than helpful. If you asked a question, she would just brush you off. The maitre'd was much better and would actually move her aside and look things up on the computer. Guest relations has always looked up things on their computer when we have had a question.

[land lover]

What would I do? PAY IT, and not start a thread with reasons to justify why I should not. Errors are made, life is tooooo short.

 

What should you do? PAY IT.

[land lover]

Another scenario that might have happened...

 

When the TA made final payment, they might have neglected to pay the gratuities that need to be paid with final invoice if you have MTD. Then, about a month later, when they received their commission statement from RC, it showed their commission reduced by the amount of the tips that should have been paid at final but were not, so RC took it out of the amount to be paid to the agent.

 

Upon finding this error, the TA came back to you saying you failed to pay it, you booked it days before the cruise, you should have paid it on the ship. All are basically incorrect. If you booked MTD from the start, the tips are part of your total cost and not paying them will either cause a notification from RC to the agent, or RC will take it from their commission.

 

Sounds like the agent might have charged an incorrect amount and now wants to recoup their loss from you. What I don't like is the fact that they tried to pass off a story as to why it was your fault, when it is very likely theirs.

 

While I agree that it was your responsibility to pay the tips, if you received an invoice from your TA and was told that the final amount was due and you authorized it, and your TA screwed up, they need to eat it. Unfortunately it's a part of doing business.

 

OKAY, now I have gone back and read all the replies.

 

njmomo, that is a reasonable scenario......the problem still is, what is the truth? is it worth one's time, depends.....

 

Good Luck, OP

[land lover]

i'm sure you have a million of them and over time we're going to hear them all

 

lol

[land lover]

Incorrect. Vouchers are provided for people who have prepaid gratuities for MTD. You do not have to pass out the vouchers but you do receive them. This is from actual experience as opposed to what I might have read on a message board.:rolleyes:

 

Agree. 4 cruises last year all MTD, recevied vouchers for all. However, MTD was requested each time when on the ship 3 times I signed the tip form on the first day, the last cruise the MD had paper work ready for me to sign 3 days in.

[Mark_K]

If you have an invoice from the TA stating that you were "paid in full," I would challenge it; you have to prepay your tips for the option you chose in April which I am assuming is documented on your invoice (the dining selection, not the tips).

 

Sadly, I'm guessing the crew will miss out even if this is fixed.

 

Sounds like the TA dropped the ball. Whether or not you end up paying it, I would be looking for a new TA a.s.a.p.!

 

Good luck!

Having something saying "paid in full" is only really relevant if the amount owed and/or paid is in dispute. In this case it should be fairly simple to determine both the amount owed (cruise fare items + gratuities) and the amount paid (credit card statement). If the first one is larger than the second one, the amount is still owed regardless of any verbiage on the statement.

[sailandcruise]

i was on the October 2 Enchantment of the Seas cruise from Baltimore to Bermuda. I chose "my time dining" when I booked in April and was informed that this choice required prepayment of gratuities. I authorized the TA to charge the fare and gratuities to my credit card, and received an invoice marked "paid in full." I didn't check carefully to see if there was a separate line on the invoice for gratuities, as it's somewhat difficult to figure out how much of the fare goes to Royal Caribbean, how much is taxes and fees, and how much is commission for the agent -- so I couldn't really tell whether the gratuities had been billed or not. (The invoice also didn't show the on-board credit I was granted as part of the TA's group; I wasn't sure that this would really show up and I had no documentation of it until I checked a bill while onboard and saw that it had been applied.)

 

While aboard the ship I double checked and asked if our gratuities had been prepaid, and was told that they had. The gratuities didn't appear on our shipboard bill and everything seemed fine.

 

Today I receive a call from someone in the same office as the TA telling me that because I chose "my time dining" a couple of days before the cruise I should have paid the gratuities on board. (Apparently either the agency's or Royal Caribbean's auditors had discovered that I hadn't paid this charge.) I informed him that I had requested "my time dining" when I booked the cruise through his agency and had assumed that his agency had included the prepaid gratuities in my bill. I told him that I had paid all the bills I received from his agency and from Royal Caribbean while aboard and that I resented the implication that I was somehow trying to avoid paying a legitimate charge when the mistake was made by some combination of his agency and Royal Caribbean. :mad:

 

Immediately after the telephone call a revised bill appeared in my email from the original agent, showing a new total that included the gratuities and a remaining balance for that amount. No message with the revised bill, no discussion of a mistake, no explanation, no apology, no request to fix an error or omission, just an invoice. :mad:

 

So, what's the right thing to do in this situation? Can they add a charge a month after the cruise because of their mistake? :confused: Am I obligated to pay it or do they have to suffer the consequences of their error? :confused: Even if I'm not legally obligated to pay, should I do so anyway? :confused: If I don't pay, who loses out -- the TA, his agency, Royal Caribbean, or the crew? :confused: What would you do?

Thanks to all who responded. I wanted to let you all know that the day after I made the original posting, I received a new invoice from the TA that contained a "Goodwill Adjustment" in the amount of the Pre-Paid Gratuities and a final balance marked "PAID IN FULL." No explanation, nothing except the revised invoice.

 

Perhaps the TA reads this forum?

 

I'll be responding to some of your questions and suggestions when I get a chance.

[Puffinater]

Thanks for coming back and providing the update.

[FerndaleFan]

Just one more reason to book direct with the cruise line and not a TA.

 

Took the words right outta my mouth.

[Tranquil Waters]

I believe this is partially incorrect. Vouchers are supplied if you arrange to have gratuities added to your Seapass account while on board. Vouchers are only for show, they do not actually take the form of a cash tip after they are received, they get them with or without the vouchers. Pre-paid gratuities do not require vouchers if paid prior to sailing and paid for when included in the cruise fare as in the case when selecting MyTime dining at the time of booking. I have seen more than several posts to support what I just said.

 

Again, I say I believe this is partially incorrect.

 

As an aside, we have always been given vouchers when we have pre-paid (on our credit card at time of final payment) gratuities for MTD. We sometimes just toss them as we know the staff knows that MTD have all paid their tips. We only use the envelops when we want to add extra for extra good service.

[FerndaleFan]

Oh yes because we all know Royal never makes these types of mistakes!:confused:

 

So the remedy is to have TWO parties potentially making mistakes?! :confused:

[sailandcruise]

Some of you asked for more details about with whom I checked on board that the gratuities had been pre-paid. I checked several times:

 

1. The first evening when we went to the dining room, they were trying to get people who had been signed up for traditional dining to switch to My Time Dining. A sign and the greeter both told anyone who was switching that if they did switch, their gratuities would be automatically added to their shipboard account. Having heard this conversation with the people directly in front of me, I asked specifically if my gratuities would appear on my shipboard account and was told that since I had selected My Time Dining before boarding that my gratuities had been pre-paid. They looked up our room number in the computer to verify that we had selected MTD and presumably pre-paid the gratuities.

 

2. Mid-cruise, I wanted to check that my On Board Credit had been applied. I went to Guest Relations to get a print out of my bill. It showed the OBC and did not show any charge for gratuities. I asked if this meant that my gratuities had been pre-paid and was told that it did. (I was also told that since the OBC was non-refundable I had a balance to spend aboard. Turned out that my $40 charge for the two Bermuda bus and ferry passes that we had purchased had not yet been posted, so I ended up spending what I thought was a remaining credit and then paying the additional amount for this charge.)

 

3. My final bill did not show gratuities.

 

We did receive the vouchers while aboard, again suggesting that as far as the ship was concerned, our gratuties had been pre-paid.

 

I agree with everyone who said that the crew didn't lose out on their gratuities. The ship would have paid them shortly after our cruise, not a month later after final audits. (If they wait a month, how do they pay the crew who rotates off the ship after each cruise?) And the ship had been paid, as indicated above. So the cruise line didn't miss out either. The only consistent interpretation is that the TA made a mistake -- as they admitted implicitly by providing the "Goodwill Adjustment."

 

I agree that I should pay for services I used. But I don't agree that the TA has an unlimited time period during which they can bill me for mistakes. Had they billed me prior to the cruise for the gratuities I would have paid and this never would have become an issue. But what if they had waited a year, or longer, would I have been responsible then? Would their authorization extend until my current credit card expires? How long is too long? This is something about which reasonable people can differ; by resolving the issue to my satisfaction the TA took responsibility for their mistake. Please note that my initial question was "what is the right thing to do in this situation?" I appreciate everyone who helped answer in this spirit.

 

Finally, to those who asked why I couldn't tell from the original invoice if the gratuities had been pre-paid, the answer is not that I hadn't paid attention to it at the time, but rather that I did pay attention carefully then, but didn't remember the details several months later. Invoices are confusing because of the way cruise fares are quoted. In our case, the quoted fare was $479 per person (this includes commission), for a total of $557.30 after the addition of taxes and fees. This shows up on the invoice as a fare of $334 with the addition of $223.30 in tax/fees. (I imagine that $334 is the commissionable amount.) And the payments are divided into the deposit ($100) that appears payable to the cruise line and the final payment split between the cruise line ($378.66) and the TA ($78.64). (All amounts are per person; although the bills were double for two people, the fares were quoted on a per person basis.) So reconciling this breakout when the final payment occurs four months after I checked the initial invoice, six months before the cruise, and seven months before the retroactive charge appears doesn't mean that I didn't pay attention at the time; it simply means that because everything appeared correct at the time I didn't retain all the information to figure this out once again.

[reallyitsmema]

Finally, to those who asked why I couldn't tell from the original invoice if the gratuities had been pre-paid, the answer is not that I hadn't paid attention to it at the time, but rather that I did pay attention carefully then, but didn't remember the details several months later. Invoices are confusing because of the way cruise fares are quoted. In our case, the quoted fare was $479 per person (this includes commission), for a total of $557.30 after the addition of taxes and fees. This shows up on the invoice as a fare of $334 with the addition of $223.30 in tax/fees. (I imagine that $334 is the commissionable amount.) And the payments are divided into the deposit ($100) that appears payable to the cruise line and the final payment split between the cruise line ($378.66) and the TA ($78.64). (All amounts are per person; although the bills were double for two people, the fares were quoted on a per person basis.) So reconciling this breakout when the final payment occurs four months after I checked the initial invoice, six months before the cruise, and seven months before the retroactive charge appears doesn't mean that I didn't pay attention at the time; it simply means that because everything appeared correct at the time I didn't retain all the information to figure this out once again.

So, all these months go by and you didn't check the paid in full invoice against the original invoice? Very trusting of you. Your TA could have easily made a mistake with your fare when they changed you to MTD. The invoices break out the charges individually so gratuities would have been on a seperate line, insurance on another, excursions, etc.

 

We always bring our final invoice with us showing what we have paid for what and also showing we are paid in full. I also check with our credit card company to verify that the correct amount has been posted and paid directly to the cruiseline and not to the TA.

 

This mistake should have been caught prior to your cruise by either your TA or you. It shouldn't have been left to the final audit of your sailing.

 

I am surprised that you weren't required to pay the tips but at least the matter is resolved. Thanks for the update.

[sailandcruise]

So, all these months go by and you didn't check the paid in full invoice against the original invoice? Very trusting of you. Your TA could have easily made a mistake with your fare when they changed you to MTD. The invoices break out the charges individually so gratuities would have been on a seperate line, insurance on another, excursions, etc.

 

We always bring our final invoice with us showing what we have paid for what and also showing we are paid in full. I also check with our credit card company to verify that the correct amount has been posted and paid directly to the cruiseline and not to the TA.

 

This mistake should have been caught prior to your cruise by either your TA or you. It shouldn't have been left to the final audit of your sailing.

 

I am surprised that you weren't required to pay the tips but at least the matter is resolved. Thanks for the update.

 

The totals matched so I paid the balance due at final payment. I didn't recheck the breakouts -- just the totals -- since I had checked the breakout initially and I trusted my earlier review. And I had assumed that the TA included the gratuities in the original invoice since he had informed me when I made the original reservation -- which is when I had selected MRD -- that I would have to pay the gratuities then. There was no reason to look for a change to MTD, since that is what I had selected with the original booking; there was no later change. We didn't buy insurance, excursions, or any other extra through the TA, so there were no other lines for these charges. We also brought our final invoice with us and checked that the credit card charges matched the payments shown. How many more times could I have asked "Are you sure you're not forgetting any other charges?"

[LovesCruising]

Finally, to those who asked why I couldn't tell from the original invoice if the gratuities had been pre-paid, the answer is not that I hadn't paid attention to it at the time, but rather that I did pay attention carefully then, but didn't remember the details several months later. Invoices are confusing because of the way cruise fares are quoted. In our case, the quoted fare was $479 per person (this includes commission), for a total of $557.30 after the addition of taxes and fees. This shows up on the invoice as a fare of $334 with the addition of $223.30 in tax/fees. (I imagine that $334 is the commissionable amount.) And the payments are divided into the deposit ($100) that appears payable to the cruise line and the final payment split between the cruise line ($378.66) and the TA ($78.64). (All amounts are per person; although the bills were double for two people, the fares were quoted on a per person basis.) So reconciling this breakout when the final payment occurs four months after I checked the initial invoice, six months before the cruise, and seven months before the retroactive charge appears doesn't mean that I didn't pay attention at the time; it simply means that because everything appeared correct at the time I didn't retain all the information to figure this out once again.

 

Sorry I find the explanation of your invoice confusing. When you book with a TA, the TA gets 2 invoices from RCCL when the TA makes the booking. An Agent copy (which is the TA's and shows a breakdown a little differently than you need as it indicates commission etc - this information is not something the client/passenger needs) The TA also gets a "Guest Copy" This is the copy YOU should be receiving. Its extremely easy to read. Lists each passenger separately (therefore showing what each person is being billed) Your Cruise Fare - Taxes and Fees and Gratuity if you are confirmed for MTD. For example - Based on a 9 Night cruise - Cruise fare - 1449.00 plus Taxes and Fees 100.75 (cost of cruise 1549.75 PP) then 87.75 for Grats for a total due before deposit of 1637.50 PP.

 

Your TA should still have a copy of this to provide for you should you need it for your records - be sure you are getting the Guest Copy

[thelion]

The crew loses out. RCI wont dock the TA's commission for tips, nor will they fork out the money for tips that the crew lost.

 

It is up to you. Technically, it sounds like you should have paid it and for whatever reason it did not get paid. If it was me, I would pay it.

 

Oh and by the way, your TA is violating RCI policy if you are making a separate payment to them that was originally part of the quoted amount. I would find a new TA after all this. Or, better yet, keep the booking yourself.

[foxesden1]

as someone who worked in the TI for over 12 years, I would say that the TA made the error, and it is up to them to correct it. You picked MTD. Grats have to be pre paid. Your TA should have known that, made you aware of it, and charged you.

 

I see from your update that that is in fact what happened. Good to know that your TA corrected the error.

 

And another point for everyone to read all their travel documents with a fine tooth comb. What a hassle this was for you - when it could have been avoided from the get go.

 

T

[storm1of4]

I try very hard not to use TA when booking cruises or any vacation for that matter....They play hide the ball and the TA and cruise line blame each other....when something goes wrong

[uksimonusa]

The crew loses out. RCI wont dock the TA's commission for tips, nor will they fork out the money for tips that the crew lost.

 

It is up to you. Technically, it sounds like you should have paid it and for whatever reason it did not get paid. If it was me, I would pay it.

 

Oh and by the way, your TA is violating RCI policy if you are making a separate payment to them that was originally part of the quoted amount. I would find a new TA after all this. Or, better yet, keep the booking yourself.

 

The crew wont have lost out as it appears that RCI were paid the correct amount, it was th TA's invoice that was wrong and this only came to light when RCI settled with the TA.