Is celebrity trying to trap you into paying for Gratuities even w/ 123go??

[LarissaRose]

This is more of a warning for other passengers as I have just figured out the solution to the problem (Ha! JK about that one! - see edits) I was originally going to post about:

 

Original Problem:

 

"I booked my August cruise while the 123go promotion was going on and I chose the beverage package and gratuities option (BEVCLINGRAT). When I went to do my final payment a few months ago I noticed that in addition to the BEVCLINGRAT credit that appeared on the breakdown of charges was also 300 dollars for gratuities! I paid the full remained of my balance minus the 300 dollars listed for "gratuities" since I should not be paying for gratuities when they were included in the 123go package. I just went to look at my account on celebrity today and it says that my balance due is 300!!"

 

 

Solution:

 

I would have sworn that when making my final payment I unchecked the box to pre pay gratuities but it seems to have gotten rechecked by itself somehow. To solve the problem of getting charged for gratuities when they are included in your packaged uncheck the gratuity box under total balance due:

 

Total Balance Due $ xxx.xx USD

[ ] Gratuity $300.00 USD [ ] CruiseCare Protection $518.00 USD

 

This still just seems super shady to me and I wonder how much money Celebrity has managed to get out of people accidentally double paying for gratuities.

 

***EDIT: when I originally unchecked the gratuity box my "balance due" immediately went down to "Total Balance Due $ 0.00 USD". I just went back to the manage reservation page and it now says that my balance due is $48.00 USD. Is this just a celebrity website glitch or is something suspicious going on here?!?!

 

*** ONE MORE EDIT: I just remembered that I had taken a screenshot when I originally made my final payment on Mar 30 of "My Vacation Payment Summary" (in case something like this were to happen) and sure enough right there it has Balance Due as $0.00 USD! So sometime between then and now they decided to try to sneak the $300 dollars for gratuities back in. Even after I fixed it AGAIN to go back to balance due of $0 it now says I have a mysterious balance due of $48. WATCH OUT EVERYONE!!!

Edited May 18, 2014 by LarissaRose

[Aussiepair]

This is more of a warning for other passengers as I have just figured out the solution to the problem (Ha! JK about that one! - see edits) I was originally going to post about:

 

Original Problem:

 

"I booked my August cruise while the 123go promotion was going on and I chose the beverage package and gratuities option (BEVCLINGRAT). When I went to do my final payment a few months ago I noticed that in addition to the BEVCLINGRAT credit that appeared on the breakdown of charges was also 300 dollars for gratuities! I paid the full remained of my balance minus the 300 dollars listed for "gratuities" since I should not be paying for gratuities when they were included in the 123go package. I just went to look at my account on celebrity today and it says that my balance due is 300!!"

 

 

Solution:

 

I would have sworn that when making my final payment I unchecked the box to pre pay gratuities but it seems to have gotten rechecked by itself somehow. To solve the problem of getting charged for gratuities when they are included in your packaged uncheck the gratuity box under total balance due:

 

Total Balance Due $ xxx.xx USD

[ ] Gratuity $300.00 USD [ ] CruiseCare Protection $518.00 USD

 

This still just seems super shady to me and I wonder how much money Celebrity has managed to get out of people accidentally double paying for gratuities.

 

***EDIT: when I originally unchecked the gratuity box my "balance due" immediately went down to "Total Balance Due $ 0.00 USD". I just went back to the manage reservation page and it now says that my balance due is $48.00 USD. Is this just a celebrity website glitch or is something suspicious going on here?!?!

 

*** ONE MORE EDIT: I just remembered that I had taken a screenshot when I originally made my final payment on Mar 30 of "My Vacation Payment Summary" (in case something like this were to happen) and sure enough right there it has Balance Due as $0.00 USD! So sometime between then and now they decided to try to sneak the $300 dollars for gratuities back in. Even after I fixed it AGAIN to go back to balance due of $0 it now says I have a mysterious balance due of $48. WATCH OUT EVERYONE!!!

 

 

Are you saying you had the option of choosing both the beverage and free gratuities under the 123 promotion? When we booked our upcoming cruise we were allowed to choose one option not two.

[UniPac]

Are you saying you had the option of choosing both the beverage and free gratuities under the 123 promotion? When we booked our upcoming cruise we were allowed to choose one option not two.

 

 

2 for Europe. August also seems to be more likely an Europe cruise.

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[LarissaRose]

Are you saying you had the option of choosing both the beverage and free gratuities under the 123 promotion? When we booked our upcoming cruise we were allowed to choose one option not two.

 

For European cruises you chose 2 of the 3

[mickeysgal]

This is more of a warning for other passengers as I have just figured out the solution to the problem (Ha! JK about that one! - see edits) I was originally going to post about:

 

Original Problem:

 

"I booked my August cruise while the 123go promotion was going on and I chose the beverage package and gratuities option (BEVCLINGRAT). When I went to do my final payment a few months ago I noticed that in addition to the BEVCLINGRAT credit that appeared on the breakdown of charges was also 300 dollars for gratuities! I paid the full remained of my balance minus the 300 dollars listed for "gratuities" since I should not be paying for gratuities when they were included in the 123go package. I just went to look at my account on celebrity today and it says that my balance due is 300!!"

 

 

Solution:

 

I would have sworn that when making my final payment I unchecked the box to pre pay gratuities but it seems to have gotten rechecked by itself somehow. To solve the problem of getting charged for gratuities when they are included in your packaged uncheck the gratuity box under total balance due:

 

Total Balance Due $ xxx.xx USD

[ ] Gratuity $300.00 USD [ ] CruiseCare Protection $518.00 USD

 

This still just seems super shady to me and I wonder how much money Celebrity has managed to get out of people accidentally double paying for gratuities.

 

***EDIT: when I originally unchecked the gratuity box my "balance due" immediately went down to "Total Balance Due $ 0.00 USD". I just went back to the manage reservation page and it now says that my balance due is $48.00 USD. Is this just a celebrity website glitch or is something suspicious going on here?!?!

 

*** ONE MORE EDIT: I just remembered that I had taken a screenshot when I originally made my final payment on Mar 30 of "My Vacation Payment Summary" (in case something like this were to happen) and sure enough right there it has Balance Due as $0.00 USD! So sometime between then and now they decided to try to sneak the $300 dollars for gratuities back in. Even after I fixed it AGAIN to go back to balance due of $0 it now says I have a mysterious balance due of $48. WATCH OUT EVERYONE!!!

 

Have you called Celebrity? What did they say about this?

 

I too, have selected the drink package and gratuities for our Aug Europe cruise. Thanks for the heads up. Curious to see how Celebrity explains this.

[JudyJudyJudy]

We are booked on the Equinox next month for 6 o'clock dinner. We would like to switch to Anytime dining. Do we have to pre pay gratuities for that convenience?

What if we do Specialty Dining one or more nights?

Thanks

Judi

[Viktoria]

For our June 2015 Med cruise booked on board we had the choice of a bev package , an upgrade from aqua 2 to aqua 1, $300 OBC and paid gratuities. I guess the upgrade was an automatic thing and we chose the bev package and the OBC. We paid the gratuities.

[WestLakeGirl]

There are so many things wrong with the Celebrity website. This is probably the newest glitch

[LarissaRose]

Have you called Celebrity? What did they say about this?

 

I too, have selected the drink package and gratuities for our Aug Europe cruise. Thanks for the heads up. Curious to see how Celebrity explains this.

 

I have all information for an eventual call to celebrity (when I feel as though I have time to wait on hold for 1+ hour and talk to someone for who knows how long):

 

-I have the screenshot from March 30th of my balance due listed as $0

-Also on the screenshot shows my 123go promo that includes the beverage package + the gratuities (BEVCLINGRAT)

-I have proof of all past credit card payments that add up to the total balance of the cruise

 

I really hope they don't try to give me a hard time.

 

Another glitch appears to be that where it says "Payments" it only lists the last payment I made. However, that still does not make sense in the $48 mystery as the total amount - my last payment amount does not equal $48.

 

The thing that is the most frustrating to me is that I should not have to check constantly to make sure that a cruise I paid in full months ago is not all of a sudden going to pretend I owe money. For instance, if I had not looked at it for another month or two would I have lost my reservation?? Not to mention the sheer frustration of having to make a phone call to Celebrity ESPECIALLY when it is something that is clearly a mess-up on their part.

 

I urge anyone who chose free gratuities as one of their 123go perks to verify that they have not A. double paid gratuities or B. gotten gratuities re tacked-on after final payment.

Edited May 18, 2014 by LarissaRose

[Christine Frances]

The weekends are when they do all their maintenance on the website. There was already another thread about people whose bookings fell off. Everything usually is all better Monday. Don't panic and it isn't Celebrity trying to rip people off.

[LarissaRose]

The weekends are when they do all their maintenance on the website. There was already another thread about people whose bookings fell off. Everything usually is all better Monday. Don't panic and it isn't Celebrity trying to rip people off.

 

Not panicking, just trying to inform people of something to watch out for. Also, weekends = a horrible time to do maintenance on a website.

 

I will keep posting to keep people informed of the situation if anyone is interested. Hopefully I'll check back tomorrow and everything will all magically be fixed.

 

In terms of "it isn't Celebrity trying to rip people off" it very well could be. If you noticed in my original post I mentioned that even before all these current problems I had to take off the $300 myself that they decided to automatically add to my payment due even though I was supposed to have free gratuities. I would be curious to know how many people did not figure this out and paid for gratuities when they were also supposedly getting them for free....

Edited May 19, 2014 by LarissaRose

[Pushka]

I think it is just a glitch. It seems all cruising companies do their maintenance over the weekends. Maybe they think people check their cruises only whilst at work! :p

[Happy2cruise]

We are booked on the Equinox next month for 6 o'clock dinner. We would like to switch to Anytime dining. Do we have to pre pay gratuities for that convenience?

What if we do Specialty Dining one or more nights?

Thanks

Judi

If you chose Anytime Dining, gratuities must be prepaid....that is how Celebrity has it set up. Going to a Specialty Restaurant really has no effect on the prepaid gratuities.

[ghstudio]

I don't suppose you booked select dining? If you did, gratuities must be paid with final payment. Now, of course you have free gratuities, so you would expect celebrity's computer system to know that and not charge you at final payment....however the celebrity computer system can't even mail out emails without getting names wrong and has some major problems. It assuredly does not have a clue that you have pre-paid gratuities, so it would just spit out a final bill requiring you to pay those gratuites with your final payment.

 

The only solution whether or not you chose select dining is to call Monday morning and go through it with someone. The $48 is mysterious....there is no rational answer for why that's there.....I guess the computer system needed to post $48 somewhere and just randomly picked you :)

 

Work it out in the morning...and get the resolution written in an email...don't ever trust anyone (in celebrity) to fix it for you after you get off the phone....hang on the phone until they can show you on the system that they have fixed the problem.

[Go-Bucks!]

I have all information for an eventual call to celebrity (when I feel as though I have time to wait on hold for 1+ hour and talk to someone for who knows how long)

 

 

Before just not paying the incorrect amount, I would have called Celebrity to discuss it and tried to get it worked out. I think you did it backwards and may find it more difficult now to get it rectified. No matter how long you stay on hold, it should be done asap. Wish you the best! :)

[Go-Bucks!]

I don't suppose you booked select dining? If you did, gratuities must be paid with final payment.

 

Since I'm pretty new to Celebrity, I've been wondering why gratuities need to be paid upfront for Select Dining. Most of my experience has been on Princess and they don't require tips to be paid ahead if you have Anytime Dining. Why does Celebrity do this?? :confused:

[LarissaRose]

Before just not paying the incorrect amount, I would have called Celebrity to discuss it and tried to get it worked out. I think you did it backwards and may find it more difficult now to get it rectified. No matter how long you stay on hold, it should be done asap. Wish you the best! :)

 

What? Too many double negatives here...

 

I paid the appropriate amount and was informed that I owed them 0 dollars. If anything celebrity is pretending that I somehow now owe them more money. No way was I about to pay them more money that I knew I didn't owe...

[LarissaRose]

I don't suppose you booked select dining? If you did, gratuities must be paid with final payment. Now, of course you have free gratuities, so you would expect celebrity's computer system to know that and not charge you at final payment....however the celebrity computer system can't even mail out emails without getting names wrong and has some major problems. It assuredly does not have a clue that you have pre-paid gratuities, so it would just spit out a final bill requiring you to pay those gratuites with your final payment.

 

The only solution whether or not you chose select dining is to call Monday morning and go through it with someone. The $48 is mysterious....there is no rational answer for why that's there.....I guess the computer system needed to post $48 somewhere and just randomly picked you :)

 

Work it out in the morning...and get the resolution written in an email...don't ever trust anyone (in celebrity) to fix it for you after you get off the phone....hang on the phone until they can show you on the system that they have fixed the problem.

 

I booked Aqua Class - which, granted, I'm confused if it works the same way as select dinning. However, I was given the option to "opt out" of pre paid gratuities which I just did today to make the 300 disappear, then briefly had a balance of 0, then the mystery balance of 48.

 

And re: their computer system - it's kind of laughable that it wouldn't be built into their code. It's a simple if/then statement to make them not charge additional gratuities when there are gratuities already present on the billing statement. I guess I'm just surprised at how ridiculously horrible their system is? (but who on these boards isn't? :rolleyes::D)

[neptuno]

I booked Aqua Class - which, granted, I'm confused if it works the same way as select dinning. However, I was given the option to "opt out" of pre paid gratuities which I just did today to make the 300 disappear, then briefly had a balance of 0, then the mystery balance of 48.

 

And re: their computer system - it's kind of laughable that it wouldn't be built into their code. It's a simple if/then statement to make them not charge additional gratuities when there are gratuities already present on the billing statement. I guess I'm just surprised at how ridiculously horrible their system is? (but who on these boards isn't? :rolleyes::D)

 

Well, you are sure making MSC look good.

[ratacake]

We didn't get a choice of 2 or 3 gratuities in Oz.....

 

Only the one - choose sClassic drink package, gratuities or obc (I think it was $300)

 

So we took the drink package - man, am I happy it's all sorted out with Celebrity - I must have my Scotch and soda before dinner! :p

[jelayne]

Just wondering, could the problem be the coding of the perk?? I ask because we booked some cruises on board 2 weeks ago and selected the beverage package. Our booking confirmation shows BEVCINCGRAT the same as what OP says their reservation shows. We don't get prepaid gratuities, except for those associated with the drink package.

 

Possibly the perk for the prepaid gratuities either never got added to the reservation or got dropped off at some point.

[LarissaRose]

Just wondering, could the problem be the coding of the perk?? I ask because we booked some cruises on board 2 weeks ago and selected the beverage package. Our booking confirmation shows BEVCINCGRAT the same as what OP says their reservation shows. We don't get prepaid gratuities, except for those associated with the drink package.

 

Possibly the perk for the prepaid gratuities either never got added to the reservation or got dropped off at some point.

 

 

Oh wow, sorry! I didn't realize they were actually broken down into 2 different names, my bad! (thanks for pointing that out!) There are actually 2 different "123GOPROMO" perks: BEVCINCGRAT (the beverage package) and AI CEL CLAL (the gratuities).

 

Sorry for the confusion!

 

I have looked into this though and unfortunately all the previous issues still stand :-( .

Edited May 19, 2014 by LarissaRose

[Wiltonian]

No; BEVCINCGRAT was the double offer of BEVerage Classic INCluded and GRATuitirs.

 

Stuart

[LarissaRose]

No; BEVCINCGRAT was the double offer of BEVerage Classic INCluded and GRATuitirs.

 

Stuart

 

Ok, now I'm just super confused! either way the same problems still stand.

[gimletgal]

Oh wow, sorry! I didn't realize they were actually broken down into 2 different names, my bad! (thanks for pointing that out!) There are actually 2 different "123GOPROMO" perks: BEVCINCGRAT (the beverage package) and AI CEL CLAL (the gratuities).

 

Sorry for the confusion!

 

I have looked into this though and unfortunately all the previous issues still stand :-( .

 

Are you on a 12 night cruise? If you are Aqua, the $300 is your prepaid gratuities for dining. You obviously chose the Beverage Package as a perk (which includes the gratuities for said package), and did you also choose the free gratuities or OBC? If you chose the free gratuities as your 2nd perk, then yes, there is an error on the part of Celebrity.

 

Forget about the "codes". The AI CEL CLAL is still refering to the alcohol package. It has nothing to do with gratuities for dining.