Currency conversion for UK Passengers

[DebbieMacG]

hi,cheers guys,i logged on my cruise personalizer today and there is a section under gifts and services for obc gifts in units of up to $100.i assume you can have multiple units.my problem is because i live in italy the page says "we cannot deal with overseas customers at this time".i booked the cruise direct with princess and paid in gbp but i suppose the site recognised my location.the bottom line is i think you can get obc online,perhaps somebody in uk could do a dummy run to confirm this and also the 1.66 rate.cheers,brian.

 

As I said before you have to phone them. The details online are just for information and it also says on the page.

 

Princess Cruises has a team of Celebrations Support agents who can help you to plan an unforgettable cruise vacation or select the perfect gift to celebrate any special occasion. To order and speak to a member of our Celebrations Support team, call 0843 374 4444.

 

You can't order it online, if you could have I would have :D

[insidecabin]

To order and speak to a member of our Celebrations Support team, call 0843 374 4444.

 

 

If that is a chargeable number on your phone plan, use the carnival main line 023 8065 5000

[manxstaff]

The exchange rate you get for pre purchasing items is dependant on the rate when you booked your cruise (told this by princess last week) as I have 2 booking for the same cruise and was astounded to find that pre buying the drinks packages were £40 a person more expensive for my cabin than for my sons cabin.

I called princess to query it and was told that as my cabin was booked in June 2014 and sons was booked in August 2014 the exchange rate at the times of booking was causing the discrepancy but there is nothing princess can do about it. same applied to pre paying tips my cabin were £8 per person more expensive.

 

Would never have known if we had both booked at the same time or only booked one cabin.

Was on the phone for 40 mins but princess just kept saying it was out of their hands and nothing they can do about the exchange rate, it's company policy.

[Tom Baker]

With that attitude you should tell Princess it's in YOUR hands and reduce the gratuities you pay to a level comparable with your sons.

[insidecabin]

The exchange rate you get for pre purchasing items is dependant on the rate when you booked your cruise (told this by princess last week) as I have 2 booking for the same cruise and was astounded to find that pre buying the drinks packages were £40 a person more expensive for my cabin than for my sons cabin.

I called princess to query it and was told that as my cabin was booked in June 2014 and sons was booked in August 2014 the exchange rate at the times of booking was causing the discrepancy but there is nothing princess can do about it. same applied to pre paying tips my cabin were £8 per person more expensive.

 

Would never have known if we had both booked at the same time or only booked one cabin.

Was on the phone for 40 mins but princess just kept saying it was out of their hands and nothing they can do about the exchange rate, it's company policy.

 

Just buy OBC with the best rate and use that to pay for the things on board.

 

Simple solution.

 

Princess set the rate for period of time sometimes you win sometimes you lose based on the rate at time of sailing you need to check against what your CC will be giving you.

[minikiss]

I thought it was worth adding to this thread as I found out a few days ago that we Brits can now add On Board Gift Credit to our bookings via the personalizer.

Up till now as all above have stated you had to ring them up and get it added.

 

well now we don't need to make that call but can add it online instead. :)

I can see in my booking

I can pre pay the Grats :)

I can pre buy the coffee card :)

Should I want to I can pre order the drink packages

I can make reservations

should I wish to I can pre pay for the excursions to - don't think I will do it that way though.

 

As well as add OBC to the account, in lots of £15, £30 & £60.

so much easier this way plus it allows me to add it when I've got a bit of spare cash a bit at a time.

 

as I said It's worth looking at your bookings again before calling them.

 

happy sailings

Jules :)

[insidecabin]

Just check how many $ you get for each purchase.

 

Thanks for the update.

Edited July 7, 2015 by insidecabin

[minikiss]

Based on the exchange rate I worked out I "should" get $25 , $50 + $100.

 

I guess though the $ amount will vary depending on the booking times etc, based on the set exchange rate for each booking.

 

But it's worth looking at to see what you will get as It "should" be the same as you would do by calling them.

Edited July 7, 2015 by minikiss

[Colo Cruiser]

I thought it was worth adding to this thread as I found out a few days ago that we Brits can now add On Board Gift Credit to our bookings via the personalizer.

Up till now as all above have stated you had to ring them up and get it added.

 

well now we don't need to make that call but can add it online instead. :)

I can see in my booking

I can pre pay the Grats :)

I can pre buy the coffee card :)

Should I want to I can pre order the drink packages

I can make reservations

should I wish to I can pre pay for the excursions to - don't think I will do it that way though.

 

As well as add OBC to the account, in lots of £15, £30 & £60.

so much easier this way plus it allows me to add it when I've got a bit of spare cash a bit at a time.

 

as I said It's worth looking at your bookings again before calling them.

 

happy sailings

Jules :)

 

Sure make it a little more convenient. :)

[Corfe Mixture]

There are TWO ways to minimise your Sterling charge, with the benefit of one over the other being related to timing.

 

1. The easiest to understand and explain is what to do when settling your on board account.

 

Here you should use a UK credit card not debit card, and you should use one which has a genuine zero commission and uses the Visa interbank rate fro the conversion. What you need to be careful of is those which advertise zero commission but then hit you on the exchange rate. There are a number of UK cards which meet the criteria of being genuine zero commission cards, namely the Nationwide Select Credit Card (but not the ordinary Nationwide credit card) and the Halifax Rewards Credit Card.

 

2. A little more difficult to understand how it works, is the gifting of OBC to yourself. The reason it is more difficult to understand is that the exchange rate seems to be fixed for your booking and not every UK citizen on the same cruise seems to get the same rate. The best I can say is that it appears to be related to the exchange rate at the day of booking.

 

You can find out the rate available to you by phoning Southampton and asking them how much it would cost you to purchase OBC and then work out the rate from the information. You also will get the same rate if you pre-pay your gratuities will appear as the appropriate amount of OBC in dollars on your on board account with gratuities then being charged as normal.

 

In both case, the additional OBC does not appear on your booking paperwork (because it can be purchased as a gift) and you won't see it until at appears as a credit on your on board account, so I take the confirmation e-mails with me. Also in both cases you will be billed by Princess in sterling and so you do not need to worry about the rate charged by your card issuer.

 

What you need to do is to phone Southampton, and ask them for a quote and then decide if it is better or worse than you are likely to get if you simply take the credit card rate at the end of the cruise.

 

Like others in this thread, I have been able to pre-pay my gratuities and purchase and load of OBC for my Christmas cruise at 1.67. I will then settle the outstanding balance at then end of the cruise using either my Nationwide or Halifax card.

 

Finally the really good thing is that if you go down the route of prepaying your gratuities, this can be cancelled at ay time and you will receive a full sterling refund. So if you find that, just prior to your cruise, the rate on your card is likely to be better than you got when you prepaid your gratuities, you can simply cancel the prepayment.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Corfe Mixture

[brian1]

Based on the exchange rate I worked out I "should" get $25 , $50 + $100.

 

I guess though the $ amount will vary depending on the booking times etc, based on the set exchange rate for each booking.

 

But it's worth looking at to see what you will get as It "should" be the same as you would do by calling them.

hi,i said this in june but no one believed me.even though i log in to cp it wont let me book online because i live in italy. im going to have to wait until i come back to uk in 3 weeks.i think the website recognises the computers location although i booked prepaid grats from italy a couple of months earlier,so this must be a new thing with the website,cheers,brian.

[minikiss]

hi,i said this in june but no one believed me.even though i log in to cp it wont let me book online because i live in italy. im going to have to wait until i come back to uk in 3 weeks.i think the website recognises the computers location although i booked prepaid grats from italy a couple of months earlier,so this must be a new thing with the website,cheers,brian.

 

could be a ip address location issue.

I get that problem when I looking at things at work.

Our server is based in the Netherlands and when I go to the Princess site it thinks i'm in Holland :( so all the prices are in euros and a lot of the time it says to book please contact your Travel Agent.....

there are a few other sites I can't do much on due to the same issue.

 

I've still got mine to go through but I may wait till i'm back home after work to do it....

 

Jules

[Corfe Mixture]

hi,i said this in june but no one believed me.even though i log in to cp it wont let me book online because i live in italy. im going to have to wait until i come back to uk in 3 weeks.i think the website recognises the computers location although i booked prepaid grats from italy a couple of months earlier,so this must be a new thing with the website,cheers,brian.

 

Brian,

 

If you either:

a) use data roaming on your UK phone together with the phone's android hotspot (or equivalent iphone hotspot)

or

b) you have a Three SIM card in your tablet / iPad then it will appear to the site that you are in the UK.

 

We are in France and if I log in using my French 4G account, or from a hotspot, we get the European Princess site with prices in euros, and inability to book with going through a TA or do much on personaliser etc.

BUT

If we access via the iPad which has a Three SIM card we get a UK IP address which means we are taken to the UK site where we can access to everything 'Just like Home'.

Edited July 8, 2015 by Corfe Mixture

[brian1]

Brian,

 

If you either:

a) use data roaming on your UK phone together with the phone's android hotspot (or equivalent iphone hotspot)

or

b) you have a Three SIM card in your tablet / iPad then it will appear to the site that you are in the UK.

 

We are in France and if I log in using my French 4G account, or from a hotspot, we get the European Princess site with prices in euros, and inability to book with going through a TA or do much on personaliser etc.

BUT

If we access via the iPad which has a Three SIM card we get a UK IP address which means we are taken to the UK site where we can access to everything 'Just like Home'.

hi,thanks for that,i havent got a tablet just a laptop,but i am getting one in uk soon.the uk website comes up in gbp etc when i log in cp,its just booking gifts and services online,it says this service is not available for international customers yet.not a major problem,coming back to uk in 3 weeks,cheers,brian.

[brian1]

hi again,out of curiosity have you guys with access to princess eu website noticed how much cheaper quite a lot of cruises are,even without offers of obc etc.cheers,brian.

[Corfe Mixture]

hi again,out of curiosity have you guys with access to princess eu website noticed how much cheaper quite a lot of cruises are,even without offers of obc etc.cheers,brian.

 

Haven't done the sums recently, but don't forget that the prices shown in Euros of the European site do NOT include port charges which need to be added.

[Corfe Mixture]

hi,thanks for that,i havent got a tablet just a laptop,but i am getting one in uk soon.the uk website comes up in gbp etc when i log in cp,its just booking gifts and services online,it says this service is not available for international customers yet.not a major problem,coming back to uk in 3 weeks,cheers,brian.

 

Yup same for me when I log on to CP using my French 4G account but, if I log on through a roaming UK 4G account, I get a UK IP address and see Sterling prices even before I log on and, because 'the system' thinks I am in the UK, I can then access gifts and services after logging on to CP.

[brian1]

hi corfe,yes they are still a lot cheaper with port,taxes etc added.it gets more complicated now with obc,i logged on today and went to onboard reservations,you can buy obc there but it is in multiples of 15 30 and 60 gbp.it allowed me to book but the payment is in gbp with no indication of us$ rate.i deleted the booking and will try gifts and services back in uk,cheers,brian.

[TheCj's]

Thanks for the replies. When prepaying for gratuities or trips, will Princess charge the credit card in US$ if that is what has been selected, or will it be converted to GBP by them, and therefore be subject to their 3% transaction charge? Currently, Visa website gives an exchange rate of 1.65 - if Princess exchange rate is at 1.55 then then that's poor - if 1.64 then its much the same but with 3% extra to pay.

Will be getting the currency exchange done on the card.

Think Princess should be a bit more careful with the recommendations they are giving about this on their website.

 

We were on the Sapphire in Asia last April. We sent money to the ship by phoning Princess in Southampton (UK) E.g. We asked to send £500 We got a rate, at that time of $1.66. Paid by credit card and requested the transaction to show as 'purchase' of £500. It all worked perfectly. It showed in stirling o. Our cc statement. Ask for an email receipt as the money does not show as OBC in the personalizer ( saves any argument. Although we had none) but will appear when you get on board. A card will be left in your stateroom stating you have been gifted the money!!