problems with my booking

[WILECOY]

This is really confusing to me. I have had 2 rooms booked on AOS for next month for a year now. Suddenly, last week, my credit card was refunded $747.74. I called my TA and she did not know why. After several calls to RCCL, we found out that someone that we do not know had cancelled their cruise on the same sailing and part of their credit was refunded to my credit card. My booking is ok and we are still on board.

ISSUE; RCCL called me to ask what amount was refunded to my card as well as the date. They claim they don't have a way to look this up (What?) and they want to recharge me that amount. I placed a call to the TA to handle all of this. I also asked the TA if RCCL would do anything for us for this entire mess since the rep that called me said that my TA would have to put in for any onboard credits for the troubles. TA just called me to say RCCL has offered nothing. Am I out of line to being a little upset with RCCL for the mix ups? I would like to also know how some other person could possibly be linked to my credit card? RCCL says they are not sure. Very frustrated at the moment.

[WILECOY]

I have the charges reversed so they will be charging your master card today it may not show up on you statement for

A day or 2 the total charge was $747.74.

The error was definitely Royal Caribbean’s mistake not mine. I was on the phone for 1 hour and 10 minutes getting it

Resolved this morning. They basically said if it had been my mistake they would not have done anything.

I asked about an onboard credit but they will not do that. I am going to give my sales rep a call just to see if he can do

 

Something.

[setsail]

You were issued a refund in error. Give it back and don't expect anything in return.:rolleyes:

 

There is nothing wrong with your booking

Edited January 7, 2015 by setsail

[critterchick]

Although it's unsettling to know that RCI can't keep sensitive information straight, I don't think OBC is warrented in this situation. It seems like your TA is the one who was put out by the experience if s/he had to spend 1:10 to get the problem fixed.

[WILECOY]

I guess that I did not spell out every little detail here, but here is some additional info. I travel a lot. My credit card is linked to my business. I have concerns with Royal Caribbean, a multi billion dollar company messing up like this. Not only did they mistakenly gave me someone elses credit, they did it twice. They even provided me with their name and I didn't even ask. I am baffled on how this could even happen to begin with. The kicker for me was the fact last night they were set to charge my card for $2300. After a while the "supervisor" that I spoke with said they would only charge me $982. Remember the credit they gave me was 747.74 so this is what they should have charged my card to balance it out.

 

I have spend a fair amount of my time speaking with rccl several times. My cell adds up to 93 minutes over 2 days with them. That does not include the time with the TA or going through the credit card statements to find the errors and dealing with an upset dw that is not worried one of our rooms has been cancelled.

 

As I was typing this, TA sent me a note saying that her rep is sending a bottle of wine to our room and is kind enough to mail us our c&a discount book to our house instead of waiting to get on board to receive it.

[Starry Eyes]

I guess that I did not spell out every little detail here, but here is some additional info. I travel a lot. My credit card is linked to my business. I have concerns with Royal Caribbean, a multi billion dollar company messing up like this. Not only did they mistakenly gave me someone elses credit, they did it twice. They even provided me with their name and I didn't even ask. I am baffled on how this could even happen to begin with. The kicker for me was the fact last night they were set to charge my card for $2300. After a while the "supervisor" that I spoke with said they would only charge me $982. Remember the credit they gave me was 747.74 so this is what they should have charged my card to balance it out.

 

I have spend a fair amount of my time speaking with rccl several times. My cell adds up to 93 minutes over 2 days with them. That does not include the time with the TA or going through the credit card statements to find the errors and dealing with an upset dw that is not worried one of our rooms has been cancelled.

 

As I was typing this, TA sent me a note saying that her rep is sending a bottle of wine to our room and is kind enough to mail us our c&a discount book to our house instead of waiting to get on board to receive it.

I haven't seen a C&A booklet for a while now. Are there still ships that do not have electronic discounts on sea pass cards?:confused: Or could the rep be mailing something else (maybe real luggage tags or something else)?

Edited January 7, 2015 by Starry Eyes

[WILECOY]

The saga continues... My credit card company has deemed this a breech of financial information on behalf of Rccl. They are considering the card as compromised. They are in the process of cancelling the card and re issuing a new card. Since this is my only credit card and the card that I use for my business, I now get the fun task of contacting all the companies that I have my card on file to have it changed. I have a system for this and it takes me about 2 hours with the phone calls and forms that need to be handled. Yeah, I probably am over the line asking for something more than a cheap bottle of wine.

[Clarea]

I haven't seen a C&A booklet for a while now. Are there still ships that do not have electronic discounts on sea pass cards?:confused:

Nope, all the paper booklets have been discontinued.

[WILECOY]

I haven't seen a C&A booklet for a while now. Are there still ships that do not have electronic discounts on sea pass cards?:confused: Or could the rep be mailing something else (maybe real luggage tags or something else)?

 

We did AOS Feb last year and I thought we had a coupon book, but maybe not. Will be interesting to see what is sent. I will keep you posted when it arrives.

Edited January 7, 2015 by WILECOY

[leinhto]

Nope, all the paper booklets have been discontinued.

 

How does that work with the electronic discounts? How do you know what you have?

[Clarea]

How does that work with the electronic discounts? How do you know what you have?

There will be a letter in your stateroom with a list of the coupons. You can also ask any bartender to print you a list of your coupons.

[leinhto]

There will be a letter in your stateroom with a list of the coupons. You can also ask any bartender to print you a list of your coupons.

 

Do you still present the list as you would the coupon book when redeeming them?

 

What was meant by it is on your seapass card now?

[Clarea]

Do you still present the list as you would the coupon book when redeeming them?

 

What was meant by it is on your seapass card now?

No, you don't need the list to use a coupon. For example, if you want to use a discount drink coupon, you just tell the bar server you have a coupon on your SeaPass card. The bar server swipes your card and can see which coupons you have not used.

[Starry Eyes]

Do you still present the list as you would the coupon book when redeeming them?

 

What was meant by it is on your seapass card now?

 

No, you don't need the list to use a coupon. For example, if you want to use a discount drink coupon, you just tell the bar server you have a coupon on your SeaPass card. The bar server swipes your card and can see which coupons you have not used.

The crew have been very helpful with the coupons.

 

You may want to be careful to say if you do NOT want to use a coupon on a specific purchase. For example, if you have a buy one get one drink coupon you might want to use it for two pricier drinker, so if you buy two sodas, you may wish to tell server not to use coupon.

[foxgoodrich]

There are still paper coupon booklets - just not for C&A coupons. I think travel agents who book a lot of volume with RC receive coupon books to give their clients. These are not the old C&A coupon books, but they have similar coupons. (I know our TA does a lot of RC volume, so I assume that's why she gets them.)

 

Our TA always prints and makes plastic luggage tags for us and she always gives us one of these coupon books when she gives us the luggage tags before our cruises. We get the D+ coupons automatically on our Sea Pass cards and we often use some of the paper coupons too as these booklets still have the match play coupons for the casino and some good BOGO offers.

 

Our TA told us she gets these booklets from the RC Rep she works with on her bookings, so I imagine that's the source for the booklet that OP will get before the cruise.

Judy

[moesyk4]

RCCL's customer service, IMO, completely sucks. I spent over 12 hours on the phone fixing a mistake on my reservation that they made when transferring the booking to my TA that would've cost us almost $2,000. Then they literally spent over 3 hours arguing with my TA and myself regarding the $100 OBC that I had gotten when I originally booked. I asked for compensation for all the trouble fixing their mistake, but got none.

[critterchick]

OP, now that you've shared the other details, I still don't think that you're entitled to monetary compensation from RCI. Credit cards are compromised every day, and I haven't heard of anybody being compensated for that. Yes, it's a major PITA and I feel for you, but not every mistake results in money to the aggrieved party. Sorry. Hope you enjoy your cruise, anyway.:)

[NemoCrownie]

Here's my long story WILECOY. Believe me, I feel your pain. We booked our cruise through a big box travel agent and called to make final payment in October on a B2B cruise (before RCI's final payment date). The TA told us that they are locked out of RCI's online system because our reservation is a linked B2B. The procedure is for us to give the credit card info to the TA, the TA verifies the amount that we owe for each week and the amounts to be charged to the card, then the TA puts us on hold while calling RCI with the final payments and receives a verbal confirmation that each cruise is paid in full. TA comes back on the line and again verifies the amounts being charged, which are correct, and tells me that we will be receiving paid in full confirmations. Easy peazy.

 

A couple days later my hubby gets an e-mail from the TA saying final payment is coming up for our first cruise. He calls the TA and tells them that he thought I had made the final payments for both cruises and wants to verify that payment hasn't been received. TA says the system is showing that we still owe the previous balance, hubby figures he misunderstood me and goes through the same process I did to make the final payments again.

 

After we both are home from work hubby tells me about the e-mail and that he made the final payments since he knew we had discussed getting them paid. WHAT??? I log into the credit card account and sure enough there are 4 transactions, two for each pay-off amount. I immediately called the TA, what they can see is that our reservations were paid in full that day but nothing about any previous payment. There are notes in our file about my earlier call but nothing showing a payment confirmation.

 

The TA does a three way call with RCI who says they never received a previous payment on either cruise only the most recent payment. I tell her I am looking at my credit card statement showing 4 payments to RCI over two days. RCI denies that I have made 4 payments and I offer to fax my credit card statement to them. The TA asks for her supervisor and the supervisor gives us the same answer. I ask if I can dispute the previous amounts on my card and the RCI supervisor says no that will cause my cruises to be cancelled. OK, "how do we fix this? I can prove that I have been charged $4,800 and I only owed $2,400?" RCI's answer is that it must be a problem with the credit card. Wrong answer, the transactions are on different days. The TA asks to speak to the supervisor's manager. Once it's explained to him he says there is definitely a problem but he is going to have to get someone from another department (billing, credit card, I don't remember). The manager comes back on and wants the transaction numbers on the statement. I provide these and then the TA and I are put on hold for an extended period of time.

 

Finally the manager comes back on the phone and the transactions were traced. Not only are our B2B's considered a linked reservation but our reservations were linked to another B2B reservation for the couple we are travelling with. I was told that when the TA contacted RCI with the credit card info to pay off both cruises that the RCI agent had accidentally clicked on the linked reservation with the other couple instead of the B2B linked reservation and both payments were applied to the other couples cruises. They also gave me the other couples names and cabin number. Not a big deal to me because they are good friends but seems like information that shouldn't be disclosed.

 

Anyway, RCI says they have to refund the first payments and issue revised statements for all 4 cruises (ours and our friends) and that it will take them 7 to 10 days. The TA requests paid in full receipts showing the overpayment amounts. RCI can't do this they can only issue paid in full receipts based on the second payment. It wasn't 7 to 10 days, it took 4 weeks to receive the refund. Everything on our reservation now appears correct and we sail in 4 weeks so fingers crossed.

 

I spent 3 1/2 hours on the phone resolving this, missing most of a World Series game (I live in KC so we were glued to the tube). I didn't think to ask for, nor did I expect, compensation from RCI but, since you mention it, a bottle of wine in my room would be nice. Oh well...

 

Based on my last cruise and this experience, RCI definitely has some problems that need addressed. Am I looking forward to my vacation? You bet I am. Am I expecting to be Wowed? Nope, but I hope I am pleasantly surprised.

 

Anyway, good luck getting your issue resolved and I hope it can be resolved expediently. I am now very thankful that I didn't have to deal with compromised card issues but I do feel your pain and understand your frustration.

[critterchick]

Based on my last cruise and this experience, RCI definitely has some problems that need addressed. Am I looking forward to my vacation? You bet I am. Am I expecting to be Wowed? Nope, but I hope I am pleasantly surprised.

 

Once you step onboard, I think you will find that the ship experience bears no resemblance to what you (and and some point all of us) go through with the shoreside operations. There's no way we'd be repeat cruisers if it were otherwise. Have a great cruise!

[Bailey & Sophie]

The saga continues... My credit card company has deemed this a breech of financial information on behalf of Rccl. They are considering the card as compromised. They are in the process of cancelling the card and re issuing a new card. Since this is my only credit card and the card that I use for my business, I now get the fun task of contacting all the companies that I have my card on file to have it changed. I have a system for this and it takes me about 2 hours with the phone calls and forms that need to be handled. Yeah, I probably am over the line asking for something more than a cheap bottle of wine.

Why would you use a business credit card account for personal reasons? Shouldn't these be kept separate, for business reasons?????