FCC Reallocated on Two Upcoming Cruises

[Sea Hag]

When our March 2020 was canceled, we took the 175% FCC option rather than a refund. We booked one for late 2021. The FCC was applied to that, resulting in a paid-in-full cruise. Some time later, we booked another cruise for April of 2022, and the remainder of the FCC was applied to that, leaving a balance due. I got a booking confirmation this afternoon for the 2021 cruise showing a lesser amount of FCC applied and a final payment of somewhat less than $3000.00 due next August. I logged into the Personalizer and found that the rest of the FCC was applied to the 2022 cruise, leaving it nearly paid for. The cruise in 2022 was less expensive than the one in 2021, where we'd booked a suite. I ran the numbers, and the amount we still need to pay for these two cruises is the same as it was before. 

 

Has anybody else had this happen with their upcoming cruises? 

 

Does anybody have any speculation on why they'd go changing things now? (Come on folks. We're Cruise Critic. I know you have some speculation 😂)

[nycruiser2006]

Could be they already know that late 2021 cruise needs to be changed.  Ship change, itinerary etc?  With all the itinerary and ship changes going on anything is possible.    What ship and where was it going? With them moving the majority of your FCC to the later cruise, they have less to deal with once the ship /itinerary/cancellation is announced that needs to be changed? 

Edited October 16, 2020 by nycruiser2006

[kiwimum]

Several of my FCC have been assigned, then reassigned, and disappeared completely.   I now have a spreadsheet containing the FCC ID number and dollar amount, where Princess thinks they are assigned and where they actually show up.    We have had 4 cruises cancelled and have 7 additional booked.   4 cruises show just the tax and port fees owing.   There is absolutely no rhyme or reason on where they are assigned.   My poor PVP is trying to work out where the missing credits went.

Record keeping is key.

[jagoffee]

If you are booked with a TA, perhaps they made a mistake?

if you are booked direct, perhaps Princess made a mistake?

 

I would have expected them to apply the FCC as you instructed.

 

Just speculating.

[caribill]

1 hour ago, jagoffee said:

 

I would have expected them to apply the FCC as you instructed.

 

Just speculating.

 

OP's FCCs were applied automatically.

 

And then they were reallocated automatically.

 

OP gave no instructions.

[dog]

Call Princess and request where you want FCC applied. I did this recently when mine was split between 2 cruises. 

[Coral]

8 hours ago, jagoffee said:

If you are booked with a TA, perhaps they made a mistake?

if you are booked direct, perhaps Princess made a mistake?

 

I would have expected them to apply the FCC as you instructed.

 

Just speculating.

Princess is just applying them how they see fit. It is frustrating! I know my TA is frustrated at this also because she has to go back and re-allocate them how her clients what them allocated. She wishes Princess wouldn't allocate them with out direction from client.

[voljeep]

12 hours ago, Sea Hag said:

Does anybody have any speculation on why they'd go changing things now?

pay Princess now ( 2021 ) or pay later ( 2022 )

 

of course Princess wants you to pay for the 2021 cruise - Cash is King

[Cruise Raider]

12 hours ago, Sea Hag said:

When our March 2020 was canceled, we took the 175% FCC option rather than a refund. We booked one for late 2021. The FCC was applied to that, resulting in a paid-in-full cruise. Some time later, we booked another cruise for April of 2022, and the remainder of the FCC was applied to that, leaving a balance due. I got a booking confirmation this afternoon for the 2021 cruise showing a lesser amount of FCC applied and a final payment of somewhat less than $3000.00 due next August. I logged into the Personalizer and found that the rest of the FCC was applied to the 2022 cruise, leaving it nearly paid for. The cruise in 2022 was less expensive than the one in 2021, where we'd booked a suite. I ran the numbers, and the amount we still need to pay for these two cruises is the same as it was before. 

 

Has anybody else had this happen with their upcoming cruises? 

 

Does anybody have any speculation on why they'd go changing things now? (Come on folks. We're Cruise Critic. I know you have some speculation 😂)

 

They seem to apply the FCC at will without much rhyme or reason ... I've had to have them remove it in the past.  Easy to do!  Since I'm not sure what sailings will actually happen and which ones won't, I am now just keeping it all in my personalizer.  I pretty much know where I want to apply it when they do start back up again.  

[Sea Hag]

5 hours ago, dog said:

Call Princess and request where you want FCC applied. I did this recently when mine was split between 2 cruises. 

I do plan to email my PVP. Should have said this from the beginning. I just wanted to throw this out here and see what people had to say. 

[Sea Hag]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

pay Princess now ( 2021 ) or pay later ( 2022 )

 

of course Princess wants you to pay for the 2021 cruise - Cash is King

That's pretty much the only thing I came up with as a reason for them changing things as they've done.

[Sea Hag]

12 hours ago, nycruiser2006 said:

Could be they already know that late 2021 cruise needs to be changed.  Ship change, itinerary etc?  With all the itinerary and ship changes going on anything is possible.    What ship and where was it going? With them moving the majority of your FCC to the later cruise, they have less to deal with once the ship /itinerary/cancellation is announced that needs to be changed? 

This is certainly possible. The 2021 sailing is a coastal out of San Francisco, going down the coast to Ensenada on the Ruby. When I booked this, I had a fair degree of confidence that it would actually sail, but who can tell.

[jagoffee]

5 hours ago, Coral said:

Princess is just applying them how they see fit. It is frustrating! I know my TA is frustrated at this also because she has to go back and re-allocate them how her clients what them allocated. She wishes Princess wouldn't allocate them with out direction from client.

 

12 hours ago, caribill said:

 

OP's FCCs were applied automatically.

 

And then they were reallocated automatically.

 

OP gave no instructions.

 

5 hours ago, Coral said:

Princess is just applying them how they see fit. It is frustrating! I know my TA is frustrated at this also because she has to go back and re-allocate them how her clients what them allocated. She wishes Princess wouldn't allocate them with out direction from client.

My mistake, sorry.  I did not realize that Princess applied FCCs without the client or TA asking for them to be applied.  Mine have not been applied.  I am waiting until I get close to final payment date.

[Coral]

Just now, jagoffee said:

 

 

My mistake, sorry.  I did not realize that Princess applied FCCs without the client or TA asking for them to be applied.  Mine have not been applied.  I am waiting until I get close to final payment date.

Mine was applied to the farthest cruise out which only had a hold on it as opposed to the one with a deposit that was sooner. It was stupid.

[voljeep]

3 minutes ago, Coral said:

Mine was applied to the farthest cruise out which only had a hold on it as opposed to the one with a deposit that was sooner. It was stupid.

huh ... ours was applied correctly to our next upcoming cruise 4/2021, not our future cruise 12/2021

 

must be a PVP thing ...

[1emerald1]

I am so down on Princess right now for these reasons.  I started out with just over $6,000, then they took away $1,509 due to a "mistake", then it was $5,200 and now it's $3,900, due to another human error mistake.  I've been all over this with my PVP and I still can't follow his explanations, and I am an accountant.  Plus the price for cruises has gone up drastically.

[Steelers36]

6 hours ago, voljeep said:

pay Princess now ( 2021 ) or pay later ( 2022 )

 

of course Princess wants you to pay for the 2021 cruise - Cash is King

The cynic in me says it's on purpose.  Wonder of they programmed something into the booking system?  Of course, they cannot auto-apply a FCC to a cruise booking that is past the expiry date - or shouldn't at least.

 

Our small FCC (deposit x 2) was just left sitting on account and not applied automatically to any one of three bookings.  That said, when I was working on a potential new booking, the FCC was automatically posting and reducing the gross cruise price.  I finally put in a request to have it applied to one of our bookings. 

 

Don't use PVP.  All bookings mentioned were with an independent TA.  The auto-applying situation occurred both with Princess website and the TA booking engine.

[Sea Hag]

I've emailed my PVP. Another thing occurred to me. The larger part of the FCC was applied to the 4/23/2022 cruise. Since the FCCs must be booked and sailed by 5/1/2022, it looks very likely that if anything prevented us from sailed on that cruise we'd lose the credits completely. I suppose Princess might say they'll extend them, but maybe not. We took the leap of faith by not asking for a refund, and I don't have a warm, fuzzy feeling about leaving that credit sitting out there any longer than need be.  I asked the PVP to get things put back the way they were before. I'm sure that if she can, she will. We'll see.

[Sea Hag]

My PVP got right back to me on this. Said she looked at it all and couldn't see why they did that. There wasn't anything in the way of a note in my account to explain. She put things back the way they were to begin with. 

[Ombud]

Now you've got me wondering.  My FCC is sitting on my 4/11/22 and 4/23/22 cruises. 1 is book by book By 03/31/21 & the other sail by 5/1/22. I'm stretching out the dates as far as possible hoping that I'll actually be able to use them. But now I'm wondering if I did it correctly 🤔 

[azbirdmom]

Princess auto-applied my FCCs, some to a cruise in 2021 and the rest to a cruise in 2022.  When the 2021 cruise was cancelled, my TA simply reallocated all of our FCCs to the new 2021 cruise that we booked.  I say "simply" but it takes a call to Princess to get it done.  A pain in the you know what.

[Coral]

5 hours ago, voljeep said:

 

 

must be a PVP thing ...

I doubt it.

[Sea Hag]

43 minutes ago, Ombud said:

Now you've got me wondering.  My FCC is sitting on my 4/11/22 and 4/23/22 cruises. 1 is book by book By 03/31/21 & the other sail by 5/1/22. I'm stretching out the dates as far as possible hoping that I'll actually be able to use them. But now I'm wondering if I did it correctly 🤔 

Hard to say. I expressed my concern about losing the credits if something prevented us from going on the 4/23/22 sailing, and my PVP said that in cases like that she can always go to customer service and ask for an extension. She seemed to think she'd be able to get one, but I wouldn't go to the bank on that. Customer service might or might not cooperate.

[SNJCruisers]

On 10/15/2020 at 8:54 PM, Sea Hag said:

When our March 2020 was canceled, we took the 175% FCC option rather than a refund. 

Was the 175% FCC that was offered the same percentage throughout the entire Covid cancellation process or were there varying amounts?  Just looking ahead assuming  that our January cruise gets cancelled.   We'll need 175% just to get the same IC cabin when you compare the great rate we got to what the prices are now to possibly switch to an April or May 1 sailing.

[Sea Hag]

Just now, SNJCruisers said:

Was the 175% FCC that was offered the same percentage throughout the entire Covid cancellation process or were there varying amounts?  Just looking ahead assuming  that our January cruise gets cancelled.   We'll need 175% just to get the same IC cabin when you compare the great rate we got to what the prices are now to possibly switch to an April or May 1 sailing.

To the best of my remembrance, the amounts varied from canceled cruise to canceled cruise. Other people will probably reply to this with what they got.