One More X Question Before I set Sail

[Rosethorn40]

How does Celebrity handle the charging of your onboard spending to your credit card? Princess & Carnival put a daily hold equal to your actual purchase and the final evening released the holds and charged your card the actual amount spent, while HAL comes up with a set amount (I think it was $60 pp, per day multiplied by the number of days in cruise) that was placed on a hold at the beginning of the cruise on your credit card, with any adjustment up/down made the final evening.

 

Either way I am looking forward to my first Celebrity cruise in 3 days.

[Iamthesea]

We just supply our credit card number. No holds that I know of. Are you thinking about a Debit card that is tied to your banking account?

[DrivesLikeMario]

I did check my credit card while onboard last time and didn't notice any holds. Sometimes Princess does that with a credit card, but it's rare IME. They usually only do that if you have a debit card.

[ghstudio]

Don't hold me to this, but I think they put a hold on the account if you are using a debit card.....but not if you are using a credit card.

 

Best thing to do would be to call celebrity and ask.

[reedprincess]

The same as Princess and Royal Caribbean and Carnival. If it's an actual credit card, there are no holds placed, but there are pending charges run each evening in an amount to cover what that day's spending may be, but these don't actually go though - there just run to make sure you have the credit space. At rhe end of the cruise, one charge is actually put through for the full amount, and the pending transactions fall off within a few days/week depending on your bank. Same as Princess, Royal, etc. Same as many hotels and so on.

Hence the difficulty if you use a debit card, even if it had a Visa logo, as those pending charges actually go through as a hold on your available cash with a debit card, then the final charge goes through as one actual debit - and it can takes days to weeks for the holds to drop. Not a good idea to use a debit card.

We disembarked on April 3, and the last pending transaction dropped of our Visa by April 10. We had one actual charge put through by Celebrity in the amount of our bill.

Hope that helps.

[Mum81]

On this topic, if you wish to put cash and/or traveler's cheques on your account and you don't want to use a card at all, how does this work?

 

Do you go straight to the desk once on board and load your cash? If so, is there likely to be a very long line of people doing the same?

[morbihan]

We just say that we will be paying cash when checking in.

 

The first time we didn 't have a drinks package or gratuities - *#÷$€ TA - and us being innocent so it was about a million pounds.

 

Since then we have spent £25. A hasty splash out in the sales and getting the gelish off my nails. Husband got a refund!:D

[fleckle]

h

On this topic, if you wish to put cash and/or traveler's cheques on your account and you don't want to use a card at all, how does this work?

 

Do you go straight to the desk once on board and load your cash? If so, is there likely to be a very long line of people doing the same?

No rush at the beginning of the cruise. You can do it when it is convenient for you.

 

The inconvenience comes at the end of the cruise when you would need to wait in line to close out your account, either to pay the remaining balance due or to receive a refund.

 

One of our family members had only a small credit amount remaining on her cash account and thought she would leave it as she didn't want the hassle of needing to go to guest relations and wait in line to retrieve it.

 

As we were leaving the ship, when she inserted her seapass card to check out, a loud alarm went off.

She had to go back to guest relations and wait in a long line to close out her account while the rest of us were left waiting outside for her.

 

It is so much easier and more convenient to use a credit card account because the remaining debit or credit automatically goes back to your credit card and you don't need to do anything at all.

Just be sure to use a card that does not charge a fee for foreign currency conversion.

 

Best of all, there is no need to carry large amounts of cash that could be lost or stolen.

 

Edited April 29, 2016 by fleckle

[LA_CA_GAL]

h.....

 

It is so much easier and more convenient to use a credit card .....

 

 

The only way to go.

[Rosethorn40]

I am using a credit card. I was just wondering if a hold put on at the beginning of the cruise like HAL, or more like Princess or Carnival. Thanks for the replies. Now to pack