Can Viking Remain Viable With This Extreme Revenue Loss

[_alan_]

On 3/18/2020 at 3:04 PM, Homerody said:

On a Customer Service related note - I realize that Viking must be facing a crushing volume of customer service/cancellation inquiries.

 

Has anyone over the past 10 days or so been able to get any response from tellus@viking or any other Viking customer service email?

 

Just wondering.

 

My recent phone call experience was a very short hold and a pleasant phone call.    I can't say that I have ever had a long wait for the phone with them.  

 

 

[Homerody]

8 hours ago, flashfearless said:

 

My recent phone call experience was a very short hold and a pleasant phone call.    I can't say that I have ever had a long wait for the phone with them.  

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

[Aiken375]

We had a 29-day Asia cruise on the Orion that was cancelled by Viking on Feb 19th.  We moved the booking and incentive credits to a new booking in fall of 2021.  However, Viking was to refund our Laos pre-cruise extension payment to our credit card within 21days.  We are now at about 30 days and are getting quite worried.  Has anyone had any success in getting refunds from Viking over the last month?  We are now thinking we should have just cancelled for a full refund, forging the incentives that were offered.

[DaveSJ711]

12 minutes ago, Aiken375 said:

We had a 29-day Asia cruise on the Orion that was cancelled by Viking on Feb 19th.  We moved the booking and incentive credits to a new booking in fall of 2021.  However, Viking was to refund our Laos pre-cruise extension payment to our credit card within 21days.  We are now at about 30 days and are getting quite worried.  Has anyone had any success in getting refunds from Viking over the last month?  We are now thinking we should have just cancelled for a full refund, forging the incentives that were offered.

 

Viking is open today.  Why not call them?

[lackcreativity]

2 hours ago, Aiken375 said:

We had a 29-day Asia cruise on the Orion that was cancelled by Viking on Feb 19th.  We moved the booking and incentive credits to a new booking in fall of 2021.  However, Viking was to refund our Laos pre-cruise extension payment to our credit card within 21days.  We are now at about 30 days and are getting quite worried.  Has anyone had any success in getting refunds from Viking over the last month?  We are now thinking we should have just cancelled for a full refund, forging the incentives that were offered.

We were told that our cash refund (in our case payable by check) would be within 21 business days, so I wouldn't get worried just yet.

[Jack E Dawson]

We have spoken to Cunard 3 or 4 times since being notified on the 11th of March of our April 6th cruise cancellation. We called them immediately on the 11th, letting them know that we would take the refund. We were also told 21 BUSINESS days. With each of our phone calls we had less than a minute's wait time before speaking to an agent and had excellent customer service every time.

 

Jack  

[Peregrina651]

Twenty one business days is just over four full weeks.

 

For those who are upset about the wait, please consider that the company has fraud and embezzlement  procedures in place that protect us and protect the company. They are time consuming but with the flood of refunds being processes at this time, they are even more important to protect the company.

[Heidi13]

Don't lose faith in that Viking will see you right and deliver. In our experience on this adventure (World Cruise) Viking have received numerous challenges and have met every one and delivered as promised. These are difficult times and they only have limited resources, unlike some of the mega ship lines.

 

With the World Cruise cancellation, we don't even know what compensation we will be offered and personally I'm in no rush to receive the notification. I and many others onboard are confident that Viking will blow us away with their offer, when it is received. Right now they are busy trying to get us home, so when the resources are available, we will be notified and will then receive it in due course.

 

[MrRandal]

3 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

These are difficult times and they only have limited resources, unlike some of the mega ship lines.

 

Yes, limited resources and leveraged to the max, that's what's so concerning. They have over $20K of my money for an Oct 2020 Med Odyssey cruise. I'm still more than 120 days out, so, according to their terms of service, I am due a full refund minus $100 pp cancellation fee. My wife and I are both really torn, $20K is an awful lot of money.

 

[terrydtx]

4 hours ago, MrRandal said:

 

Yes, limited resources and leveraged to the max, that's what's so concerning. They have over $20K of my money for an Oct 2020 Med Odyssey cruise. I'm still more than 120 days out, so, according to their terms of service, I am due a full refund minus $100 pp cancellation fee. My wife and I are both really torn, $20K is an awful lot of money.

 

That is the same predicament we are facing for our September cruise. We have over $16K tied up in cruise and airfare cost. We have until May 20th to get our cash back but if we wait beyond that we get a 24 month FCC. What good will a FCC be if Viking goes under?  Our trip insurance has a clause I thought would protect us if Viking goes under but I am not sure it would be applicable if the cause is the current pandemic. I haven't been able to get a clear answer on this from the company.

 

If we had not lost 1/3 of the value in our retirement accounts this month, I wouldn't be as worried. I am retiring in a week and have some big decisions to make in the next couple of months. This cruise was booked in 2018 as our retirement cruise and I really do not want to cancel, but if things do not get dramatically better I see no way we will be going on this cruise.

Edited March 24, 2020 by terrydtx

[PeterPan48]

My DH and I had a cruise scheduled August 5 2020  Rome to Athens with Viking.   We asked our TA to cancel on 3/9/20.  We received a credit on our visa yesterday for all except the deposit which we applied to the same cruise in June 2021.  God willing we will all be cruising in the future.  Keep safe.

[jonthomas]

This is good to hear. 

[budamom]

I cancelled on February 24th, and still no refund.  getting very very worried.

[duquephart]

We are booked in June. We have been told that if Viking cancels we will get all money committed (cruise, Viking air, excursions) refunded. We can also cancel ourselves for the same result up to 24 hours before flight departure. We hope things starighten out and that the the cruise happens as normal. If not we'd like to see an extension of the 125% FFC apply to us since, in any event, we want to experience the cruise and a little "bonus" would be welcome. If Viking goes belly up we are not covered (bankruptcy doesn't count) so we are gambling on solvency and 125% if the cruise goes south. The wisdom of this strategy is unknown to me.

[jonthomas]

None of know what is the wise thing to do. Ours are way off in the future. If I had something coming up in the next 5 months, I would cancel and get my deposit back. Future cruises will be much higher in price.  Of course no one seems to be getting their deposits back either. JMHO. 

[Captain_Morgan]

Wonder what the going rate for a chartered wide body plane is these days given this is the plan to get the people back to North America from Dubai now the world cruise is cancelled??  Can't be a cheap endeavor, surely?!?  Another hit to the bottom line as i don't see that being 'discounted' 🤔

[DaveSJ711]

2 minutes ago, Captain_Morgan said:

Wonder what the going rate for a chartered wide body plane is these days given this is the plan to get the people back to North America from Dubai now the world cruise is cancelled??  Can't be a cheap endeavor, surely?!?  Another hit to the bottom line as i don't see that being 'discounted' 🤔

I wonder whether the chartered plane will carry the WCers in business class.  Can’t have a Viking cruiser stuck in economy!

[Captain_Morgan]

3 minutes ago, DaveSJ711 said:

I wonder whether the chartered plane will carry the WCers in business class.  Can’t have a Viking cruiser stuck in economy!

 

Guess it depends how bad they want to get home?!?  I suppose though if the plane is chartered it will be ONLY passengers disembarking so unlikely that the entire plane is fitted with business class seats?

[Jim Avery]

29 minutes ago, Captain_Morgan said:

 

Guess it depends how bad they want to get home?!?  I suppose though if the plane is chartered it will be ONLY passengers disembarking so unlikely that the entire plane is fitted with business class seats?

Lots of charter aircraft are biz only. Think about what sports teams charter. Just for one example. And biz is included for all WC passengers.

[Captain_Morgan]

4 minutes ago, Jim Avery said:

Lots of charter aircraft are biz only. Think about what sports teams charter. Just for one example. And biz is included for all WC passengers.

 

That did cross my mind, but those aircraft are typically customized for the purpose and I doubt there's a custom airbus laying about in Dubai (unless its owned by one of the local Sheikh's 😆) and even if it is i'm sure its going to cost a heck of a lot more than standard business class fares on Emirates.  Not to mention the standard airbus layout is about 30 seats in the front.

[DaveSJ711]

5 minutes ago, Jim Avery said:

Lots of charter aircraft are biz only. Think about what sports teams charter. Just for one example. And biz is included for all WC passengers.

 

We flew out of Buenos Aires last week right before the Argentine government closed the airport.  Viking did yeoman's work trying to rebook flights and get everybody out of town.  One passenger, however, was very upset that the company couldn't find a business class seat for her.  She made a stink out of it.  I'm surprised she didn't understand the circumstances and accept what was available. 

[duquephart]

6 hours ago, duquephart said:

We are booked in June. We have been told that if Viking cancels we will get all money committed (cruise, Viking air, excursions) refunded. We can also cancel ourselves for the same result up to 24 hours before flight departure. We hope things starighten out and that the the cruise happens as normal. If not we'd like to see an extension of the 125% FFC apply to us since, in any event, we want to experience the cruise and a little "bonus" would be welcome. If Viking goes belly up we are not covered (bankruptcy doesn't count) so we are gambling on solvency and 125% if the cruise goes south. The wisdom of this strategy is unknown to me.

 

I think I mispoke. In the case of canceling ourselves we would get a voucher, not a refund. Unsure what happens to what we've shelled out for insurance.

Edited March 24, 2020 by duquephart

[MrRandal]

7 hours ago, PeterPan48 said:

  We received a credit on our visa yesterday for all except the deposit which we applied to the same cruise in June 2021.  

 

Was the deposit not refunded simply because you applied it to another cruise? Or did Viking refuse to refund your deposit? If they are not refunding the $1000 deposit, we need to factor that into our equation. We're already going to be out $1600 in travel insurance, $300 for depositing FF miles back into our account (assuming Delta survives all of this) $100 pp cancelation fee with Viking as well as possibly $1800 in a post cruise hotel that I foolishly booked with a non refundable fare. So I'm looking at almost $5K lost if I cancel, $20K if I gamble and hope Viking survives and lose.

[just_dont]

Lots of charter aircraft are biz only. Think about what sports teams charter. Just for one example. And biz is included for all WC passengers.

There are LOTS of professional sports teams not traveling right now. Should be able to find a plane.

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[Heidi13]

14 hours ago, Jim Avery said:

Lots of charter aircraft are biz only. Think about what sports teams charter. Just for one example. And biz is included for all WC passengers.

Hi Jim - All we know is that we have an A-330, not sure the seating configuration or even the airline. Apparently it is currently waiting in Madrid for the local authorities to clear it for arrival and then departure with hopefully us aboard.

 

We are resigned to the probability that it may not be the Biz Class expected, but as already discussed on board, lots of pro-teams planes are currently under utilised. However, if we get clearance to go, we personally don't care if it is standing room only.😊