Azamara refund problems (merged)

[Grandma Cruising]

36 minutes ago, uktog said:

It’s totally down to him but it doesn’t help in the sorry process

No it doesn’t! 

[uktog]

15 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

No it doesn’t! 

It’s because the credits are non commissioned he says he has to quote a different price.  I’m just so fed up with it all, I’m going to spend some of this wet day on the phone to Azamara to find out when exactly they paid the port fees refund over. I’m now told the agent cannot return it to the credit card anyway so “when they get to mine” they will call for my bank account information.  Really, like I’m going to give that to a cold caller....

[gnld]

FINALLY!! After more than 4 months waiting for my refund, it finally showed up on my credit card account! Well, nearly all of it. As many of you have experienced, it was not all of it, but 87%. I hope to get the remainder refunded "soon" (I have no definition of "soon" however). Now DW & I can get serious about using our FCC from our 2nd cancelled cruise (it was a B2B) to book a 2021 Azamara cruise.  😀

[Grandma Cruising]

On 7/23/2020 at 8:55 AM, uktog said:

It’s because the credits are non commissioned he says he has to quote a different price.  I’m just so fed up with it all, I’m going to spend some of this wet day on the phone to Azamara to find out when exactly they paid the port fees refund over. I’m now told the agent cannot return it to the credit card anyway so “when they get to mine” they will call for my bank account information.  Really, like I’m going to give that to a cold caller....

So he’s had the commission from the original booking that you didn’t sail on and wants a second lot for the new cruise. That’s his choice - not all TAs are operating like that. 

[uktog]

As I understand this is the policy of a major UK cruise specific agency not the self employed individual but others need to be aware of this for the future. 

[Grandma Cruising]

3 hours ago, uktog said:

As I understand this is the policy of a major UK cruise specific agency not the self employed individual but others need to be aware of this for the future. 

They do.

[suzyluvs2cruise]

UPDATE.....day 75 and we finally have the rest of the refund for our Azamara cancelled British Isles cruise. Sadly it took a big of prodding for it to happen. Best of luck to everyone still waiting. 

[getting older slowly]

Just as an update.... my Mum had a cruise booked for 21st March 2020........

It would have been for her birthday and 7th cruise with Azamara

 

Finally after 160 days her refund as arrived at the TA and will be in her Bank next week,

 

Which is great news ...

 

But it has been a battle, as mum is 94 and didn't want credit for a future cruise...

her TA had a big effort to make this happen....

 

I am glad it has finally over....

 

Cheers Don

[Foxie02]

Hi Don,

That is wonderful news for your Mum, so happy it all ended in her favor,  even though it took soooo long.

Thank you for sharing her news with us.

I am thinking of you  locked down in Melbourne,  I wish you and your Mum good health, stay safe.

Regards,

Pamela.

[getting older slowly]

9 minutes ago, Foxie02 said:

Hi Don,

That is wonderful news for your Mum, so happy it all ended in her favor,  even though it took soooo long.

Thank you for sharing her news with us.

I am thinking of you  locked down in Melbourne,  I wish you and your Mum good health, stay safe.

Regards,

Pamela.

 

Many thanks Pamela,

 

It was a shame as she was really looking forward to this cruise as Azamara is her favorite line...

and would have probably been her last cruise  

 

She has had other birthdays on board.. and they have always made a fuss over her...

 

Actual one birthday  a few years ago was Singapore and round the islands cruise. The night before the big day they where caught in a typhoon... then at her birthday dinner... they had a fire in engine room and lost all power.

Mum blamed her Soufflé which they were cooking at the time....

 

Anyway the crew were amazing... they ended up being towed back to Singapore.. it was a birthday to remember..

 

Cheers Don

[Foxie02]

🤣😂 what a pity, she sounds wonderful.  I am sure the Crew would have enjoyed having her.

Bye.👋👋 

[anniesh]

I last posted on July 2nd.

We are still awaiting the refund for our May Ireland tour which was cancelled on April 17.

This is all down to the large online cruise agent in the UK.

Our case was "escalated" on July 2nd.

On 13 July we were told we were at 88 days.

       22 July .....this became 79 days.

Now we are only told we are on the list.

 

How are others doing on time frame from this agent please?

[uktog]

24 minutes ago, anniesh said:

I last posted on July 2nd.

We are still awaiting the refund for our May Ireland tour which was cancelled on April 17.

This is all down to the large online cruise agent in the UK.

Our case was "escalated" on July 2nd.

On 13 July we were told we were at 88 days.

       22 July .....this became 79 days.

Now we are only told we are on the list.

 

How are others doing on time frame from this agent please?

We are in the same boat pardon the pun and are pretty disgusted although accept we are only awaiting the taxes back but over three cruises it is a sum of money we want back.
 

I suspect we may be booked through the same agency. We have provided our bank details to them as asked but still nothing. Azamara are not answering emails I want to know have they paid the agency and if so when.

 

The whole process is so anti customer. I still believe the agency is to blame but Azamara needs to start sorting out the standards applied at the agencies and champion the actual customer not solely their business to business links 

[sunlover33]

1 hour ago, anniesh said:

I last posted on July 2nd.

We are still awaiting the refund for our May Ireland tour which was cancelled on April 17.

This is all down to the large online cruise agent in the UK.

Our case was "escalated" on July 2nd.

On 13 July we were told we were at 88 days.

       22 July .....this became 79 days.

Now we are only told we are on the list.

 

How are others doing on time frame from this agent please?

I think we were probable also with the same company, waited for months with no sight of a refund, following cancellation of our April cruise.  Eventually had to resort to considering  legal action  under the package travel regulations 2018, with letter threatening court action if not paid within 14 days. We had a full refund on day 13. There are lots of template letters available on the web. 
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/somethings-gone-wrong-with-a-purchase/if-you-want-a-refund-because-of-coronavirus/

The law is on your side and you are entitled to receive the money in 14 days. I would have been happy to wait except I was fed up of being patronised and lied to when I eventually managed to get in touch after hours on the phone.  If they had been honest and reasonable I would have been more patient, but sadly they were not,  so I took the only action available to me with good results. Good Luck. 

[uktog]

21 minutes ago, sunlover33 said:

I would have been happy to wait except I was fed up of being patronised and lied to when I eventually managed to get in touch after hours on the phone.  If they had been honest and reasonable I would have been more patient, but sadly they were not,  so I took the only action available to me with good results. Good Luck. 

Exactly my feelings, thats why I need Azamara's help because with facts I can rebuff the lies.  I object to being treated like an ignorant one by the agency or too stupid to see through their games.

 

My problem I paid each cruise with a different card (the perils of points and miles chasing!!) so need to work out who was paid where and then go through the process three times (my own fault I know)

[sunlover33]

12 minutes ago, uktog said:

My problem I paid each cruise with a different card (the perils of points and miles chasing!!) so need to work out who was paid where and then go through the process three times (my own fault I know)

We very stupidly paid by bank transfer and not CC so I had no recourse under section 75. But we were  happy that the claim worked very quickly under the package travel and linked travel arrangements  2018 regulations.  I think we are luckier than some, although we don’t have the same flexibility as the US market with regard to changing or cancelling cruises with no penalties, we do have laws in place to protect us in cases such as this. Good Luck.

[Grandma Cruising]

I had success today getting a refund from BA for flights back from Dubai for our cancelled October cruise. I tried to phone several times - each time I chose the ‘talk to us about a refund’ option, I got a message saying all their operatives were busy and to ring again later. The last time I rang I chose the ‘talk to us about an existing booking’ instead and actually got through to someone after 10-15 minutes of listening to music. Managed to cancel my flight, get the Avios I used for upgrading put back on my account and I will be refunded (tho’ I was warned it might take some time)

[uktog]

4 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

I had success today getting a refund from BA for flights back from Dubai for our cancelled October cruise. I tried to phone several times - each time I chose the ‘talk to us about a refund’ option, I got a message saying all their operatives were busy and to ring again later. The last time I rang I chose the ‘talk to us about an existing booking’ instead and actually got through to someone after 10-15 minutes of listening to music. Managed to cancel my flight, get the Avios I used for upgrading put back on my account and I will be refunded (tho’ I was warned it might take some time)

I got both my BA refunds within 48 hours of calling

[Grandma Cruising]

29 minutes ago, uktog said:

I got both my BA refunds within 48 hours of calling

That’s great to know.  It was the BA Customer Service person who told me it would take some time - maybe they say that ‘just in case’.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Grandma Cruising

[Grandma Cruising]

On 8/10/2020 at 6:07 PM, uktog said:

I got both my BA refunds within 48 hours of calling

I’m pleased to say the refunds were back in my Amex Card account this morning, so the warning that it could take some time was obviously a ‘just in case’. Well done BA.

[Mrs Miggins]

Just a word about Travel Agents.  My family run small cruise agent has refunded all but £517 on our cancelled June cruise.  Today we heard that a further £214.92 has been received by them and the remaining £302.60 will follow shortly.

However they have used this credit on our behalf as deposit for a B2B in 2021 which they booked for us at the end of June.  

I think that is very good service - they have re-applied our 4 free nights - they have even given a small discount so if these cruises do happen we are very pleased with the price.  

We did receive full refunds from Easyjet for our flights so now have to decide when to rebook those.

[anniesh]

Re-  our Ireland cruise in May, cancelled in April.

6 days ago we we finally lost patience with the TA and raised a dispute with our credit card company. Three days ago we received an email from the TA to confirm that the money was being refunded and today it arrived in the credit card account.

 

If left to the large online cruise agent, would this have happened ?

Thank you all for your advice and Good Luck to those still waiting.

 

 

[uktog]

Our update

 

I have not heard back from Azamara about any conversations they had with the online agency I had used.  However I did get an email from the agency stating they intend to BEGIN processing our tax and port fees refunds  on 28th AUGUST a mere FOUR months plus after Azamara cancelled the cruises.  

However despite giving the agency details before, they did not have a separate form for every cruise, they will not process refunds to credit cards, you now have to fill in a secure form for EACH cruise for refunds to go to your bank account. You cannot initiate that form you have to wait until they send it to you. I have done that (again).  I see this as a pathetic delaying tactic.

 

I expressed my disappointment in an email to the agent I have put a lot of business to in the last four years and their response was .... well .... words failed me.  Im sure they are only doing what they are told but I got a long paragraph about how they always got us the best prices and they would continue to do so when we book with them again (forget that mate!!!!) and no acknowledgement  of the delays I had to put up with.

 

A very bad thing, the agency has still not sent the future cruise certificates to us (though I did get copies from Azamara, they were issued in June).  More worrying, having now decided to use one certificate on an existing booking and move two certificates to refunds we hit more issues. 

 

I had posted earlier that applying the certificate to the existing booking, the online agency has advised on that basis they can no longer honour the price of the original booking.  However in addition Azamara Wichita have advised me by email yesterday  I have to ask THAT AGENCY if I wish a refund for the other two certificates.  I understood previously that if I wanted a refund now having previously accepted a certificate that this would be handled direct by Azamara.  If the information I now have is accurate, this is not the case.  It really annoys me.  Heaven knows how long this online operation will hang onto my money once I push the button.  I have asked Azamara to escalate and give me a reason why I have to go through the agency.

 

I had a cancellation with another line announced last week, albeit with a different agency and that is all sorted out already so Azamara and their agents are not, certainly for us, performing well.

[gnld]

On 7/24/2020 at 9:43 AM, gnld said:

FINALLY!! After more than 4 months waiting for my refund, it finally showed up on my credit card account! Well, nearly all of it. As many of you have experienced, it was not all of it, but 87%. I hope to get the remainder refunded "soon" (I have no definition of "soon" however). Now DW & I can get serious about using our FCC from our 2nd cancelled cruise (it was a B2B) to book a 2021 Azamara cruise.  😀

THE SAGA CONTINUES!

4 weeks after getting most of my refund back, but not the $600 balance, yesterday I called my TA and she talked with Azamara while I was on hold (for quite a while). Coming back to me, she said they found out Azamara had "miscalculated" the amount of my refund! OMG, I've waited 4 weeks for nothing! They've now started a workflow to get the balance to me, but it could take up to 30 days (where have I heard that before!). You can bet I'll be back on the phone again in late Sept. if the money does not show up in my credit card account by then!! Note, that'll be 6 months since I requested a refund. Good grief!!  😠

[rallydave]

3 minutes ago, gnld said:

THE SAGA CONTINUES!

4 weeks after getting most of my refund back, but not the $600 balance, yesterday I called my TA and she talked with Azamara while I was on hold (for quite a while). Coming back to me, she said they found out Azamara had "miscalculated" the amount of my refund! OMG, I've waited 4 weeks for nothing! They've now started a workflow to get the balance to me, but it could take up to 30 days (where have I heard that before!). You can bet I'll be back on the phone again in late Sept. if the money does not show up in my credit card account by then!! Note, that'll be 6 months since I requested a refund. Good grief!!  😠

Not sure why you haven't filed a dispute/chargeback with your credit card company before now but, now is the time to file that immediately.  You will immediately get a credit while you wait for azamara to get around to it.  I realize that TA's and cruise lines tell everyone not to file on their credit card as it will delay things.  Cruise lines these days are expert in delays and how is it a delay when you almost immediately get the credit on your card account??

 

azamara certainly doesn't need any more time to do the right thing let alone 30 or more more days.  You stated that they know the calculation ws incorrect and took 4 weeks and you calling to find that out.  That means they have the value and can easily in a day or two provide the credit to your card company.  They don't deserve any more time.