Confusion Around Cancellation due to not making the Final Payment

[suzyed]

3 hours ago, ontheweb said:

If they did not book directly with Princess, they would not be needing to call Princess. They would be calling their TA instead and letting him or her deal with the phone hold problem!

Which is whatever has happened with my TA!  She spent over an hour trying to pay Princess my final payment.

[Coral]

50 minutes ago, suzyed said:

Which is whatever has happened with my TA!  She spent over an hour trying to pay Princess my final payment.

OMG - my TA said she spent 8 hours on the phone with Princess the other day. I don't think she was exaggerating.

[Steelers36]

3 minutes ago, Coral said:

OMG - my TA said she spent 8 hours on the phone with Princess the other day. I don't think she was exaggerating.

Hopefully it was for more than one client.

[Coral]

57 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Hopefully it was for more than one client.

Yea - I think when she gets someone good on the phone she just keeps trying to get everything she can solved.

[suzyed]

1 hour ago, Coral said:

Yea - I think when she gets someone good on the phone she just keeps trying to get everything she can solved.

Makes sense.

 

[ontheweb]

10 hours ago, suzyed said:

Which is whatever has happened with my TA!  She spent over an hour trying to pay Princess my final payment.

You have to really feel sorry for TAs. First they worked real hard doing cancellations and rebookings for no income. And then when cruises stopped, they had no income for a long time. And even with cruises beginning again, they do not get paid until at least the actual sailing with their client onboard. For instance, we had a cruise cancelled for the summer of 2020, no income for our TA. We now have a cruise booked but not until the summer of 2023. No income for him unless we do sail, and even that is well into the future.

 

When I spoke to our TA and asked why his website no longer worked, he said he could no longer afford it. He has also laid off all but one of his staff. And he said if he knew in advance what was going to happen, he probably just would have gone out of business.

[Coral]

1 hour ago, ontheweb said:

You have to really feel sorry for TAs. First they worked real hard doing cancellations and rebookings for no income. And then when cruises stopped, they had no income for a long time. And even with cruises beginning again, they do not get paid until at least the actual sailing with their client onboard. For instance, we had a cruise cancelled for the summer of 2020, no income for our TA. We now have a cruise booked but not until the summer of 2023. No income for him unless we do sail, and even that is well into the future.

 

When I spoke to our TA and asked why his website no longer worked, he said he could no longer afford it. He has also laid off all but one of his staff. And he said if he knew in advance what was going to happen, he probably just would have gone out of business.

I know. They have had to repeatedly rebook clients after one cancelled cruise over another as no one knew when cruises would start up again.

[Hlitner]

15 hours ago, ontheweb said:

If they did not book directly with Princess, they would not be needing to call Princess. They would be calling their TA instead and letting him or her deal with the phone hold problem!

This brings up a related issue.  When you deal with a cruise line or travel agent on the phone you generally do not have a transcript or any proof to what has been said, promised, or resolved.  When Indeal with our cruise agents we do much via e-mail so there is a written record.  This is really helpful if there is a future related problem.

Hank

 

[suzyed]

1 hour ago, Hlitner said:

This brings up a related issue.  When you deal with a cruise line or travel agent on the phone you generally do not have a transcript or any proof to what has been said, promised, or resolved.  When Indeal with our cruise agents we do much via e-mail so there is a written record.  This is really helpful if there is a future related problem.

Hank

 

If you use the Princess chat you can keep a transcript of what was said or resolved....
FWIW, I think the agents seem to keep or input pretty good notes on our accounts.  I have experienced more than once where they referred to those notes. 

Edited December 19, 2021 by suzyed

[Hlitner]

12 minutes ago, suzyed said:

If you use the Princess chat you can keep a transcript of what was said or resolved....
FWIW, I think the agents seem to keep or input pretty good notes on our accounts.  I have experienced more than once where they referred to those notes. 

The main reason we never book directly with any cruise line is money!  As a general rule we save 7 to 10% or more by shopping around among our favorite cruise agencies.  As a simple example, on our current cruise booking our agency gave us $600 of On Board Credit beyond what we could have received if we booked direct with Princess. With Princess that $600 is fully refundable if not used on the cruise.  On some other lines our savings have often been in the thousands by simply using decent cruise agencies.   We do understand that many here on CC do not care about saving money, but since we sometimes cruise over 100 days a year those savings truly add-up.   The bonus for us is that we do not have to waste time on the phone with cruise lines.  A quick e-mail to our cruise agent resolves most issues and they get stuck having to deal with the lines if they cannot resolve things through Polaris or other computer reservation systems used by the various lines.  With Princess we have taken about 35 cruises and only twice needed to deal directly with the company.

 

Hank

[Coral]

9 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

The main reason we never book directly with any cruise line is money!  As a general rule we save 7 to 10% or more by shopping around among our favorite cruise agencies.  As a simple example, on our current cruise booking our agency gave us $600 of On Board Credit beyond what we could have received if we booked direct with Princess. With Princess that $600 is fully refundable if not used on the cruise.  On some other lines our savings have often been in the thousands by simply using decent cruise agencies.   We do understand that many here on CC do not care about saving money, but since we sometimes cruise over 100 days a year those savings truly add-up.   The bonus for us is that we do not have to waste time on the phone with cruise lines.  A quick e-mail to our cruise agent resolves most issues and they get stuck having to deal with the lines if they cannot resolve things through Polaris or other computer reservation systems used by the various lines.  With Princess we have taken about 35 cruises and only twice needed to deal directly with the company.

 

Hank

I completely agree.

[suzyed]

24 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

The main reason we never book directly with any cruise line is money!  As a general rule we save 7 to 10% or more by shopping around among our favorite cruise agencies.  As a simple example, on our current cruise booking our agency gave us $600 of On Board Credit beyond what we could have received if we booked direct with Princess. With Princess that $600 is fully refundable if not used on the cruise.  On some other lines our savings have often been in the thousands by simply using decent cruise agencies.   We do understand that many here on CC do not care about saving money, but since we sometimes cruise over 100 days a year those savings truly add-up.   The bonus for us is that we do not have to waste time on the phone with cruise lines.  A quick e-mail to our cruise agent resolves most issues and they get stuck having to deal with the lines if they cannot resolve things through Polaris or other computer reservation systems used by the various lines.  With Princess we have taken about 35 cruises and only twice needed to deal directly with the company.

 

Hank

👏 agree!