Experiences filing credit card dispute to get refund

[nyceve]

It appears from reading CC that almost no one has received a refund from HAL.  This is very disturbing.

 

Can those of you who have filed a dispute with your credit card company let us know if you've been successful? I assume HAL would not dare contest a bona fide dispute.  I think a dispute is the only way we will get our long overdue refunds.  Does anyone know if there is a time limit?  I've read you have 120 days from the date the charge appears on your statement.

 

I've also read that HAL has little incentive to refund our money because the ships won't be sailing anytime soon.  And the demographic of HAL passengers are the ones least likely to board a cruise ship until there is a vaccine.  So the business is in serious financial distress, and they are using the passenger refunds as their bank.

[1025cruise]

Please understand that HAL has a ton of refunds to process. Please also understand that they too are working remotely. While a CC dispute would get your money back quickly, it could mess things up in the future. Please be patient, they are working as hard as possible to generate all the refunds.

[iancal]

15 minutes ago, 1025cruise said:

Please understand that HAL has a ton of refunds to process. Please also understand that they too are working remotely. While a CC dispute would get your money back quickly, it could mess things up in the future. Please be patient, they are working as hard as possible to generate all the refunds.

Why would it mess things up in the future?

 

Surely getting your money back faster is better than waiting 90-120 days..or longer.   Do you think waiting four months or more for a refund on a cancelled cruise is reasonable?

Edited May 6, 2020 by iancal

[dave34]

54 minutes ago, 1025cruise said:

Please understand that HAL has a ton of refunds to process. Please also understand that they too are working remotely. While a CC dispute would get your money back quickly, it could mess things up in the future. Please be patient, they are working as hard as possible to generate all the refunds.

My ta told me today that HAL told her no refunds have processed yet. She said my June 12 cruise could be 90- 180 days from that date. She can not get a straight answer from anybody at HAL. That is way more than being patient. You can believe HAL bs if you want, I’m filling with cc. 

[Jimbo59]

When you dispute a credit card change, most credit card companies will give you a conditional credit immediately, then they contact the merchant for resolution.

[iancal]

It is also my understanding, depending on the card issuer, that the merchant has a limited time to respond-usually 45 days or less.  After that it is game over for the merchant-the charge is reversed on their end.

 

This is a far cry better than sitting on your hands for 4 months or more waiting for YOUR money.

 

Why on earth make the cruise line's problem or their cash flow issues your problem?

Edited May 7, 2020 by iancal

[Janet76]

Now HAL said up to 180 days for a refund. Initially it was 14 days, then 30 days, 60 days, now 180 days. Are we the last in line to receive refunds after CEO compensation and other debt payoffs.  

Edited May 7, 2020 by Janet76

[Janet76]

5 minutes ago, iancal said:

It is also my understanding, depending on the card issuer, that the merchant has a limited time to respond-usually 45 days or less.  After that it is game over for the merchant-the charge is reversed on their end.

 

This is a far cry better than sitting on your hands for 4 months or more waiting for YOUR money.

 

Why on earth make the cruise line's problem or their cash flow issues your problem?

Agreed. I brought up same issue and I got some major bashing lol.  

[baggal]

6 hours ago, Jimbo59 said:

When you dispute a credit card change, most credit card companies will give you a conditional credit immediately, then they contact the merchant for resolution.

 

This is true.  On March 10, we canceled our cruise scheduled for July 2.  Within a week, HAL had refunded our deposit (we were outside of final payment and it was still a few days before the situation got really dicey), and a few weeks later United Airlines agreed to bank our miles without a fee.  There was one outstanding cost - in order to reserve seats on SAS Airlines for the Amsterdam to Copenhagen flight we had to pre-pay for the reservation on top of the cost of the flight.  Relative to the rest of the cruise, it wasn't a lot of money but it seemed unreasonable that they would grant a future flight credit on SAS only.  So we disputed the charge with our credit card and received the credit within two weeks.  Just this week we got an email from SAS saying they are disputing the refund with the credit card company!  It'll be interesting to see what eventually happens.  

 

Good luck to everyone trying to get a refund of their money!

[BEAV]

16 hours ago, Jimbo59 said:

When you dispute a credit card change, most credit card companies will give you a conditional credit immediately, then they contact the merchant for resolution.

 

That's what I did with a Celebrity cruise. I booked last minute, and 2 weeks later Celebrity cancelled the cruise. Since it all happened within the same billing period, I didn't want to have to put out the $$ when it was obvious I'm due a refund. So instead of holding off on the payment, and being charged interest on the unpaid amount, I filed a dispute and was given a 60-day conditional credit. So simply kicking the can down the road, just as the cruise lines are with the refund process. 

 

Mine was with Chase. I've read on various travel blogs that even though the standard deadline to file a dispute is 60 days from purchase date, that many cards will allow longer timeframes, especially if it's travel-related. In other words, situations where you pay far in advance for a "service" that you are to receive at a later date. 

[cavecreekguy]

I have two emails and a chat transcript from HAL that said my refund could take "up to 60 days."

 

I've marked exactly 61 days from when I requested a refund on my calendar to call my credit card to dispute the charge. I just hope my credit card goes by the date the cruise was supposed to begin.

 

May 15 can't come soon enough for me.

[Alibaster McGillicutty]

17 hours ago, iancal said:

It is also my understanding, depending on the card issuer, that the merchant has a limited time to respond-usually 45 days or less.  After that it is game over for the merchant-the charge is reversed on their end.

 

This is a far cry better than sitting on your hands for 4 months or more waiting for YOUR money.

 

Why on earth make the cruise line's problem or their cash flow issues your problem?

I wonder if the canned responses their agents give to us cruisers "approximately 60 days" works with the cc company?

My siblings are in retail and have had to deal with a cc dispute and BBB complaint (thankfully not many but you will have a few when you are in business over 40 years) and they take time to deal with.  Time that I don't know if HAL has to address on a single case by case dispute.

 

Our big-online-TA said a refund has been issued and it may take 1 to 2 billing cycles for the refund to appear.  We will give it 2 cycles and then contact the big-online-TA.  Give them a few days to address and then move on with a cc dispute if things drag on much past that point.

 

If it's a matter of processing time.....I can understand.

If it's a matter of funds.....that's their problem.

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Alibaster McGillicutty

[AlanF65]

If one reads the NCL 8-K filing the credit card companies were requiring additional assets to be pledged for charge backs. The credit card companies aren't going to eat billions unless they can get it back.

From a pragmatic standpoint they are probably looking for any reason to pass the cost to their insurance company, if any, then they will issue all the FCC so they know how much they owe, then they will start paying it back.

 

If push comes to shove they file chapter 11 and no one including charge backs get their credits if they are pending.

 

Lots of things that can be done when working closely together are harder when working remotely, especially any process that relies on a signature or paper backup. The cancellation department probably process at most 5% a week, they now have 20x the work that has to be done remotely with not a lot of additional staff.

Add to that the have no revenue so they are holding on to cash as best they can.

 

I hope everyone that wants a refund gets it, I don't know if being first in line to get a conditional credit will help 45 days from now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[thinfool]

22 minutes ago, AlanF65 said:

If one reads the NCL 8-K filing the credit card companies were requiring additional assets to be pledged for charge backs.

 

If push comes to shove they file chapter 11 and no one including charge backs get their credits if they are pending.

 

Lots of things that can be done when working closely together are harder when working remotely, especially any process that relies on a signature or paper backup. The cancellation department probably process at most 5% a week, they now have 20x the work that has to be done remotely with not a lot of additional staff.

Add to that the have no revenue so they are holding on to cash as best they can.

 

I hope everyone that wants a refund gets it, I don't know if being first in line to get a conditional credit will help 45 days from now.

 

With respect, this is a HAL forum.  I don't know how referencing an NCL financial matter is informative or helpful.

 

I also do not know how or why, from other posts, CC members think that HAL will or can file bankruptcy.  HAL is not a stand alone corporation.  Virtually everyone posting here knows that HAL is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCL (as is Princess, Costa, Seabourn, Aida, etc, etc).

[sambamama]

With regards to filing a charge back, the 60 days is not a hard and fast rule.  I bought a flight from Cairo to Casblanca on Royal Air Maroc in June 2019  For a flight in April 2020 that was cancelled by Royal Air Maroc.  They wanted to issue me a voucher for one year to fly on the airline.  Since I won't be going back to Africa in that time frame, it was worthless to me. I  filed a chargeback , which was allowed.  I could have filed a travel insurance claim, but that involved jumping through many more hoops, and after all, I DID NOT CANCEL, the airline did. And then they never even issued me the voucher either!

[ringers0815]

On 5/6/2020 at 5:12 PM, nyceve said:

It appears from reading CC that almost no one has received a refund from HAL.  This is very disturbing.

 

Can those of you who have filed a dispute with your credit card company let us know if you've been successful? I assume HAL would not dare contest a bona fide dispute.  I think a dispute is the only way we will get our long overdue refunds.  Does anyone know if there is a time limit?  I've read you have 120 days from the date the charge appears on your statement.

 

I've also read that HAL has little incentive to refund our money because the ships won't be sailing anytime soon.  And the demographic of HAL passengers are the ones least likely to board a cruise ship until there is a vaccine.  So the business is in serious financial distress, and they are using the passenger refunds as their bank.

At the end of March we cancelled a February 2021 cruise with HAL because we now have FCCs with another cruise company that we have to use in 2021 (if they sail by then...). After waiting 30 days for our deposits (one from August 2019 and one from January 2020) to be refunded by HAL, we filed a dispute with our credit card. They first suspended the amount disputed in our account and after a few days told us the dispute was resolved in our favour and the credit became permanent. Very easy and fast.

[AlanF65]

38 minutes ago, thinfool said:

With respect, this is a HAL forum.  I don't know how referencing an NCL financial matter is informative or helpful.

The credit card companies were going to require NCL to pledge assets to cover the charge backs, I am assuming that they will make similar requirements of the other cruise-lines given the potential for risk the credit card companies will want guarantees.

 

41 minutes ago, thinfool said:

I also do not know how or why, from other posts, CC members think that HAL will or can file bankruptcy.  HAL is not a stand alone corporation.  Virtually everyone posting here knows that HAL is a wholly owned subsidiary

I didn't know the legal entity of the subsidiaries,  I thought CCL was a holding company for multiple brands, if its all one legal entity then it would be CCL, if the brands are operated as separate corps then I guess it would depend on how that is structured and that guarantees CCL places for it's subsidiaries.

[iancal]

The one and only time we had a credit card dispute stated with an immediate reversal of the charge to our account and an email about three weeks later to the effect that the reversal was final-the credit card issuer agreed to our claim.

 

I suspect that anyone who has a credit card dispute based upon the cruise line cancelling a cruise will have their charge reversed very quickly as will be the subsequent agreement.  I imagine it is fairly difficult for the cruise line to dispute such a charge when they failed to deliver on their contract of passage. 

 

May be different for those who cancelled...I am not entirely sure if some clause in the contract covers this.

Edited May 8, 2020 by iancal

[RocketMan275]

On 5/6/2020 at 11:39 PM, iancal said:

Why on earth make the cruise line's problem or their cash flow issues your problem?

If the cruise lines go bust, then it is your problem too.

[HokiePoq]

On 5/7/2020 at 12:39 AM, iancal said:

It is also my understanding, depending on the card issuer, that the merchant has a limited time to respond-usually 45 days or less.  After that it is game over for the merchant-the charge is reversed on their end.

 

This is a far cry better than sitting on your hands for 4 months or more waiting for YOUR money.

 

Why on earth make the cruise line's problem or their cash flow issues your problem?

Perhaps because we don't want them to declare bankruptcy and no one ever gets a refund?   It is my understanding that the Carnival Corporation is arranging loans which we can hope will go to refunds....and to maintaining the ships and crew on them.

[dave34]

9 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

If the cruise lines go bust, then it is your problem too.

That’s the reason you need to dispute with your CC ASAP than it’s not your problem. It’s foolish to trust HAL to refund any cash. 

[Janet76]

Airlines, cruise lines have no problem declaring bankruptcy. There will be plenty new cruisers to attract if the price is right.  Keeping  the loyal cruisers is not their top priority  because industry want younger demographics who is willing to spend money with less demand.  

[RocketMan275]

17 hours ago, dave34 said:

That’s the reason you need to dispute with your CC ASAP than it’s not your problem. It’s foolish to trust HAL to refund any cash. 

You do realize that if the cruise line provides sufficient proof, the credit card company can reinstate the charges?

You do realize that if the cruise line goes bankrupt, the court may require you to pay back any refunds?

[dave34]

7 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

You do realize that if the cruise line provides sufficient proof, the credit card company can reinstate the charges?

You do realize that if the cruise line goes bankrupt, the court may require you to pay back any refunds?

You do realize when they cancel the cruise they have NO proof to prevent a timely refund . Not sure about your credit card but mine says different about bankruptcy. You are running out of ways to back HAL, if you feel good about waiting 90-180 days great, most people are not. 

[iancal]

Of course any vendor, including a cruise line, can dispute the charge back.

 

Fairly difficult for a cruise line to successfully dispute a charge back when the cruiser has paid the fare and then the cruise line cancels the cruise.  Failure to deliver on a contract.   Not much to dispute in this situation is there?

 

I do not think that HAL will go bankrupt.  I would not want to wait 3-6 months for a refund with no vendor communication or conflicting vendor information.

 

 Better to go the credit card route and have the monies back in days rather than wait months for the cruise line.  No?    

Edited May 9, 2020 by iancal