Refunds - any received to date?

[bennybear]

We had good luck using the chat,  and received our refund from cruises cancelled in late March and early April a week ago.   No issues with the big box.

 

Keep in mind that HAL operates out of Seattle,  Pacific time so not sure when they open in the morning.

[Djptcp]

After 3 months our taxes/fees/port charges were credited back to our debit card a few days ago. Still waiting for our FCC........

[daisy-mae]

I received a surprise phone call from Holland America this morning. The agent asked if I was ready to re-book my cancelled Alaska cruise, something that I found alarming as I had asked for a refund and not a future cruise credit. She was able to confirm that the refund had just been processed and that I should be receiving same within the next week or so. I politely declined a re-booking (despite the favorable cancellation provisions), as there is still too much uncertainty surrounding future travel.

 

I may be mistaken, but I suspect that as the refund process winds down,  cruise consultants are being provided with accounts related to cancelled cruises in order to keep them employed.

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by daisy-mae
more info

[sailingdutchy]

17 hours ago, Sallyandtex said:

So the plot thickens!

Just had email from TA saying they are taking $704 in commissions as this is unrecoverable for them! Minus our deposit. So angry, wont ever use a travel agent again!

 

My TA is a personal friend , she has been for over 30 years .  She has told me how amazing in particular Holland America has been by honoring the commissions  for Travel Agents for the cancelled cruises , which I think is amazing .

 

The big problem with the refunds was that they had to set up a complete new system with less people in the offices to handle the sheer number of cancellations 

She also mentioned that out of all of the cruise companies and the airlines in difficult times like this Holland America was the fastest and easiest to get in contact with on dedicated phone lines for TA's .

 

Time to confront your TA with that , and I see that a lot of other CC'rs also confirmed that in the last couple of days .

 

I will not travel all over the world without booking through a reliable TA , she has helped out tremendously in a few unforseen situations  .  Something I would not trust an online  company or a large wholesale store to do for me , I rather pay a few dollars more .

 

Tony 

[cruise.gal]

YES!!!  Received credit to card for cancelled April 19th Zuiderdam cruise!  Won't be booking anything until it is safe to cruise again???  But, so difficult, am into cruise "withdrawals" and will need therapy soon!   So strange not having a cruise to look forward to....due to VIRUS!!!

[Sallyandtex]

18 hours ago, 1ANGELCAT said:

HAL covered travel agent commissions. They did not lose it.

 

Really?

How do I find out about this? Is it only if you had a rebook for the next year's?

My agent said that commission, and my deposit is unrecoverable as they were only refunded the wholesale amount into their accounts and the commission doesn't exist.

Maybe because we in Australia? 

I trust my agent that they aren't lying and have used them for years.

They also said they will deduct that amount if I rebook, but that is looking unlikely.

The agent is under the umbrella of Flight Centre. Travel Associates.

[Sallyandtex]

9 hours ago, sailingdutchy said:

 

My TA is a personal friend , she has been for over 30 years .  She has told me how amazing in particular Holland America has been by honoring the commissions  for Travel Agents for the cancelled cruises , which I think is amazing .

 

The big problem with the refunds was that they had to set up a complete new system with less people in the offices to handle the sheer number of cancellations 

She also mentioned that out of all of the cruise companies and the airlines in difficult times like this Holland America was the fastest and easiest to get in contact with on dedicated phone lines for TA's .

 

Time to confront your TA with that , and I see that a lot of other CC'rs also confirmed that in the last couple of days .

 

I will not travel all over the world without booking through a reliable TA , she has helped out tremendously in a few unforseen situations  .  Something I would not trust an online  company or a large wholesale store to do for me , I rather pay a few dollars more .

 

Tony 

Hi Tony. I am really confused about this. Surely HAL wouldn't give the TA their commission in addition to the  cruise price I actually paid?

How could they pay all that extra money they didn't have as income?

[YXU AC*SE]

2 hours ago, Sallyandtex said:

HAL wouldn't give the TA their commission in addition to the  cruise price I actually paid?

 

 

Commission protections / overrides in place for TAs with the various cancellation / pause scenarios.   Scott. 

 

 

 

 

Source: 

https://gohal.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Cruise-Cancellation-Policy-Grid.pdf

[Vict0riann]

I imagine things could be different in Australia, where @Sallyandtex are.  

[TiogaCruiser]

13 hours ago, YXU AC*SE said:

 

 

Commission protections / overrides in place for TAs with the various cancellation / pause scenarios.   Scott. 

 

 

 

 

Source: 

https://gohal.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Cruise-Cancellation-Policy-Grid.pdf

What is an “override”?

[Howasaur]

Hi I just received my refund  back on my Credit Card applied in March.  I'm happy I have put down a deposit on a Great Alaskan 14 Day Explorer Cruise summer of 2021

[YXU AC*SE]

13 hours ago, TiogaCruiser said:

What is an “override”?

 

Additional commissions due to agency for achieving revenue targets.   Scott. 

[OSUTRIKERS]

So, not having this refund experience before to my CC, what is an approximate timeline for the refund to make its way from HAL to CC?  If HAL said it processed on 6/19, one would ‘think’ it would then go to cc. Obviously more to the transaction than that.

[iancal]

How HAL or any other cruise line treats their TA's is of no concern to us.  

 

We only care about how the cruise line treats us. IF we had monies owing to me by a cruise line  for 90, 120 days we could care less about the TA commission and override structure. That is not our business or our concern.

 

 In fact, we most definitely would have done a credit card dispute at day 30 if we had not had a refund and/or could not either reach or get a definitive answer from a cruise line-any cruise line. 

 

We are not big on mumbo jumbo and empty promises.

Edited June 25, 2020 by iancal

[daisy-mae]

3 minutes ago, iancal said:

How HAL or any other cruise line treats their TA's is of no concern to us.  

 

We only care about how the cruise line treats us.

 

 I

 

Wow...a short statement that says a lot...

 

IMHO, the way that a corporation treats its employees speaks volumes about its business practices and ethics. A pleasant work environment goes a long way to creating a satisfactory experience for guests. 

[iancal]

TA's are not employees.  They are agents-read independent of the vendor- who act on behalf of many travel vendors.  And yes, I understand the difference between a PCC and a TA which is why we only deal with TA's.

 

We do not care how they pay or do not pay their agents.  We assume that if the agents or agencies are not treated well they will simply stop recommending the product and push clients to another cruise line.  It is a commercial relationship.

 

How did you feel when the airlines essentially  stopped paying commissions to travel agencies for airline reservations?

Edited June 25, 2020 by iancal

[rafinmd]

19 minutes ago, iancal said:

TA's are not employees.  They are agents-read independent of the vendor- who act on behalf of many travel vendors.  And yes, I understand the difference between a PCC and a TA which is why we only deal with TA's.

 

We do not care how they pay or do not pay their agents.  We assume that if the agents or agencies are not treated well they will simply stop recommending the product and push clients to another cruise line.  It is a commercial relationship.

 

How did you feel when the airlines essentially  stopped paying commissions to travel agencies for airline reservations?

A good TA is more than a sales clerk.  They offer us advice and support when things go wrong and many of us are quite close to them.

 

This is very different from the airlines.  When the airlines stopped paying commissions it was a prospective move, not taking back commissions already earned.  In this case the TA has already provided all or very nearly all of the services related to the cruise and it is now grossly unfair to take back a commission that has surely been earned and probably paid.  I could make a case for refunding the cost of the cruise minus the commission but not for making the TA's do all their work for free.

 

Roy

[iancal]

I do not disagree.  We have had good TA's and not so good TA's.  We very much appreciate a good independent TA which is why we do not deal with a PCC or heaven forbid try to book on the cruise line website.

 

My point was the commercial relationship between our TA and a travel vendor is not our concern.   If my TA is not happy with a cruise line commission structure it is hardly going to impact the treatment I receive on board is it? What it will impact is whether the  agency sells the cruise line product and/or whether they promote it to their clients.  We certainly have no problem in paying a B&M agency more for a cruise if we need their service.  But we see no need to do so when in most cases we have selected the ship, cabin type etc. and just need to get our name on that cabin/remit the fare.

 

These days so many people are booking direct or dealing with on line TA's  You can see it the vast reduction of B&M agencies.   Lots of information on the web that is widely available...and available at any hour of the day or night.

 

We have been travelling extensively over the past nine years.   We have either used on line TA bookings or gone vendor direct for 90 percent of our booking.   Even for our African safari we found that dealing directly with the outfitter in South Africa via skype and email was preferable to dealing with a local agency that specialized in this.   The remaining ten percent would be cruises an booking last minute AI's through an agency int he UK.    Not because we do not value TA's but because it was faster and we got better data by dealing direct.

Edited June 25, 2020 by iancal

[IPB4IGO]

3 hours ago, OSUTRIKERS said:

So, not having this refund experience before to my CC, what is an approximate timeline for the refund to make its way from HAL to CC?  If HAL said it processed on 6/19, one would ‘think’ it would then go to cc. Obviously more to the transaction than that.

This may not be a complete answer, but when we received a refund it showed up on our credit card account with a date four days earlier. I.e., the transaction was dated four days before it appeared on our account.

Edited June 25, 2020 by IPB4IGO

[nutensteve]

I just received a credit for our deposits on my CC. The date on the credits from HAL was 6/23 so it showed up on the CC two days later. Hopefully our refund for the cruise will not be too far behind it. We already received the credit for our excursions last month.

[strickerj]

I received a refund of my port taxes and fees ($245 pp x 3 = $735) today for my 5/22 Alaska Glacier Discovery Northbound cruise on Noordam, which was canceled in early April.

[fabuloso]

Day 102.  Still waiting for refund.

[utahtea]

On 6/16/2020 at 1:07 PM, utahtea said:

 

We were suppose to have left Vancouver on June 1st for our 14 day Alaska Cruise and our cruise would have been over yesterday.  We cancelled on April 14th and no refund on our credit card yet.  There are others on our roll call that haven't received credit either.  I have seen on this thread that the date people are getting refunds seems to be related to when they canceled and saw March 30 so far.  I guess we have another couple of weeks to wait!

 

Utahtea

 

 

 

YEAH...I just checked again for the second time today and our credit is there!  

Canceled on April 14th

Sail date was to be June 1, 2020

72 days and received our full credit

 

Good luck everyone!

 

Utahtea

[Oakman58]

21 hours ago, OSUTRIKERS said:

So, not having this refund experience before to my CC, what is an approximate timeline for the refund to make its way from HAL to CC?  If HAL said it processed on 6/19, one would ‘think’ it would then go to cc. Obviously more to the transaction than that.

 

I received a phone call from a cruise consultant on Thursday (6/18) that our refund was being processed.  It didn't show up on our credit cards until today (6/26).  Our cancelled cruise was an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle May 23rd.  I won't be booking another cruise until this Covid-19 thing is behind us or there is an effective vaccine for it.

[OSUTRIKERS]

UPDATE:  Refund hit my CC this morning 6/26, 1 week after the ‘process date’ HAL quoted 6/19.  In its entirety.  My kids got their airfare back at same time.  I had paid cruise portion, they had bought air, all thru HAL.     Will we cruise again, probably, but not until we know it’s under control.  Best of luck to those still waiting.   Everyone have a Blessed day!