Check you account when sailing on a medallion ship

[smbt1]

I have sailed on two ships with medallion since the restart.

 

On both ships I have had problems with erroneous charges. Usually they have been someone else's drink charged to my medallion while I am in a bar.

 

Tonight I had the system say that I ordered a beer while I was walking past the photo gallery, which room service then tried to deliver to my room. While the system was able to track me to my room. The problem is that I never ordered the drink, it was a drink I would never order, and the app was not even open.

 

I have just about had enough with medallion on board ship.

Edited February 1, 2022 by smbt1

[Ellaleah]

14 minutes ago, smbt1 said:

I have sailed on two ships with medallion since the restart.

 

On both ships I have had problems with erroneous charges. Usually they have been someone else's drink charged to my medallion while I am in a bar.

 

Tonight I had the system say that I ordered a beer while I was walking past the photo gallery, which room service then tried to deliver to my room. While the system was able to track me to my room. The problem is that I never ordered the drink, it was a drink I would never order, and the app was not even open.

 

I have just about had enough with medallion on board ship.

How do you go about addressing this after the cruise?  I have a charge that shows it was made the day before disembarkation.  Do you have a specific email?

[Kmkub]

I think Princess will address it immediately. We checked our bill every two days. The only error was not being charged for gelato, which I’m told is not included. Princess has no desire to be over charging. They want happy cruisers, not annoyed non-cruisers.

[smbt1]

5 minutes ago, Kmkub said:

I think Princess will address it immediately. We checked our bill every two days. The only error was not being charged for gelato, which I’m told is not included. Princess has no desire to be over charging. They want happy cruisers, not annoyed non-cruisers.

Sure they will address it, but the inconvenience is annoying. On two cruise 6 visits to customer service.  Room service trying to deliver an order that was never placed, after I had gotten ready for bed and not exactly ready to.open the door.

[NavyVeteran]

I always checked my account before medallion. When they were manually entering folio numbers, they sometimes made errors. It is always best to check your account several times during the cruise and at the end before disembarking - it's much easier to resolve errors while you're still on the ship.

[smbt1]

Just now, NavyVeteran said:

I always checked my account before medallion. When they were manually entering folio numbers, they sometimes made errors. It is always best to check your account several times during the cruise and at the end before disembarking - it's much easier to resolve errors while you're still on the ship.

yep. Pre medallion  in over 25 cruises had maybe two billing errors, since medallion on 2 cruise 6 errors.

[Torfamm]

2 hours ago, smbt1 said:

I have sailed on two ships with medallion since the restart.

 

On both ships I have had problems with erroneous charges. Usually they have been someone else's drink charged to my medallion while I am in a bar.

 

Tonight I had the system say that I ordered a beer while I was walking past the photo gallery, which room service then tried to deliver to my room. While the system was able to track me to my room. The problem is that I never ordered the drink, it was a drink I would never order, and the app was not even open.

 

I have just about had enough with medallion on board ship.

I’ve had the opposite experience When I’ve been charged for others drinks in the past it seemed to be caused by people giving the wrong cabin number or a Mix-up in hearing or entering information into the billing systems. A bartender might even mix up two guests key cards when swiping them.
 

I haven’t had any problems on recent cruises. In my experience, scanning medallions that never leave the passengers’ possession is more accurate than older systems.

[smbt1]

6 hours ago, Torfamm said:

I’ve had the opposite experience When I’ve been charged for others drinks in the past it seemed to be caused by people giving the wrong cabin number or a Mix-up in hearing or entering information into the billing systems. A bartender might even mix up two guests key cards when swiping them.
 

I haven’t had any problems on recent cruises. In my experience, scanning medallions that never leave the passengers’ possession is more accurate than older systems.

The problem is that the systems at bars can read all of the medallions for several feet. So if you are standing neat one of the devices the bartender can select your medallion by mistake.

 

It would be another if you could control when the medallion was read. Also several times I have had servers ask for cabin number because they did not have one of the hand held units with them.So that error can still occur.

 

So far the errors have been being near enough to a bar for the scanner to read the medallion and the bartender charging a drink thar someone else ordered to it by accident. Seems to be an issue in more crowded settings such as around the pool bar. 

 

Still have to figure out how an order got generated as I walked through the photo gallery, leading to room service showing up at my room.

[deliver42]

Sounds like the medallion works as well as the app.

[smbt1]

29 minutes ago, deliver42 said:

Sounds like the medallion works as well as the app.

I think part of it is crew training. The better trained bartenders confirm the person by asking their first name before selecting the icon on their screen.

[PescadoAmarillo]

It would be nice if the app had a notification sound for a charge, something unobtrusive, so we could know immediately if a charge has been made. I have it set for my credit card charges, and my phone dings before I’ve even gathered up my bag(s) at a store. 

[Host CJSKIDS]

I’ve had drinks, a bottle of wine  and even a store charge to my account on our cruises previous to medallion where you just had to go down and keep checking on your charges so the medallion app makes it easier for me to keep an eye on things. 
 

 

[Steelers36]

14 hours ago, smbt1 said:

I have sailed on two ships with medallion since the restart.

 

On both ships I have had problems with erroneous charges. Usually they have been someone else's drink charged to my medallion while I am in a bar.

 

Tonight I had the system say that I ordered a beer while I was walking past the photo gallery, which room service then tried to deliver to my room. While the system was able to track me to my room. The problem is that I never ordered the drink, it was a drink I would never order, and the app was not even open.

 

I have just about had enough with medallion on board ship.

ALL ships are Medallion Class, BTW.

[smbt1]

15 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

ALL ships are Medallion Class, BTW.

Since I have not sailed on all of the ships since the pandemic, and pre pandemic some were not medallion class I added the qualifier.

[CineGraphic]

2 hours ago, smbt1 said:

I think part of it is crew training. The better trained bartenders confirm the person by asking their first name before selecting the icon on their screen.

 

I believe that the icon shown on the crew pad, is your picture...all they have to do is match faces.

[Thrak]

I have yet to sail on a Medallion Class cruise but loved it when they introduced the (previous) app. I checked my folio on my phone daily. I was charged for drinks several times even though I had the drink package. It always happened when I ordered a drink in the theater and the server got it from the Casino Bar.  Checking on my phone (can you do this on the TV now?) made it very easy to see if I was getting improperly charged.

 

For those who are really worried about this there are a number of RFID blocking pouches or wallets that will keep your medallion from being read at all unless you remove it from the wallet. Check amazon for RFID blocking pouch.

[Steelers36]

8 minutes ago, smbt1 said:

Since I have not sailed on all of the ships since the pandemic, and pre pandemic some were not medallion class I added the qualifier.

It is work they managed to finish during the Pauses.  Too bad they couldn't get the MC App right during the same period of time.

[jpom18]

Good advice, I check mine every day.  I had $200 charged to my account from the Spa two days ago.  Called the Customer Service Desk and they contacted the spa and had the charges removed, however they missed a $10 charge so I had to go back and have them remove that one as well.  I was no where near the spa at the time of the charges but they said likely they punched in the wrong cabin number.

[Steelers36]

2 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

I believe that the icon shown on the crew pad, is your picture...all they have to do is match faces.

It is unless the guest is using an avatar or a pet photo.  I think the wait staff see your personal photo and not the security photo.  Yes?

Edited February 1, 2022 by Steelers36

[CineGraphic]

Just now, Steelers36 said:

It is unless the guest is using an avatar or a pet photo.  I think the wait staff see your personal photo and not the security photo.

 

A waiter showed me his pad when he was looking for me to deliver a drink.

It had two pictures on it. My personal picture, and the security picture.

My personal picture is the same one that I use here on CC, so he was looking around for Jimmy Finlayson!

[smbt1]

36 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

I believe that the icon shown on the crew pad, is your picture...all they have to do is match faces.

in theory yes, most times it works sometimes not.

 

As I said pre medallion 25 cruises 2 billing errors rhat required visits to customer services. Since startup 2 cruises 6 visits to resolve billing errors, plus one phantom order that the systems shows, but no one can explain how it was generated.

[Dock B]

The crew’s little pads may show our photos but those photos do not have masks on them!!

 

It has to be quite a challenge for the crew to discern if a person behind the mask is the same one showing on the pad!

[CineGraphic]

12 minutes ago, Dock B said:

The crew’s little pads may show our photos but those photos do not have masks on them!!

 

We were outside....no masks, but we all had a good laugh.

[gardenbunny]

There had been a reference to checking account often in different topic earlier this year.  I was glad I had read it - my NYE cruise had 4 wrong charges that Customer Service removed.

[geoherb]

16 hours ago, Ellaleah said:

How do you go about addressing this after the cruise?  I have a charge that shows it was made the day before disembarkation.  Do you have a specific email?

 

The email is customerrelations@princesscruises.com. Be ready to wait for an answer--a long time. I had an erroneous charge the last night of my cruise in December. I had checked my account earlier that day. I never heard back from customer relations. A phone rep said she could offer me a goodwill credit that more than made up for the erroneous charge. She explained that they have to contact the ship when someone says there's an erroneous charge--and then wait for someone to get back to them.