Final statement

[pasta1]

My wife and I were on the febuary 24 cruise on the Noordam. My credit card charge was more than the final statement. I called Holland America ,got my credit but this is the third cruise in a row with HAL that this has happened. No other cruise line has this occured. They gave me all kind of excuses ,but frankly I do not buy it. Seems kind of funny to me!

[kakalina]

We've only had that happen once. It turned out it was for a soda from the cabin gone missing on disembarkation day. We didn't drink it, advised them of it and the charge was removed.

 

I can't think of a way to check prior to your leaving the ship since the amount charged differs from the final bill on the last day. Perhaps someone else will have more useful advice. I can only say I doubt was done purposefully.

[sail7seas]

How much different were the two totals?

[Richie2pies]

This seems to happen on HAL quite a lot. I wonder if this is a way to make extra revenue? Why is it so often happening? It happened to me too. I got my money back, but how many people bother with $2-$10 after spending so much on a cruise?

[pasta1]

It a beverage charge around $8.

[PathfinderEss]

This seems to happen on HAL quite a lot. I wonder if this is a way to make extra revenue? Why is it so often happening? It happened to me too. I got my money back, but how many people bother with $2-$10 after spending so much on a cruise?

Probably not many Richie. Quite frankly I don't check mine, I just pay it when it comes, maybe I should pay better attention.:(

[Krazy Kruizers]

I always check our bills.

Since HAL is no longer giving out pre-liminary bills the before the end of the cruise -- I always ask for one.

That way I don't have to check but the last couple of items we buy the last night of the cruise.

Once the credit card bill arrives at home -- I do check to make certain that it is the same amount as when we left the ship.

So far we haven't had anything extra added to our bill once we have left the ship.

[cruisinggranmama]

Have never had anything additional on a bill from any line we've cruised. We never use anything out of the fridge so I wonder if that makes a difference.

 

I do get a bill summary a couple of times during the cruise then check for differences when it is posted to my account.

[cruz chic]

When I debarked the Eurodam in Sept I got charged something like $75 over my final bill. I called HAL and they said it was from the minibar. Since I'm a 4* that would have been $150 from the minibar. I had a hard time believing that was an accident. It took many calls to get the $ reversed.

 

I seem to have a bad time when it comes to alcohol. While on the NA in February I got charged for 5 drinks for one night. I was told my card was scanned so I must have had all them. Funny thing was that they were the same drinks as I was drinking that night so it looked strange. I assured her that I only drank 2 and produced my receipt. She sure didn't want to believe it but I insisted it was true.

 

It always pays to check your account carefully.

[cruz chic]

Have never had anything additional on a bill from any line we've cruised. We never use anything out of the fridge so I wonder if that makes a difference.

 

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I never have either. It didn't seem to matter in my case.

[fleckle]

My wife and I were on the febuary 24 cruise on the Noordam. My credit card charge was more than the final statement. I called Holland America ,got my credit but this is the third cruise in a row with HAL that this has happened. No other cruise line has this occured. They gave me all kind of excuses ,but frankly I do not buy it. Seems kind of funny to me!

You are certainly not the only one. The same thing has happened to us, and to so many others. It is obviously a blatant scam because it happens much too frequently to be a simple accounting error.

 

There are undoubtedly many passengers who either don't notice the discrepancy or don't want to waste their time bothering to get it corrected, exactly what the perpetrators of this lucrative scam are hoping will happen. A small amount here, a small amount there, which all adds up to a hefty haul.

 

If you report it, they immediately correct it and give you the refund so that you won't make a fuss about it and they can continue getting away with it.

[Krazy Kruizers]

When I debarked the Eurodam in Sept I got charged something like $75 over my final bill. I called HAL and they said it was from the minibar. Since I'm a 4* that would have been $150 from the minibar. I had a hard time believing that was an accident. It took many calls to get the $ reversed.

 

I seem to have a bad time when it comes to alcohol. While on the NA in February I got charged for 5 drinks for one night. I was told my card was scanned so I must have had all them. Funny thing was that they were the same drinks as I was drinking that night so it looked strange. I assured her that I only drank 2 and produced my receipt. She sure didn't want to believe it but I insisted it was true.

 

It always pays to check your account carefully.

 

That mini charge is terrible.

They should have realized that no one could use up $150 worth of stuff in a week.

[cruz chic]

That mini charge is terrible.

 

They should have realized that no one could use up $150 worth of stuff in a week.

Yeah, it was a bit much. Generally, I could go 6 months without having a drink and not miss it so I'm not a huge drinker. That said, I do tend to drink a bit on a cruise.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Same here.

We splurge more on a cruise with drinks.

[sail7seas]

Our last cruise, we did use some sodas from the mini bar, which is rare for us, but when we got our bill, we saw they did not give the Four Star Credit. It was such a small sum, we didn't bother about it but I realize someone will point out with 15 ships, 52 weeks a year, year after year, if people don't report the error ..............

 

I didn't want to go through the motions for what we thought was an honest error and small sum.

Our choice.........

[Sea42]

What I really liked about our cruise with HAL was the beverage cards. We had one for alcohol and one for sodas. Those were the only two items on our bill besides the HSC. We paid for our Pinnacle Grill reservation and our one shore excursion before sailing so going over our final statement was a breeze! A incorrect charge would be very easy to spot.

While this won't help eliminate problems discovered after you leave the ship it does make keeping track of your onboard expenditures quite easy.

[pasta1]

Looks to me this is common practice by HAL. It may not be a lot of money but $5 here and $10 there adds up to a lot of money. Adding bogus charges after you leave the ship to your credit card is nothing but consumer fraud. It adds up to millions of dollars a year for HAL. Do the math! Not to mention the $75 charge. Wow!!!

[sail7seas]

Looks to me this is common practice by HAL. It may not be a lot of money but $5 here and $10 there adds up to a lot of money. Adding bogus charges after you leave the ship to your credit card is nothing but consumer fraud. It adds up to millions of dollars a year for HAL. Do the math! Not to mention the $75 charge. Wow!!!

 

 

That's very strong language and I do not agree with your statement.

 

If we are any example, you are far off base. We have cruised more than 70 cruises on HAL and this is the first or maybe (and that's a big maybe???) the second there has been any error at all on our final bill. I won't say never before because over more than 20 years I could have forgotten a small mistake many years ago.

 

One needs to be careful using such words as fraud IMO

 

[DaveOKC]

Last cruise we got hit for an extra $8. First time this has ever happened.

 

I was going to forget it, but it was very easy to drop HAL an email from the website, so I did and a day or two later I got an email back stating that there was a bar (not from the in-room minibar). They gladly removed the charge from the credit card.

 

What bothered me was that since it was a bar charge, how come it did not show up on our final bill, which was prepared in the middle of the night and sent to us at 6 AM? Sounds a bit fishy to me.

 

DaveOKC

[catl331]

Adding bogus charges after you leave the ship to your credit card is nothing but consumer fraud.

OTOH I'll bet there are a lot of cheating passengers who will use something from the minibar on the final night hoping they won't get charged, or expecting to get a "refund" by claiming they didn't use anything when the minibar is checked after they've departed. Or maybe they'll take a bottle of water or a soda from the desktop with them on debarkation.

[V'sGirl]

I don't believe that a company with the history and the reputation of Holland America would make a conscious decision to raise a relatively small amount of revenue by fraudulently nickle and diming passengers. Some disgruntled employee would eventually tattle, and the legal ramifications and destruction of reputation would be enormous. I do believe that humans who process the bills of hundreds of cabins and passengers in a short period of time make mistakes.

[cruz chic]

OTOH I'll bet there are a lot of cheating passengers who will use something from the minibar on the final night hoping they won't get charged, or expecting to get a "refund" by claiming they didn't use anything when the minibar is checked after they've departed. Or maybe they'll take a bottle of water or a soda from the desktop with them on debarkation.

Really, would people do that? That would be beyond petty.

[cruz chic]

That's very strong language and I do not agree with your statement.

 

If we are any example, you are far off base. We have cruised more than 70 cruises on HAL and this is the first or maybe (and that's a big maybe???) the second there has been any error at all on our final bill. I won't say never before because over more than 20 years I could have forgotten a small mistake many years ago.

 

One needs to be careful using such words as fraud IMO

 

Yes, maybe it was strongly worded but I found my 2 cases to be very odd. I'm not talking about a soda or a water. It was $150 in the case of the mini bar. That's not a small mistake. Also, in the case of the bar, how did my card get scanned for those "extra" drinks? It turned me off enough to not go back to that bar for the rest of my cruise. That's HAL loss. I can't say it was fraud or not.....but it was very odd. I know it's not HAL but it could be a few rotten apples or just very bad luck on my part.

[molly2kit]

Our last cruise was HAL after a couple of RCL ones - we loved that we could see our bill on the TV on RCL. I was certainly wishing we had it as we also had an error on our bill and of course it was on our door the morning of debarkation and I had to stand in line, then wait for the head of the department and so on. On RCL we could look daily if we wanted and it was pretty up to date.

[kjw869]

We've never been charged for mini-bar usage on any of our HAL cruises. Our credit card charge was always the same as the final statement on disembarking.

 

We have always had the steward remove all the items in the cooler on the firstr day. On our past two cruises, the steward brought in a wide heavy plastic "pouch" in which they put all the items in and zippered it shut. One steward said he informs the department whose responsible for the mini-bar inventory. No one has come into the cabin to check the cooler on disembarkation on the past two cruises either.