Drinks package, $ or £

[Yertiz1883]

We are on the Celebrity Millenium, 3rd Jan 2016 Indonesia & Malaysia Cruise having booked the cruise in the UK.

 

We have followed the many remarks on this board concerning the Classic Alcohol drinks package which we can purchase in advance for a little short of £600 p.p. At the current exchange rate this equates to approx US $900 p.p

 

Is anyone, in the U.S.A. or anyone with access to the Celebrity American site, able to advise the price of this package if purchased in US $.

 

Dependant on answers we will consider using a pre loaded $ credit card to purchase the drinks package whilst on board, and also finalising our account.

 

 

We have never used a pre loaded card previously but there does appear to be many advantages, (including purchasing of $ when exchange rates are favourable)?

 

Any fellow Bits. who have used a pre loaded card, issued in Blighty, who can offer any advise or guidance please make contact. (without naming the card company on here).

 

Thanks

[jelayne]

The Classis drink package in USD $55 per per per day + 18% gratutiy for a total of $64.90 per day. For a 14 night cruise the cost in USD would be $908.60 each.

[Kristal Blade]

I would advise you not to use the preloaded card on board. They are brilliant for shopping ashore, but if you use this as your on board account the full amount for tips etc is taken up front and some lines also levy a $500 charge on top, assuming you may spend that during the cruise on other services such as trips. This is not a problem if you don't need the card ashore, but if you do want to use it, maybe to withdraw cash at an ATM, then this forward charge prevents you from accessing your pre loaded cash.

We had a bit of a problem with one of these in New Zealand when a couple of hotels did this then took 30 days to refund the money.

What we do on cruises is let them swipe our normal credit card, but then pay it off with cash dollars. We take hard cash with us, just buy dollars when the rate is good, then use that on board to pay down our account.

We are on Millenium in November and will do a similar cruise to you, but before that we are going on Princess to New England and Canada. On board we will use cash, in Canada we will use our Thomas Cook Canadian dollar cash passport.

Hope this helps, maybe others will have an alternative view?!

Enjoy your cruise,

Libby

[Gordoncruickshank]

What you need to do is register a regular credit card when you check in and then change the card over to the prepaid card on the last day. That way all "holds" are from on the regular card and it leaves your currency card with no problems to pay off your balance and for you to spend what is left.

[Yorkshire-Pudding]

We are on the Celebrity Millenium, 3rd Jan 2016 Indonesia & Malaysia Cruise having booked the cruise in the...

 

We have never used a pre loaded card previously but there does appear to be many advantages, (including purchasing of $ when exchange rates are favourable)?

 

Any fellow Bits. who have used a pre loaded card, issued in Blighty, who can offer any advise or guidance please make contact. (without naming the card company on here).

 

Thanks

 

I would advise you to pre purchase dollars via Celebrity now and use that to pay for your package. Celebrity was offering $1.67 to £1 last week, a rate unmatched even if you use an Internet foreign exchange. I started purchasing more than a year in advance. Any left over can be taken as cash with 5% transaction fee but even with that at current rate you would still be ahead.

 

Also if over 50 consider S A G A credit card. No additional charges for foreign use.

[Kristal Blade]

Hi Yorkshire-Pudding,

I like the way you are thinking with pre purchasing Celebrity dollars. How do you find out the rate, please? In town the rate is only about $1.50 to the £1.

Thanks,

Libby

[jono mono]

You can telephone celebrity and do it over the phone.Or log in to celebrity,click all ready booked,click gifts on board,then onboard credit.

At the mo it's £16.80 for 25$ approx. 1.49 to the £.

Yorkshire pud was quite right,you need to watch this, in may I got 1.67$ to the £.Enjoy your cruise !

[upwarduk]

Also if over 50 consider S A G A credit card. No additional charges for foreign use.

 

There are other cards that don't charge for foreign use, I have the Post Office one & I believe the Halifax have one as well.

Just be aware to tick the option on your Express Pass for the card to do the currency conversion, NOT the ship , they charge 3.5% ( daily transaction-eg tips.)

Edited July 14, 2015 by upwarduk

[Lsimon]

...Dependant on answers we will consider using a pre loaded $ credit card to purchase the drinks package whilst on board, and also finalising our account.

 

We have never used a pre loaded card previously but there does appear to be many advantages, (including purchasing of $ when exchange rates are favourable)?...

 

Using prepaid cards, or bank debit cards, is problematic at best. This is because cruise lines, like hotels and rental cars, make an authorization check when you register the card. For prepaid and bank debit cards this results in money being subtracted from the card balance or taken out of your bank account until the authorization expires which might be after your cruise. As you spend during the cruise Celebrity will do additional authorizations which further compound things. Worse yet I frequently see cases where for one reason or another the final charge doesn't exactly match with the authorizations and as a result it does not offset them but instead tries to add to them and might exceed the value of your bank account or prepaid card.

 

I'm not even sure if Celebrity accepts prepaid cards for that reason.

 

What you need to do is register a regular credit card when you check in and then change the card over to the prepaid card on the last day. That way all "holds" are from on the regular card and it leaves your currency card with no problems to pay off your balance and for you to spend what is left.

 

Be careful as they sometimes can't change payment methods nor accept alternate payments after a certain cut-off very late in the cruise. So if you want to make payments using an alternate card from your registration card be sure the check with guest relations a few days before the end of the cruise and ask when the latest you could do this is.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Lsimon

[Tiggertastic]

We are on the Celebrity Millenium, 3rd Jan 2016 Indonesia & Malaysia Cruise having booked the cruise in the UK.

 

 

 

We have followed the many remarks on this board concerning the Classic Alcohol drinks package which we can purchase in advance for a little short of £600 p.p. At the current exchange rate this equates to approx US $900 p.p

 

 

 

Is anyone, in the U.S.A. or anyone with access to the Celebrity American site, able to advise the price of this package if purchased in US $.

 

 

 

Dependant on answers we will consider using a pre loaded $ credit card to purchase the drinks package whilst on board, and also finalising our account.

 

 

 

 

 

We have never used a pre loaded card previously but there does appear to be many advantages, (including purchasing of $ when exchange rates are favourable)?

 

 

 

Any fellow Bits. who have used a pre loaded card, issued in Blighty, who can offer any advise or guidance please make contact. (without naming the card company on here).

 

 

 

Thanks

 

 

Go onto the .com, go to the bottom and change country to USA. Then you can price it yourself. Basically it's coming out about 1.54 to the £

[Gordoncruickshank]

 

 

 

I'm not even sure if Celebrity accepts prepaid cards for that reason.

 

 

 

Be careful as they sometimes can't change payment methods nor accept alternate payments after a certain cut-off very late in the cruise. So if you want to make payments using an alternate card from your registration card be sure the check with guest relations a few days before the end of the cruise and ask when the latest you could do this is.

 

Celebrity definitely accept these. They are just Mastercards or Visa cards

I have used a prepaid $card for the past 5 cruises. The first time I got caught out by Celebrity and Hilton reserving chunks of my money. In both September 14 and Feb/ Mar 15 I registered with my Amex card and switched on the last day. In these cases I had purchased obc, more than I needed, and this was all credited back onto my card in $us which gave me my good exchange rate to cover the rest of our time in the U.S.

 

Unfortunately they just changed the rate for purchased obc and it is not worth doing it anymore. I will just exchange cash onto the card pre cruise and use that.

 

I did intend switching over enough to give me around $3,000 so that I could use that in Feb16

[Gordoncruickshank]

I would advise you to pre purchase dollars via Celebrity now and use that to pay for your package. Celebrity was offering $1.67 to £1 last week, a rate unmatched even if you use an Internet foreign exchange. I started purchasing more than a year in advance. Any left over can be taken as cash with 5% transaction fee but even with that at current rate you would still be ahead.

 

Also if over 50 consider S A G A credit card. No additional charges for foreign use.

 

 

This has now changed to a rate of $1.48. I missed the boat with it after telling everyone to do it.

 

You can Transfer it back onto a $us card if you have one which saves changing it back into £.

 

Are you still on the Eclipse? If you get a chance to visit the ilounge can you see if they have the Apple watch for sale. If you don't manage, no problems

Edited July 14, 2015 by Gordoncruickshank

[Kristal Blade]

Thanks for the info on how to "buy" credit on the ship, jono mono,

I will keep an eye on the rate. We bought credit on a P&O cruise we did. That was easier cos it was £ for £!

This has been a really useful thread so thanks to Yertiz1883 for starting it off,

Libby

[Yertiz1883]

Thanks everyone for all information provided.

Like the idea of sending a gift to ourselves, but unless I am doing something wrong, I had to enter my details, including reservation number and also the "senders" details incluing credit card number etc.

Is it at this stage you receive the exchange rate and if so can the gift be cancelled, if exchange rate not acceptable. Sorry if my question sounds basic but I need to be able to work through this. Short of phning Celebrity is there any other way of obtaining their exchange rate at any given time?

 

Regarding my pre paid card question, again thanks to all. We have pre paid gratuities (don't start me off on this!!) and also pre purchased 2 excursions through Celebrity, so the only items on our on board account should be drinks, etc. I take the point therefor to register our main credit card, and settle up the tab with the pre paid card.

 

Once again many thanks go you all, for responses too date