Book excursion - cancel onboard - rebook onboard with OBC?

[schlogee]

This may be a weird question - we booked some excursions, but had to put on a credit card since we only had a little OBC from Princess. We have a lot of OBC coming once we board from our "big box store" booking.  Can I cancel the excursions once we're onboard and have them refund to my credit card, and immediately rebook using the OBC we will have available then? 

[jwattle]

You run the risk of the excursion having a wait list, and when you cancel, they will give your slot to the first person on the wait list, not you...

[Colo Cruiser]

30 minutes ago, schlogee said:

This may be a weird question - we booked some excursions, but had to put on a credit card since we only had a little OBC from Princess. We have a lot of OBC coming once we board from our "big box store" booking.  Can I cancel the excursions once we're onboard and have them refund to my credit card, and immediately rebook using the OBC we will have available then? 

I would think maybe as long as there is not a wait list as stated above.

[schlogee]

3 minutes ago, jwattle said:

You run the risk of the excursion having a wait list, and when you cancel, they will give your slot to the first person on the wait list, not you...

Good point - didn't think about wait list!

[jparker10508]

I would think that they would also charge you the price they would be charging at the current time.  Princess seems to raise the price of the excursions the closer it is to the date of the cruise.

[Jezabel2924]

Your Big box store credit is refundable by check after the cruise, if you do not use it.  We have alot of Big Box credit coming and I wanted to make sure I got the excursions I wanted before departure so we paid for them and will just take the check for the excess.

[land lover]

2 hours ago, Jezabel2924 said:

Your Big box store credit is refundable by check after the cruise, if you do not use it.  We have alot of Big Box credit coming and I wanted to make sure I got the excursions I wanted before departure so we paid for them and will just take the check for the excess.

 Agree, or it can go for grats and on board spending.

 

Unfortunately if the excursions you pre-paid are cancelled by the ship. Like one of ours was last month. The credit shows up on the account of  the person the excursion was booked for, not who paid for it. So if you are not covering all the accounts in your cabin, beware. A spouse or friend might be owing you some mola.

 

Edited April 7, 2019 by land lover

[land lover]

18 hours ago, schlogee said:

This may be a weird question - we booked some excursions, but had to put on a credit card since we only had a little OBC from Princess. We have a lot of OBC coming once we board from our "big box store" booking.  Can I cancel the excursions once we're onboard and have them refund to my credit card, and immediately rebook using the OBC we will have available then? 

 Not worth the risk of losing your excursion and as others have stated excursions often go up on the ship or a few weeks before sailing.

 

Also, the big box and Some TAs  don't  "buy" your OBC from Princess until they know you are on the ship.This is why it takes a day or 2 to show up on your account. Keep you excursions don't take a risk.

 

And regards to my experience last month..I was told by the Excursion Manager, my excursion was cancelled(we had a note in our cabin upon arrival attached to the envelope for our other excursion tickets) due to one of the boats having a mechanical problem. The excursion was going on with other pax and boats...but those of us who booked last on line were the first to be booted. So you would be disappointed if you rebooked on the ship and found they were cancelling just one bus or boat..and you missed out.  

Edited April 7, 2019 by land lover

[IDsailor]

If you call Princess Pre-cruise they will book your Excursions using onboard credit.

[oskidunker]

Also on the last cruise I paid for one of my wife’s excursions with some military credit.. they still charged her account and gave the credit for paying to me as an onboard credit. So don’t do this if you keep separate accounts

[pms4104]

38 minutes ago, IDsailor said:

If you call Princess Pre-cruise they will book your Excursions using onboard credit.

But only if that OBC already is on your acct, right?  That is not the case with the OP, or did I misread that post? 

[NavyVeteran]

21 hours ago, schlogee said:

This may be a weird question - we booked some excursions, but had to put on a credit card since we only had a little OBC from Princess. We have a lot of OBC coming once we board from our "big box store" booking.  Can I cancel the excursions once we're onboard and have them refund to my credit card, and immediately rebook using the OBC we will have available then? 

In addition to the potential problems mentioned by others, you wouldn't gain anything anyway. If you cancel the excursion after you're onboard, they will not refund it to your credit card - they will give the passenger who is booked on the excursion refundable OBC (note that it doesn't matter whose credit card paid for the excursion - the passenger receives the OBC). Then you would use the OBC to book.

 

If you booked with a combination of OBC and credit card, you may find all of the excursions charged on your onboard folio and all of your payments listed as OBC. They don't actually charge your OBC until you are onboard.

 

When my brother booked excursions entirely with a credit card (he didn't have any OBC), neither the excursion charges nor the payments showed on his folio. However, when he cancelled one excursion, they didn't just show the cost of that excursion as OBC on his folio - they showed all of his remaining excursions as charges and his payments as refundable OBC.

 

In summary: If you do not have any unused nonrefundable OBC, you gain nothing by trying to cancel and rebook. If you have some, you may need to cancel in order to use it - and cancelling one excursion may be enough to allow you to use your nonrefundable OBC for other excursions too - trading it for the refundable OBC from your excursion credit card payments.

 

It's been a while since the cruise where this happened, and Princess does change their accounting procedures, so I don't know if it still works that way.

[hobbyfarmer2]

Not necessary to cancel and rebook.  When you get on board all debits and credits will be separated as individual entries on Your account.  Your OBC and credit card payments will show up as negative numbers as if you had never paid for your excursions at all.  You will be charged for the excursions again (positive numbers) and the non-refundable OBC will be used first to pay for all expenses until it is all used up followed by use of refundable OBC including your credit card payments.  You will receive a cheque from Princess if any refundable is left over after your cruise.  Took me a bit of thinking to work out what was happening first time as I am not an accountant but the system makes good sense.

[jwattle]

41 minutes ago, hobbyfarmer2 said:

Not necessary to cancel and rebook.  When you get on board all debits and credits will be separated as individual entries on Your account.  Your OBC and credit card payments will show up as negative numbers as if you had never paid for your excursions at all.  You will be charged for the excursions again (positive numbers) and the non-refundable OBC will be used first to pay for all expenses until it is all used up followed by use of refundable OBC including your credit card payments.  You will receive a cheque from Princess if any refundable is left over after your cruise.  Took me a bit of thinking to work out what was happening first time as I am not an accountant but the system makes good sense.

Not if they paid with credit card...