EarlySaver Future Cruise Credit Question

[dioxide45]

I have a question about future cruise credit that you get when you cancel an EarlySaver rate. There are just two of us traveling. We booked ES through Carnival.com on the Vista for next fall in Europe under the half price deposit promotion and ES. Paid $400 deposit between credit card ($100) and Carnival gift cards ($300). I know the deposit is non refundable and changes/cancellations are subject to a $50pp fee.

 

We are considering cancelling the ES and booking through a different agent where the price is about $400 less than Carnival.com for the two of us. We are past the 48 hour Price Protection period, and it likely wouldn't have been eligible for Price Protection anyway since it isn't a publicly available rate. I checked the price through this agent before I booked and at that time it their fare was about $400 more than Carnival.com. It is cheaper now after I already booked :(

 

I know that if we cancel, we lose $50pp. So we would have $300 in future cruise credit to put toward a future cruise within 24 months.

 

The question I have, can we use that $300 toward a cruise booked through a travel agent and not direct through Carnival? Either toward the deposit or apply to balance? I know we would need to work through the agent to have the $300 applied if it is possible, but just wondering if it has ever been done?

 

One drawback is that we would have to fork out the full $800 deposit now. Though this agent doesn't usually offer the half price deposit promotions anyway. In the end, the half price deposit difference has to be paid. So I would rather save $400 than get a half price deposit.

[Out to sea!]

No, I don't think this will work. If you cancel, Carnival holds that money for a future cruise. But if you book through a TA, you can't deal with Carnival to get that money applied to a TA booked cruise (though the TA might be able to get Carnival to release it to them). Best would be to call Carnival and ask.

[Isa65]

I can answer your question as I have several groups for the Vista.

 

Yes, your agent can apply your FCC to the new booking. If you're saying he/she has lower pricing, that must be in a group that locked in the original rates. In that case, the deposit is still $200 per person (that's the Vista group deposit per person for the European sailings).

 

The easiest way to do this:

 

Transfer your reservation to your agent. You just need to give the booking number and your 4-digit pin. Your agent will then transfer into the group (Carnival will cancel your ES booking, transfer your remaining funds into the new reservation) and you will have a new booking number.

You need to deposit any additional funds required.

It's rather simple. A good agent will help you with this, plus you get the lower pricing and the group OBC of $200.

[dioxide45]

Thanks, I may give our agent a call. I don't remember ever setting up a 4-digit pin though. I have our booking number.

 

One other quick question, I used gift cards to pay for part of the deposit. Those were discounted cards bought through our credit card rewards. Works like Verizon Rewards. The plan was to buy these over time and apply them online through Carnival.com to our cruise. With a TA, that doesn't work since additional and final payment go through them. Can you pay part of all of the remaining balance with a Carnival gift card if you book through a TA?

Edited April 4, 2015 by dioxide45

[Isa65]

Thanks, I may give our agent a call. I don't remember ever setting up a 4-digit pin though. I have our booking number.

 

One other quick question, I used gift cards to pay for part of the deposit. Those were discounted cards bought through our credit card rewards. Works like Verizon Rewards. The plan was to buy these over time and apply them online through Carnival.com to our cruise. With a TA, that doesn't work since additional and final payment go through them. Can you pay part of all of the remaining balance with a Carnival gift card if you book through a TA?

 

If you don't have a pin yet, you can just give Carnival a quick call and add a pin number to your booking.

 

Yes, you can have your agent process your payments with Carnival gift cards, I do it all the time.

[tea4ular]

I just want to second that YES, you can use a Carnival credit (from a cancelled cruise) through a TA. I have done it. It was no big deal at all.

 

And YES, you can pay for your cruise through a TA using Carnival gift cards. I have done this as well.

Edited April 4, 2015 by tea4ular

[martinchem]

Not all TA's!! I tried booking through one agency and they simply couldn't apply my gift card since they were affiliated with another TA, they were set up for charge card only. Verify with your TA before you possibly regret it.

Edited April 4, 2015 by martinchem

[dioxide45]

Not all TA's!! I tried booking through one agency and they simply couldn't apply my gift card since they were affiliated with another TA, they were set up for charge card only. Verify with your TA before you possibly regret it.

 

I did check with my TA and they thought I should be able to use the gift card. They indicated that they were a partner with Carnival, so if Carnival took the gift cards, they should be able to also. I have the e-mail address of the woman I spoke to, so I am hoping that I can just e-mail the gift card details to her to have them applied with Carnival. I will likely try it out with a $100 card and if it doesn't work, just use it toward the room charges on board.

[dioxide45]

Thought I would follow up with the results of our efforts. I decided to give it a go. I called Carnival to add a pin to our booking then gave our TA a call. I got a wonderful agent who I have spoke with in the past. I explained what I wanted to do, gave her the details of the cruise, their price, the price of our current booking, our Carnival booking number and pin. She put me on hold to call Carnival.

 

The agent told her that it wasn't possible to transfer the booking to them. She would instead have to create a new booking and put it on hold and then I would call Carnival to cancel our booking, charge the $100 ES administration fee and put the $300 in future cruise credit to be transferred to the new cruise booking. The TA would charge me the $500 difference in deposit ($300 FCC vs the new $800 deposit on the new booking). Then within seven days the FCC would be transferred and the booking which would make the deposit whole and the booking would be confirmed. With this, I would also lose, at least temporarily, our current cabin. She would have to put is in another cabin and hope that ours wasn't scooped up in the short time before they would be able to change it back.

 

So I got on a cell phone while I still had the TA on the other phone and called Carnival to cancel the booking. I got an agent at Carnival pretty quick, explained the situation to her and she was like, no no no. You should be able to transfer the booking to the TA. She looked it up to verify and did confirm that I could transfer to the TA. I gave her the direct number and extension of my TA. She put me on hold and called my TA. A little later she came back to tell me that they were working on transferring the booking and didn't need to keep me on hold any longer, so I hung up with her though was still on hold with the TA.

 

After a few minutes the TA came back and told me they were still working on it and continue to hold. After a few more minutes she came back and told me it was done. The booking was transferred. She had to do some other administrative stuff to take the $400 additional deposit and have an invoice sent to us.

 

Some of that 2.25 hours on the phone was spent asking about a price drop on another cruise that we took the other day. I wanted to verify the final price that they had. We were concerned that the person we talked to the other day didn't know what they were doing, and we were right. They somehow didn't have the price adjustments right in their system, but it was right with Carnival. Their invoice has us paying about $25 too much. I suspect it would have been figured out at final payment, but glad I checked.

 

In the end, we saved about $450 over our ES booking. We thought we would be out the $100 ES administrative fee, but we were able to save that since we were able to transfer the booking. Not really happy that we lost the half price deposit, but we would have ended up paying it anyway, so it isn't a real loss.

 

Two hours and fifteen minutes sounds like a lot of time to get this straightened out, but it works out to about $200 an hour, so I am not so upset. I feel bad for the agent I worked with since it took them away from new bookings, but she was great. I was sure to get her direct extension so if we have questions in the future or want to book again, we can call her directly.

 

Thanks for the tips here, the did help. I never would have known that we had to call and add a pin to our booking. I am hoping that we can use Carnival gift cards in the future to apply toward the balance of our cruises. We will see how that goes.

[Out to sea!]

Congrats! Good info to know.