P&Os new cancellation policy - shockingly bad

[Selbourne]

21 minutes ago, dgs1956 said:

I definitely won't be paying any more money to them. I am really angry about the lack of information and the stance they are taking. It is disgraceful. I have never considered P&O to provide a good customer service. Onboard the ship, then yes but if you ever have a complaint then its just brushed away. I am a regular cruiser with P&O and I would have considered myself to be loyal and supportive. That is no longer the case. If it looks like I will loose my deposits then I will reluctantly transfer them.

Your comments mirror my views precisely, in every respect. My wife and I first cruised with P&O in 1996, have been on all the ships (most multiple times) and in recent years have been going on around 3 P&O cruises a year. Whilst I have sympathy with P&O’s current plight, which is not of their making, and I am very concerned about their fantastic on board crews, I am appalled at their handling of this situation and their utter contempt for their customers. Paul Ludlow’s comments about customers always coming first are laughable. Their actions demonstrate that nothing could be further from the truth. Putting obstacle after obstacle in the way of customers getting their money back is shameful and not the behaviour of a company that I feel comfortable doing business with. Friends and family pull our legs as being P&O obsessives. Not any more. Sadly, I am struggling to think of anything that P&O could now do that would restore my faith in the company, and it really saddens me to say that. 

[terrierjohn]

35 minutes ago, dgs1956 said:

I definitely won't be paying any more money to them. I am really angry about the lack of information and the stance they are taking. It is disgraceful. I have never considered P&O to provide a good customer service. Onboard the ship, then yes but if you ever have a complaint then its just brushed away. I am a regular cruiser with P&O and I would have considered myself to be loyal and supportive. That is no longer the case. If it looks like I will loose my deposits then I will reluctantly transfer them.

I do'nt think you will have the option to transfer a deposit, if you do not pay the balance on time you will be deemed to have defaulted on your agreement and you will forfeit the balance.  An interesting article in today's Daily Mail gives lots of info about these ABTA "refund credit notes" or FCCs as P&O call them.

[Josy1953]

10 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I do'nt think you will have the option to transfer a deposit, if you do not pay the balance on time you will be deemed to have defaulted on your agreement and you will forfeit the balance.  An interesting article in today's Daily Mail gives lots of info about these ABTA "refund credit notes" or FCCs as P&O call them.

We have decided that we will lose the deposits rather than take FCC if they have not started sailing when our final payments are due.  It is better for us to lose a few hundred pounds rather than thousands if a cruise is cancelled and P&O don't give refunds.

[Yorky67]

Aussies posting this.


CANCELLED CRUISE UPDATE
As the COVID-19 situation continues to evolve, we are sorry to share the news that Carnival Cruise Line is pausing operations for all Australian sailings departing from 15 March 2020 through 15 June 2020.


Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[wowzz]

4 minutes ago, Josy1953 said:

We have decided that we will lose the deposits rather than take FCC if they have not started sailing when our final payments are due.  It is better for us to lose a few hundred pounds rather than thousands if a cruise is cancelled and P&O don't give refunds.

You could of course switch the deposit to a cruise in late 2021 or early 2022.

[Josy1953]

2 minutes ago, wowzz said:

You could of course switch the deposit to a cruise in late 2021 or early 2022.

I'm not convinced that I want to travel again with P&O.  We had a serious ( for us) hygiene problem on Oceana in February and were treated in board as if we were a nuisance for complaining.  I wrote to P&O and got a standard reply from them saying that they were sorry but were sure that the on board team would have done their best to resolve our problem but as a goodwill gesture they will send us a luxury hamper.   They don't seem to realise that for someone with a health problem going into a dirty cabin complete with a child's nappy is serious.

[terrierjohn]

22 minutes ago, wowzz said:

You could of course switch the deposit to a cruise in late 2021 or early 2022.

Are P&O allowing you to do that?

[dgs1956]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

I do'nt think you will have the option to transfer a deposit, if you do not pay the balance on time you will be deemed to have defaulted on your agreement and you will forfeit the balance.  An interesting article in today's Daily Mail gives lots of info about these ABTA "refund credit notes" or FCCs as P&O call them.

We intend to switch our deposits to a later cruise. My understanding is that P&O are allowing that, very magnanimous of them. We had booked part of the Arcadia World Cruise and the deposit is £1100 so its a fair amount to loose.

[dgs1956]

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

Your comments mirror my views precisely, in every respect. My wife and I first cruised with P&O in 1996, have been on all the ships (most multiple times) and in recent years have been going on around 3 P&O cruises a year. Whilst I have sympathy with P&O’s current plight, which is not of their making, and I am very concerned about their fantastic on board crews, I am appalled at their handling of this situation and their utter contempt for their customers. Paul Ludlow’s comments about customers always coming first are laughable. Their actions demonstrate that nothing could be further from the truth. Putting obstacle after obstacle in the way of customers getting their money back is shameful and not the behaviour of a company that I feel comfortable doing business with. Friends and family pull our legs as being P&O obsessives. Not any more. Sadly, I am struggling to think of anything that P&O could now do that would restore my faith in the company, and it really saddens me to say that. 

Again I 100% agree with you. The only thing that will see me cruising with them again is that we have paid for a cruise in May and have an £1100 deposit on a cruise in April 2021. Obviously we don't want to pay any more but don't want to loose the money. They have lost me as a regular and loyal customer.

[dgs1956]

42 minutes ago, Josy1953 said:

I'm not convinced that I want to travel again with P&O.  We had a serious ( for us) hygiene problem on Oceana in February and were treated in board as if we were a nuisance for complaining.  I wrote to P&O and got a standard reply from them saying that they were sorry but were sure that the on board team would have done their best to resolve our problem but as a goodwill gesture they will send us a luxury hamper.   They don't seem to realise that for someone with a health problem going into a dirty cabin complete with a child's nappy is serious.

They don't respond at all well to customer complaints. I made one about hygiene issues on Britannia and was given the usual soft soap response. On the last day of our last cruise, which had norovirus on the ship, we went for breakfast and returned to our cabin at 7.45 to collect our luggage to find the cabin had already been serviced. That is not acceptable.

[Selbourne]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

I do'nt think you will have the option to transfer a deposit, if you do not pay the balance on time you will be deemed to have defaulted on your agreement and you will forfeit the balance.  An interesting article in today's Daily Mail gives lots of info about these ABTA "refund credit notes" or FCCs as P&O call them.

Would you be kind enough to post a link to that article please John? I’ve had a look on the Daily Mail website but cannot find it. Thanks. 

[Josy1953]

2 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Would you be kind enough to post a link to that article please John? I’ve had a look on the Daily Mail website but cannot find it. Thanks. 

+1

[jeanlyon]

Luckily I have only paid £100 deposits for my cruises in 2021, so not too much to lose.  I also have a deposit of onlyy £135 on my October 2020 cruise, so if I lose that it won't break the bank.  Just hope I get my refund for this April.

[Solent Richard]

On 3/19/2020 at 9:56 AM, wowzz said:

I know I have been guilty of opening a new thread in the past, but I do think that this thread is unnecessary,  and should be merged with the current cancellation thread. Mods, can you oblige? 

We are now on Page 6 - Obviously not.

😈

[Eglesbrech]

1 minute ago, jeanlyon said:

Luckily I have only paid £100 deposits for my cruises in 2021, so not too much to lose.  I also have a deposit of onlyy £135 on my October 2020 cruise, so if I lose that it won't break the bank.  Just hope I get my refund for this April.

I have not as yet heard of anyone getting any money back from them (though I may have missed someone’s comments). I wait with bated breathe for the first person to come on and say that they have their money back.

 

I will be forfeiting my deposit for later this year both because of the current situation and also the fact that my particular cruise fare is now almost £4000 less (for obvious reasons) than I was quoted at the time of booking. I could now  get a suite for almost the cost of my balcony so there is no incentive whatsoever to pay the balance for anyone who does intend to travel later in the year. They are just as well to cancel, wait and see then rebook at the probably lower price.

 

Will P&O relax their T&Cs about upgrading and the price fixed at the day you book , I very much doubt it.
 

[ellie1145]

On 3/19/2020 at 1:05 PM, molecrochip said:

The government approach originally was to drag it out to end of July with fewer people affected at anyone time. This has been abandoned. Now, we are likely to see the peak in 3-4 weeks which means by early/mid May, 95% of all cases should have arisen. 

 

Therefore I would expect cruises returning to normal by early June with maybe exceptions for Oceana’s fly cruise season and the need for Azura to undertake a postponed dry dock.

 

I don’t wish to be rude but I’m trying to comprehend what you are saying and I can only think that you are living on a desert island with no media coverage or internet, or maybe you are Donald Trump in disguise.

 

Cruising back to normal by early June???????

 

Have you not seen what’s happening in Italy, where nearly 1000 people died yesterday? We are behind them and it’s not yet in full mode here. Spain has over 5,600 deaths. New York is making temporary morgues in the city and they are rapidly approaching being overwhelmed. 

 

There are likely to be catastrophic numbers of dead here in either days or weeks and you are talking about getting on a cruise ship by mid June? Where will it be going? Is the whole world going to be free of the virus by Mid June?  Even if the UK has, by some miracle,  defeated Coronavirus by June, many parts of the world will not have done so. They won’t want us turning up on a cruising jolly. And if we are Coronavirus free, which I very much doubt, they will have to be very cautious about restoring flights or opening up ports because, as China has found, the minute you relax the rules people arrive from elsewhere who are infectious, but not displaying symptoms, and off it goes again.
 

Not only that, but P&O staff are mainly from India, and India is struggling to prepare for what could be a disaster of truly catastrophic proportions. Locking down a population of over 1.3 billion, many living in abject squalor and poverty, will not be easy and with the very inadequate health care facilities millions could die.  Do you really think it will be an easy job staffing the cruise ships when crew may be locked down at home or dying from Coronavirus? Will it be the Indian governments priority to ensure that P&O can sail their cruise ships fully staffed, just so that we Brits can take a holiday?

 

The mayor of NY spoke about this being something that our children and grandchildren will remember forever, just like my parents and grandparents remembered the two World Wars. He also said we will remember the faces of loved ones, young and old,  who have died before their time. That’s the reality. I’m sorry to be so blunt.
 

Don’t get me wrong. We love cruising. We have sailed on over 60 cruises. I began cruising in 1966. There is nothing like it. But it’s a luxury, and not a necessity (though if you’d asked me 6 months ago if cruising is a luxury or a necessity I’d probably have said for us it’s a necessity!) and for the time being my heart goes out to all those wonderful crew who have made our cruises so enjoyable. Unfortunately many of them will not make it through this disastrous pandemic.

 

By all means be optimistic, like President Trump who is talking about Americans being in church by Easter, (which may be true, but unfortunately that might be in a coffin) but be very prepared for cruising to be dead in the water, so to speak for many months to come.

 

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by ellie1145

[wowzz]

22 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

that my particular cruise fare is now almost £4000 less

That's the reverse of my experience. I've looked at replacement cruises for our April 12th cruise on Arcadia, and without exception they are at least £500pp more than the price we paid.  

[terrierjohn]

40 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Would you be kind enough to post a link to that article please John? I’ve had a look on the Daily Mail website but cannot find it. Thanks. 

Similarly I could not find it either, but the last site update was yesterday, so maybe the website runs a day behind.

[kenhem]

Hopefully this link works to the Mail article

 

 

https://mol.im/a/8161697

 

[Eglesbrech]

19 minutes ago, wowzz said:

That's the reverse of my experience. I've looked at replacement cruises for our April 12th cruise on Arcadia, and without exception they are at least £500pp more than the price we paid.  

Are you looking for next year?

 

The one I am referring to is a very long cruise so smaller pool of potential travellers, probably only retired folks.

[crompton21]

From Bloomberg yesterday(the capitals are because I cut and pasted not sensationalism):  

 

Carnival Seeks Up to $7 Billion Amid Global Travel Halt

 

Carnival is discussing issuing a mix of debt and equity, the people said. Options include issuing $3 billion to $7 billion in senior secured first-lien debt, implying a loan-to-value ratio of about 25%, they said. The company is also weighing issuing $1.5 billion in convertible notes and $1 billion to $2 billion in common equity, one of the people said. The situation remains fluid, they said.

Edited March 28, 2020 by crompton21

[wowzz]

2 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

Are you looking for next year?

 

The one I am referring to is a very long cruise so smaller pool of potential travellers, probably only retired folks.

I'm looking at 2021 and 2022. Just a short 2 week cruise to the Canaries. 

We have a deposit on a 5 week Ventura cruise in January 2021 - I must check the current prices. 

[zap99]

23 minutes ago, wowzz said:

That's the reverse of my experience. I've looked at replacement cruises for our April 12th cruise on Arcadia, and without exception they are at least £500pp more than the price we paid.  

Celebrity cancelled our June Alaska cruise and are giving refunds or 125% FCC if you chose. Same cruise next year is around £600 pp cheaper.

[wowzz]

13 minutes ago, kenhem said:

Hopefully this link works to the Mail article

 

 

https://mol.im/a/8161697

 

Thanks - if FCCs can be redeemed for cash at the end of July,  which the article says, I could live with that as a compromise,  although I wouldn't be happy. 

[wowzz]

17 minutes ago, wowzz said:

I'm looking at 2021 and 2022. Just a short 2 week cruise to the Canaries. 

We have a deposit on a 5 week Ventura cruise in January 2021 - I must check the current prices. 

The 5 week cruise is now £1000  more expensive for a standard balcony cabin than what we paid for a superior balcony.