NCL lost our trust forever

[ellasmomanddad]

3 minutes ago, hallux said:

Could it be my bank?  Maybe, my bank sticks solidly to the check date (co-workers with other banks get their checks on Wed. or Thurs. while I get paid on the official day of Friday), but until I see it in my account my check hasn't been cut so your statement that the government has already cut a check for everyone is not true...

So does that mean your co workers didn’t get paid on wed or Thur because you personally didn’t get it until Friday? You hurt your own argument by saying that. It’s your bank!!!

[Murph269]

9 minutes ago, brovol said:

This issue, and folks being so upset over the refund delay, is a bit curious to me.  You paid for a cruise in advance, which means that you budgeted that money accordingly, and since you spent it on a cruise I assume this was surplus, or play type vacation $, rather than the part of your budget that should be used to pay basic necessities; food, mortgage payment, shoes for the kids....  The cruise was cancelled, so you didn't get that vacation, but you also shouldn't be in a position where you "need" that money immediately, because until now it was already "spent" as far as you were concerned, right?.  Actually, if we assume you would have spent more of that "vacation" money while on the cruise, like most tend to do, you actually already should be in a better financial position than you would have been had the cruises never been cancelled. 

 

I get it, and don't disparage anyone for being upset over the situation.  I generally expect a merchant to provide me with an immediate refund when I return something, or when, for whatever reason, the merchant cant provide the product or service I paid for.  I am just surprised that so many folks, (1) don't understand that the cruise companies are in a desperate mode, and are working on passifying a lot of masters at the same time; creditors (including cruisers looking for their refunds), governments, shareholders, and more, and aren't in a position to simply refund everyone immediately; and (2) seem to be so cash strapped themselves that you cant wait 90-120 days to get money which you already budgeted to be gone anyway.

I don’t understand this line of thinking. What someone spends their money on is irrelevant when it comes to a refund. Here are the 2 points that should be considered when it comes to a refund: 1) did I pay for a good or service? In this case, yes I did. 2) did I receive the good or service I paid for? In this case, no I did not. It was cancelled. If the answer to question 1 is “yes” and the answer to question 2 is “no” than nothing else needs to be discussed and I should receive a timely refund. It’s not up to you, or anyone else to make judgement calls based on whether or not the purchase was a purchase of need or a purchase of luxury. 
 

I also don’t understand the line of thinking that your average Joe should have a bunch of money in reserves to weather this “storm”, but the billion dollar corporation NCL shouldn’t have enough cash on hand to provide refunds to the customers who paid in full, but hadn’t even reached their sale date. Business 101 is to always have enough cash to cover your customer deposits. If NCL counted their chickens before they hatched and spent all of our deposit money, why should their bad business practices become my issue?

[KateQ22003]

1 hour ago, sparks1093 said:

This isn't bill paying, it is initiating a refund. (And even bill paying needs human intervention at some point in the process, even if it is only inputting the invoice into the system.) 

There isn't a whole lot of difference from an accounting system perspective. 

Edited April 14, 2020 by KateQ22003

[KateQ22003]

1 hour ago, hallux said:

But the reality is that the government DIDN'T!  There's ZERO indication that my deposit is pending.

 

Sorry, but people that think large corporations have a single bank balance and everything comes from that account are mistaken.  Money needs to be shuffled into the account from which a refund can be issued, this takes time and is not done for each individual refund but in batches.  As was noted - every line is having delays in refund processing.  I'm not trying to sound like a "cheerleader", I'm trying to bring some logic to the conversation and a post not driven by emotion.

Yea, no. The money should all be sitting in one accrual account for cruises paid for but not taken. That's on the liability side of the balance sheet. They aren't having to shuffle money from account to account, and if they are, it's a simple push of a button. You are right, you do sound like a cheerleader. There is absolutely no logic to waiting 100+ days to get a refund on a canceled cruise.

Edited April 14, 2020 by KateQ22003

[babydaryl24]

1 hour ago, Laszlo said:

On the other end.......we canceled our cruise Saturday March 14th, by Tuesday March 17th we had our refund 

I'm happy for you, but this also angers me, so much.

We cancelled on March 10th, we are due $7500. Nothing.

[Laszlo]

7 minutes ago, babydaryl24 said:

I'm happy for you, but this also angers me, so much.

We cancelled on March 10th, we are due $7500. Nothing.

Thats just crazy!!! I would be very angry also

 

I was very pissed at the large Cruise Travel company we used, they begged us not to cancel saying things would be fine in a month or two. I knew then they would not be and our cruise was not until February of 2021. I kept telling the person we will not cruise until their is a vaccine

Edited April 14, 2020 by Laszlo

[Murph269]

People who are defending this delay as no big deal are also not taking into account the risk of NCL going bankrupt. With each passing day of no incoming revenue, the risk increases exponentially. The sooner we receive refunds, the better. The longer this goes on, the greater the risk that we never see a dime. Therefore, it’s in everyone’s best interest we requested a refund, that we receive the refund as soon as possible. 

[roger001]

For NCL, business as usual.  Today's email. Sailing May 31st.   

https://www.ncl.com/cruises/7-day-western-caribbean-from-miami-BREAKAWAY7MIARTBBPICMACZMMIA?numberOfGuests=4294953449&sortBy=featured&autoPopulate=f&from=resultpage&itineraryCode=BREAKAWAY7MIARTBBPICMACZMMIA

[NLH Arizona]

2 hours ago, ellasmomanddad said:

The government said we will start to send out stimulus checks yesterday, mine was in the bank by 11. If the government can issue 325.000.000 checks in a day ncl can do a 100000. The government isn’t a retail industry that does this daily like NCL. I think with those checks the cruise line just lost there 90 day argument. 

Wow, they sent them all out in one day.  I must not be getting one, cause there was nothing in my checking account.

 

Edit:  I looked it up and they didn't send all checks out all at once.  They are batching them, based on receivers' income.  First to come are the lowest income bracket, so it was 50 million to 70 million checks that were sent out.

Edited April 14, 2020 by NLH Arizona

[babydaryl24]

2 minutes ago, NLH Arizona said:

Wow, they sent them all out in one day.  I must not be getting one, cause there was nothing in my checking account.

Depends on your income. If you make less than $75,000 if single.. $150,000 if married... you will see something.

[AlohaLivin]

2 hours ago, ellasmomanddad said:

The government said we will start to send out stimulus checks yesterday, mine was in the bank by 11. If the government can issue 325.000.000 checks in a day ncl can do a 100000. The government isn’t a retail industry that does this daily like NCL. I think with those checks the cruise line just lost there 90 day argument. 

 

Ummm .. but it was some weeks back when we were told that they were coming. And for most of that lag time no one could say when. This is not comparable (especially when the government can print money). 

[NLH Arizona]

7 minutes ago, babydaryl24 said:

Depends on your income. If you make less than $75,000 if single.. $150,000 if married... you will see something.

I knew that and am eligible.  The posters information was incorrect, not all the checks went out this week, they are being sent out in batches based on income of the person receiving the check, so I'll have to wait some weeks.

[Newleno]

3 hours ago, KateQ22003 said:

You make it sound like each refund is made by a single person writing checks, like "The Jerk". It doesn't work that way. Bill paying in large corporations is automated and done in batches. It is actually quite simple.

like "the jerk"  great reference, dont see that everyday, nor even every decade!  made me laugh, thanks

[sparks1093]

37 minutes ago, KateQ22003 said:

There isn't a whole lot of difference from an accounting system perspective. 

Someone still has to tell the computer to issue the refund, and I doubt that they have a program that allows them to just say "give everyone on sailing x a refund".

[ray98]

1 hour ago, ellasmomanddad said:

 Mine was as well as everyone I know. 

 

Then you only know poor people.  They batchd the returns based on income levels.  The only people who have received anything this far are those of the bottom of the earnings scale.

 

 

[jingle5616]

4 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

Good luck finding a cruise line that is handling things differently. Carnival and Royal are both experiencing the same delays in processing refunds. Tens of thousands of cancellations being handled by reduced staff is going to take time. Yes, the payments are all stored electronically but each refund has to be initiated by a human being and that is just going to take time. 

Royal/Celebrity is refunding in 4-6 weeks.  

[babydaryl24]

9 minutes ago, ray98 said:

 

Then you only know poor people.  They batchd the returns based on income levels.  The only people who have received anything this far are those of the bottom of the earnings scale.

 

 

WE were 6 figures on our taxes last year..... and got ours.

 

It's only a rumor that it's going out by income.

 

It's rolling because big banks like Wells Fargo, Chase, and BOA are holding it a few extra days to squeeze out interest.

 

Smaller banks and credit unions saw it earlier.

Edited April 14, 2020 by babydaryl24

[Murph269]

2 minutes ago, babydaryl24 said:

WE were 6 figures on our taxes last year..... and got ours.

 

It's only a rumor that it's going out by income.

 

It's rolling because big banks like Wells Fargo, Chase, and BOA are holding it a few extra days to squeeze out interest.

 

Smaller banks and credit unions saw it earlier.

What’s happening is people who have direct deposit info on file with the IRS are seeing stimulus checks deposited as recently as this week. People with no info on file with the IRS will receive a paper check, and those will be dispersed at a later date and will be mailed out based on income tiers, with lower income people seeing checks before higher earners. 

[KateQ22003]

20 minutes ago, sparks1093 said:

Someone still has to tell the computer to issue the refund, and I doubt that they have a program that allows them to just say "give everyone on sailing x a refund".

Ah, but actually they do. It's called technology and it's wonderful.

[KateQ22003]

18 minutes ago, ray98 said:

 

Then you only know poor people.  They batchd the returns based on income levels.  The only people who have received anything this far are those of the bottom of the earnings scale.

 

 

Completely false.

[sparks1093]

18 minutes ago, jingle5616 said:

Royal/Celebrity is refunding in 4-6 weeks.  

Not according to what I've been reading.

[sparks1093]

10 minutes ago, KateQ22003 said:

Ah, but actually they do. It's called technology and it's wonderful.

I've seen their website, I doubt it.😂

[Two Wheels Only]

3 hours ago, tallnthensome said:

LOL, I can picture Nathan sitting at that desk writing those checks! Great analogy! 

 

It was Navin Johnson. 😜

[buckeyefrank]

31 minutes ago, sparks1093 said:

Someone still has to tell the computer to issue the refund, and I doubt that they have a program that allows them to just say "give everyone on sailing x a refund".

The staff they have is most likely very limited.  Yes NCL is a large corporation but their staff who processes refunds is probably less than 5 people total in the department on a 'normal' day.  For each cruise, they will need to match up the refund request from the client against their paid balance.  They will need to mark the account for a refund of the paid amounts.  The system will most likely generate a penalty for a portion or all of the cruise amount paid.  The NCL worker will then need to override that amount and get it into the batch for payment processing.  They then need to make sure that all cruisers on the specific sailing either have been given FCC or a refund.  

 

There is a LOT of human intervention that is needed to make sure refunds or FCC are correct.  FCC is much easier and faster because their system will certainly have the capability baked in to move payments to FCC.  Not so much for cash refunds within the penalty window.

[sparks1093]

6 minutes ago, buckeyefrank said:

The staff they have is most likely very limited.  Yes NCL is a large corporation but their staff who processes refunds is probably less than 5 people total in the department on a 'normal' day.  For each cruise, they will need to match up the refund request from the client against their paid balance.  They will need to mark the account for a refund of the paid amounts.  The system will most likely generate a penalty for a portion or all of the cruise amount paid.  The NCL worker will then need to override that amount and get it into the batch for payment processing.  They then need to make sure that all cruisers on the specific sailing either have been given FCC or a refund.  

 

There is a LOT of human intervention that is needed to make sure refunds or FCC are correct.  FCC is much easier and faster because their system will certainly have the capability baked in to move payments to FCC.  Not so much for cash refunds within the penalty window.

That's the way that I see it, too (plus they probably need to take additional actions to refund any shore excursions and other things that have been pre-purchased_.