Azamara refund problems (merged)

[combine]

Uktog, definitely  lessons being learnt all the time.

 

As in most things in life when all things run smoothly we never question how a company runs their business. Its only when problems occur that we find out that all is not as it seems!  These last 3 months have highlighted various organisations (not only in  the travel industry) of those who we would do business with again and those we would not.

 

Sadly with refunds there has been no consistency at times with information from Azamara or Travel Agents and whilst some have had no problems (myslef included) others have been on a roller coaster ride that is still not over.☹️ Whilst discounted cruise prices are an incentive , going forward it may not  be the number one priority for some.

[Mrs Miggins]

Azamara told me on June 3rd that "disbursements" had been sent to my TA for my June B2B.  My TA has just phoned to say they have now received various amounts from Azamara but they are still £517.52 short.  

The TA will refund me by cheque and will endeavour to find out about the final refund amount from Azamara.  Perhaps it is for taxes and port fees ?

[josumello]

I too have been following this thread. 

Our cruise was cancelled Mar 13. We received our refund in two payments. Final payment amount was received on May 24 and deposit amount was received on May 29. Also the excursions we booked were refunded  by Azamara in 5 days. The money was deposited directly by Azamara to CC account. We did use a TA but the agency always takes our CC info and gives it directly to Azamara and they do the charge.  

It is always recommended in the US to never use a TA that takes your money and puts into their account. I have never had that happen. It is basically considered unethical but not illegal. 
We are in the US. It seems a lot of the refund problems in the U.K. are related to TAs holding back refunds. 

Good luck to everyone. Very frustrating for all. 

[Smurfette2]

10 hours ago, josumello said:

I too have been following this thread. 

Our cruise was cancelled Mar 13. We received our refund in two payments. Final payment amount was received on May 24 and deposit amount was received on May 29. Also the excursions we booked were refunded  by Azamara in 5 days. The money was deposited directly by Azamara to CC account. We did use a TA but the agency always takes our CC info and gives it directly to Azamara and they do the charge.  

It is always recommended in the US to never use a TA that takes your money and puts into their account. I have never had that happen. It is basically considered unethical but not illegal. 
We are in the US. It seems a lot of the refund problems in the U.K. are related to TAs holding back refunds. 

Good luck to everyone. Very frustrating for all. 

I was unaware of the need to look out for that with TAs, so now I know.  Thanks.

[blobby113]

No refund yet. The travel agent is sitting on the refund for our Lima to Miami cruise, and says that the taxes and fees component for the BA to Lima cruise hasn’t come to them yet. I may end up being the last to be refunded at this rate.

[Foxie02]

6 minutes ago, blobby113 said:

No refund yet. The travel agent is sitting on the refund for our Lima to Miami cruise, and says that the taxes and fees component for the BA to Lima cruise hasn’t come to them yet. I may end up being the last to be refunded at this rate.

Beyond the joke isn't!  When & if we finally receive our refund,  our TA is going to charge us $300 each!  Our money did go into their account.  After reading Smurfette2 thread , in future I will be dealing with Cruise Company only.

[Smurfette2]

20 hours ago, melgirl said:

I have been following this thread with great interest. We were due to sail on June 23 from Copenhagen. Azamara cancelled on May 21 and I asked my TA (local Melbourne operator) to request a refund same day. She advised that Azamara were advising a delay of 30-45 business day . To my absolute astonishment funds were in our account by June 4. I spoke to TA who suggested that, because the payment had been debited directly to OUR credit card, the refund process went more quickly because it didn’t go through the ta’s cc systems. Could this be why others are having such long delays In receiving refunds?

I requested a refund a little over 2 weeks after our cruise was cancelled.  I transferred the booking to a TA and all of our subsequent payments to the TA showed as being paid directly to Azamara on my credit card.  I've been waiting 61 days since requesting the refund.  I have not received anything. I started the process of disputing my charges through Chase over a week ago.  I'm hoping this will turn out well.  Not sure how long this process will take.

[blobby113]

14 minutes ago, Smurfette2 said:

I requested a refund a little over 2 weeks after our cruise was cancelled.  I transferred the booking to a TA and all of our subsequent payments to the TA showed as being paid directly to Azamara on my credit card.  I've been waiting 61 days since requesting the refund.  I have not received anything. I started the process of disputing my charges through Chase over a week ago.  I'm hoping this will turn out well.  Not sure how long this process will take.

Our cruises were in March! Still waiting. The TA said that we would have to wait another six weeks to be refunded for the abandoned March 2 cruise.

[Smurfette2]

34 minutes ago, blobby113 said:

Our cruises were in March! Still waiting. The TA said that we would have to wait another six weeks to be refunded for the abandoned March 2 cruise.

I need some new emoji options to be added to this site to be able to properly express how I feel about that.  TERRIBLE.😤

[Host Jazzbeau]

Many Cruise Critic members from various countries have reported being able to book cruises through US travel agents.  You may lose your country-specific customer protections by doing this [but I see that the UK cruisers are fed up with ABTA not helping them any more].  The upside is that all US travel agents [IME] use your credit card info to pay directly to the cruise line and the best [the ones you are looking for] then rebate a good percentage of their [surprisingly high] commission back to you [and don't charge cancellation/change fees if you change your mind].

 

Sadly we can't mention TAs by name on Cruise Critic.  The next time that you are on a cruise [soon, let us pray!], ask those folks with the funny [US] accents for recommendations!

[excitedofharpenden]

Jazzbeau I'm in the UK. Servicing the booking with the agent doing it the way you suggest is more difficult. But you've missed a big issue and that is you are exposing yourself to exchange risk paying in a currency different to your own. Coupled with Azamara deals we have here that can prove to beat the US price. 

 

I know some people do it. I've booked through a US travel agent before and wouldn't do it again for the reasons above. It's not as straightforward as it first appears. 

 

Phil 

Edited June 10, 2020 by excitedofharpenden

[uktog]

Well said Phil, there’s also the hassle of time differences and for some people credit card fees.  If we had to pay now for cruises that were booked in dollars last year they would be at least 10% more expensive than expected.  It may be ok for a later booking with a short time to payment or when the full cost is payable at the time of booking, but the fundamental overlooked is really significant.  
ABTA/ATOL does give protection it’s just they are unable to cope just now and have been unable to enforce timetables on providers.

Azamara advised me the delay of the issue of my FCCs was at their end so if that fact is correct, my use of agent was irrelevant 

[manc]

We were due to be on a cruise round Ireland in Pursuit in May. We got the deposit refunded from the cruise line within days. Today my TA phoned to say they had received the outstanding £6600+ and it was beingvtransfwrred to my account. This was confirmed in a follow up email. 

[uktog]

This plea is not to take away from my happiness that some guests are getting satisfaction.

 

I wish someone from Azamara would come onto these boards and explain why some cruises have refunds issued and other earlier cruises have no future cruise certificates issued - some as early as March/April 2020.  In relation to the certificates its nothing to do with the travel agents sitting on the refunds to help their cashflow.

 

Please can we have an explanation of the process, thanks

Edited June 10, 2020 by uktog

[RedBlu]

We were booked on the 28 March Quest Dubai-Athens cruise which was cancelled on 14 March and finally after 88 days we have received our refund today! We had booked through a UK web based cruise company who were almost impossible to contact & when we did manage to speak to someone they constantly gave us excuses regarding our refund. So last week, from info gleaned from this thread, I sent a pre-advice letter giving them 14 days before we started proceedings in the small claims court. I don't know if this did the trick or not but I do suspect that the company had been holding onto our refund as suggested by others. We were recommended this company by a fellow passenger on our Azamara cruise last year, needless to say we won't be doing business with them again!

We really don't know when we will cruise again, we will wait & see how things are once sailings recommence but we can't see the on board experience being the same until this virus is eradicated or a vaccine found. 

Good luck to anyone still waiting for a refund, we know how you feel. We hope everyone stays safe & well, I will keep an eye on the Azamara board which has been so helpful since we took our first AZ cruise.

Pat & Tony

Edited June 10, 2020 by RedBlu

[jhepf1222]

Pat & Tony,

 Thanks for that, gives us a bit of hope now 92 days, keep getting fobbed of by TA promised e mails, promised calls and nothing. They get a schedule once a month with updates from Azamara regarding refunds to passengers and we were not on it Again. I think this is beyond a joke now.🤞

Pam Newcastle Upon Tyne.

[christine848]

And us too! 
We were also booked on 28 March Dubai to Athens on the Quest, and have heard absolutely nothing! 
Despite numerous phone calls to our travel agent, I got nowhere, and now can't even get through to them.

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

[RedBlu]

9 minutes ago, christine848 said:

And us too! 
We were also booked on 28 March Dubai to Athens on the Quest, and have heard absolutely nothing! 
Despite numerous phone calls to our travel agent, I got nowhere, and now can't even get through to them.

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

See nigelc's post on page 6 of this thread regarding small claims court action. We sent a letter based on his template to our TA last week & our refund appeared today, it's worth a try. 

[christine848]

1 minute ago, RedBlu said:

See nigelc's post on page 6 of this thread regarding small claims court action. We sent a letter based on his template to our TA last week & our refund appeared today, it's worth a try. 

Thank you...I will look into it...

[uktog]

My husband and I have now had separate emails from Azamara relating to the third of our cancelled cruises to tell us our future cruise certificates have been sent to our travel agent - oh great, thats a recipe for disaster but at least we are on the way and I can focus my attention on the absent agent.

 

I presume agents are obliged to release the certificates to you so you can book elsewhere

Edited June 10, 2020 by uktog

[uktog]

Re my previous post this is the wording which is why I am concerned I will be stuck with the current agent whom I have, for other reasons, no intention of using again

 

Dear Guest,

 

We're reaching out to you regarding your cancelled 04-JUN-20 sailing onboard Azamara Journey. We know how much time and effort go into planning the perfect cruise, and we're very sorry for the impact on your vacation.

 

 

As promised, we've sent the details of your Future Cruise Credit (FCC) to your Travel Advisor. We hope you'll use it to plan an awesome cruise vacation with us in the near future. Once you're ready to book your next cruise, please contact your Travel Advisor to redeem your FCC.

Thank you for your cooperation during this unfortunate situation. We wish you good health and hope to have the opportunity to sail with you under different circumstances soon.

Sincerely,

 

 

Azamara Cruises

[Mrs Miggins]

I cannot understand at all why a FCC should be sent to your TA.  What happens if you want to book direct with Azamara ? The rules for using these FCC's are so complicated that I would want to be dealing direct with Azamara.  The thought of trying to sort everything out via a TA would be extremely worrying.

[Cruiser6270]

89 days since our claim went in. Every chaser and enquiry met with silence.  At first, it was the delay that bothered us but now it's the feeling Azamara are simply treating us with contempt. 

 

 

[royallondon]

TA issue apart uktog, good to see you’re making progress.

 

Regards

[uktog]

25 minutes ago, royallondon said:

TA issue apart uktog, good to see you’re making progress.

 

Regards

Indeed we are and I feel for others who are still stuck in the treacle