NEED A FAIR REFUND POLICY DUE TO VIRUS

[resistk]

1 hour ago, DSmith91 said:

Vesude.......

11.9 Where CDP is the Cruise Organiser, and no matter the reason for cancellation, no compensation is due to the Traveller, who will be able to choose between the following solutions:(i) A full refund of the Contract price; (ii) Another Service at the same price; (iii) A Service at a lower price and a refund for the price difference between the two Services based on the advertised prices. Travellers must inform CDP of their choice as soon as possible and in any event before the deadline mentioned in the cancellation document

 

Poorly written but clearly states a refund is due. if the passenger asks for it.

[resistk]

If you are a US citizen or resident contact:

 

US Federal Maritime Commissioner

 Louis E Sola

ff30@fmc.gov

Re: Fact Finding No. 30

I heard back almost immediately as they were wanted to know what Ponant was doing about refunds.

[resistk]

16 hours ago, Nonads said:

Our cruise to the Seychelles was cancelled by Ponant in March. We asked for a refund but only offered a FCC.Have tried all other routes ACCC , our insurance company have refused even tho we took out insurance when we booked the cruise in Feb 2019 way before Covid 19. Has anyone had full refund of their cruise money from Ponant ?  Time to honour your  T& Cs Ponant 

 

 

No, I got 50% - maybe.

[Vesude]

8 hours ago, DSmith91 said:

If you're asking about your rights if Ponant cancels your cruise, the T&Cs on the website still states that you have the option of a full refund.

Do you have a link to this part of the T&C? I can’t find it...

[DSmith91]

2 hours ago, Vesude said:

Do you have a link to this part of the T&C? I can’t find it...

Section 11.9 of T&C's.  We are in the UK.  I presume their T&C's are the same worldwide.

 

http://docs.ponant.com/CGV/CGV-en.pdf

[Seabiscuit68]

14 hours ago, Vesude said:

Good news. To what mailadresse did you contact Ponant? I have send so many mails to their main mail adress (contact@ponant.com) but they never responded. 

Very bad because they have our money in their pocket. 

 

Catherine Brin is the Customer Service Manager for US reservations.  She is the individual who originally emailed us  the FCC when the cruise was cancelled.    Nsawhney is CEO and hbellaiche is VP of Sales and Marketing.

 

cbrin@ponant.com

usreservations@ponant.com

nsawhney@ponant.com

hbellaiche@ponant.com

 

 

[Seabiscuit68]

15 hours ago, jonikal said:

 

Congratulations!  Although it's pretty pathetic to have to have gone to these lengths to get satisfaction from Ponant. There is another organization that is very useful and that any travel companies, whether airline or cruise, hate to hear from - The US Dept of Transportation.   We had an amazing response once they looked at our very valid complaint and the airline, after many of our futile attempts to get reimbursed failed, gave us our refund plus extra for the crap we had gone through.  

 

 

 

Agree!  We were trying to get our refund for business class tickets from Fiji Airways, this was going on for two months.  In our last email to them we indicated that we had filed a complaint with the Department of Transportation.  The next day we had our refund.  

[Vesude]

On 6/6/2020 at 3:02 PM, Seabiscuit68 said:

 

Catherine Brin is the Customer Service Manager for US reservations.  She is the individual who originally emailed us  the FCC when the cruise was cancelled.    Nsawhney is CEO and hbellaiche is VP of Sales and Marketing.

 

cbrin@ponant.com

usreservations@ponant.com

nsawhney@ponant.com

hbellaiche@ponant.com

 

 

It worked! We wrote an email to the above mentioned adresses and reveived an answer within 24 hours. We are going to receive a refund.

 

Thanks!

[resistk]

16 hours ago, Vesude said:

It worked! We wrote an email to the above mentioned adresses and reveived an answer within 24 hours. We are going to receive a refund.

 

Thanks!

 

That is no way to run a cruise line, some people get refunds and some do not based on the whim of the CEO?

[Vesude]

4 hours ago, resistk said:

 

That is no way to run a cruise line, some people get refunds and some do not based on the whim of the CEO?

You are so right.... but.... it worked!

[jland]

6 hours ago, resistk said:

 

That is no way to run a cruise line, some people get refunds and some do not based on the whim of the CEO?

I could not agree more. I am not having a shot at Vesude, good on them getting a refund, but why can’t Ponant see the damage they are doing to their brand by cherry picking who will get a refund. 
Sarina Britton is the Chairman Asia Pacific trying to get her email address from Ponant Australia is impossible. Such service.

[Zeddog]

16 minutes ago, jland said:

I could not agree more. I am not having a shot at Vesude, good on them getting a refund, but why can’t Ponant see the damage they are doing to their brand by cherry picking who will get a refund. 
Sarina Britton is the Chairman Asia Pacific trying to get her email address from Ponant Australia is impossible. Such service.

Have you tried sarina.bratton@ponant.com.au?  Spelling of surname as per google searches, email extension just a guess.

[Roger88]

I totally how people want to demand refunds due to all this covid situation but if you look closely to the problem its really hard to classify whats going on. Its not like an earthquake or tzunami or smth. Most of the limitations and cancelations were due to a certain political moves. I think that if there was no real control agent like a government, not so many cruise ships would cancel their cruises

[Host Jazzbeau]

@jland:  I just checked the Ponant website, and they appear to have cancelled a bunch of cruises.  L'Austral now shows no cruises before Oct. 31 (for the Antarctic season).  So it looks like they finally cancelled your cruise and you can begin the process of trying to get your money back.

 

UPDATE:  a few hours later, and the number of cruises has jumped back up and this cruise, which is legally and morally impossible, is still shown as available.  Sorry for the confusion.

[jland]

8 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

@jland:  I just checked the Ponant website, and they appear to have cancelled a bunch of cruises.  L'Austral now shows no cruises before Oct. 31 (for the Antarctic season).  So it looks like they finally cancelled your cruise and you can begin the process of trying to get your money back.

 

UPDATE:  a few hours later, and the number of cruises has jumped back up and this cruise, which is legally and morally impossible, is still shown as available.  Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks Host Jazzbeau for thinking of me. This cruise is still open for bookings on Ponant Australian website. I received an email from Sarina Bratton , which auto correct changed to Britton in my previous post, sorry about that, asking my opinion on future Australian cruises. I really wish she would spend her time dealing with my current problem because what they are doing to me is so wrong.

[Host Jazzbeau]

@jland:  Did you see this?

 

[jland]

Host Jazzbeau, I have just seen this, I am shaking my head in disbelief. I am gobsmacked, words fail me. 

[resistk]

21 hours ago, jland said:

Host Jazzbeau, I have just seen this, I am shaking my head in disbelief. I am gobsmacked, words fail me. 

 

The Ponant FCCs are pretty muuch worthless in the short term; they should return the money.

[DSmith91]

Now Ponant have pulled the cruise cancellation page from their website.  Hopefully working on the updated version as the 7th May one was so out of date.

[DSmith91]

Ponant are really excelling!!

 

We booked our cruise through their UK call centre almost 2 years ago.  In August last year they said that they were going to be handling the booking from then on and that everything was in order.  The  final balance was to be paid direct to Ponant rather than their agent.  All good so far.  We are due to cruise in Australia which won't obviously happen but they have now dropped a bombshell saying that they never received our deposit from the agent and the agent has now gone bust.

This is their email which we received today basically saying that if the cruise doesn't go ahead we'll only get a FCC for the final balance paid and not the deposit.  Surely this can't be legally possible and that the problem (if there is one) is between the UK agent and Ponant.

What do you think of the email  I think it's appalling and I shall never cruise with them again.

 

 

FROM PONANT:

My colleague informed me of your call on Thursday, I was out of the office so I am coming bak to you only today.

 

In regards to the status of your cruise, we are still on stand-by.

As you know, we are in contact with the Australian authorities, and they have not yet given us a clear answer on if we can operate this cruise or not.

 

You booked this cruise initially with Ewaterways, which, as you know, no longer exists. As we had agreements with Ewaterways, they only paid Ponant 60 days prior to sailings.

Ponant made the decision to privilege it's direct customers, such as yourself, by maintaining the reservations, even without deposits paid, and even if it meant that we were loosing a part of the value of the booking.

 

I am explaining this to you as we do not have the payment of your deposit which you paid to Ewaterways directly.

Therefore, given the current circumstances, there are three solutions :

1/ You decide to wait and see if the cruise is maintained, and pay your balance 30 days prior to sailing.

If the cruise ends up being cancelled by Ponant ; we will offer a credit of 100% of the amount you will have paid to Ponant, and in addition, a 20% commercial gesture, to be applied on your next booking as a discount (20% calculated on the port/port basis of  the cruise only).

If the cruise is maintained by Ponant, but you cannot travel ; we will offer a credit of 100% of the amount you will have paid to Ponant, to be used for a replacement booking.

 

2/ The cruise is cancelled by Ponant before you pay the balance ; we will offer you a 20% commercial gesture, to be applied on your next booking as a discount (20% calculated on the port/port basis of  the cruise only).

 

3/ You cannot travel, or decide to cancel, but Ponant maintains the cruise, and you do not pay the balance of your booking ; as we do not have any payment on your booking, we will not be able to offer you a credit, nor a commercial gesture.

 

I keep my promise to contact you as soon as I have the updated informaton concerning your cruise.

 

 

 

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

We are finding out lots of new information about how cruise bookings work in the UK.  Passengers on other Cruise Critic boards report that their UK travel agents charge their credit card directly (to the travel agent) and then forward the funds to the cruise line (or don't).  When the cruise line cancels the cruise, they refuse to refund monies that they haven't received.  Doesn't ABTA cover your deposit with the defunct agent?

[DSmith91]

11 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

We are finding out lots of new information about how cruise bookings work in the UK.  Passengers on other Cruise Critic boards report that their UK travel agents charge their credit card directly (to the travel agent) and then forward the funds to the cruise line (or don't).  When the cruise line cancels the cruise, they refuse to refund monies that they haven't received.  Doesn't ABTA cover your deposit with the defunct agent?

Unfortunately Ewaterways has gone bust unbeknownst to us until today. I can't for the  life of me find their ABTA number although the logo is on the emailed invoices sent to me.  We'll get the money back somehow, whether it's through insurance or credit card but on principle I don't want to do it.  The problem lies with Ponant and Ewaterways and if anyone has to take a hit it should be Ponant.

[parischris]

Unfortunately @DSmith91, the problem is between you and eWaterways. It appears that eWaterways isn't an ABTA member. As a small company, eWaterways would have held on to your deposit as long as possible, making it unlikely that Ponant ever received your deposit, and they have no obligation to you (this is why I never use travel agents, no matter how good the 'deal' is).  Your best bet is credit card dispute, and I would get onto that quickly given that eWaterways has effectively vanished. 

[jland]

DSmith, firstly what was the reason Ponant gave for transferring your booking to them in August last year? There must have been a reason they were no longer dealing with Ewaterways. Secondly the agreement they had with Ewaterways re the 60 day payment is nothing to do with you, that is a commercial arrangement between the two companies. Ponant do not want to lose money and are therefore passing the buck to you. Typical of this company.

Why Ponant insist with this rubbish about your cruise might go ahead is mind boggling. Cruising will not start in Australia this year and I doubt many will go ahead early in the new year.

Best advice I can give is get your deposit back anyway you can, then forget about Ponant forever. Never, ever give them any more money.

[parischris]

@DSmith91. A search of the UK companies register indicates that eWaterways and its parent company have been insolvent since at least May 2019, with a liquidator appointed. There has been a motion to strike the company off the UK companies register, which I think results in the remaining assets reverting to the Crown, if there are any left after secured creditors are paid. If you paid by credit card, it is your first and probably best course of action to try to recover your deposit. 

Edited June 30, 2020 by parischris