Exchanging a booked excursion for a different one, same port

[oskidunker]

I booked the five free excursions and paid for a sixth. I would like to exchange a free one for a different one in the same port.  Signed on to my booked cruise and can not figure out how to do this. No way to cancel.  Cant add as i get a conflict message. 
 

cruise is not until oct 1, 2022

Edited May 19, 2022 by oskidunker

[tigerfan75]

37 minutes ago, oskidunker said:

I booked the five free excursions and paid for a sixth. I would like to exchange a free one for a different one in the same port.  Signed on to my booked cruise and can not figure out how to do this. No way to cancel.  Cant add as i get a conflict message. 
 

cruise is not until oct 1, 2022

I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that it cannot be done on-line.  Best to call O, or work thru your TA.

[Flatbush Flyer]

1 hour ago, tigerfan75 said:

I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that it cannot be done on-line.  Best to call O, or work thru your TA.

OP: Call O direct (even if you have a TA). 
If I remember correctly, there is a day pre-Cruise (not sure exactly when) by which you can change your O Life selections and cancel paid ones/buy new ones. The O Rep can explain the rules and do the transaction AND send you the pdf that explains their math. 

[godfreyb]

Had this situation last week.  You cannot cancel online, you have to call Oceania. Once I got through it was quick.  However, while I asked for the amount refunded to my credit card, it was actually given as a credit on my final invoice, which wasn't a problem as I had to pay that a few days later.

[Flatbush Flyer]

2 hours ago, godfreyb said:

Had this situation last week.  You cannot cancel online, you have to call Oceania. Once I got through it was quick.  However, while I asked for the amount refunded to my credit card, it was actually given as a credit on my final invoice, which wasn't a problem as I had to pay that a few days later.

Good point. Folks will do the math on their cancelled tours $ due and a scratch their heads when a lesser amount appears on their credit card. In most cases, O does apply the credit to your final payment balance due.

[Harters]

We phoned a couple a weeks ago to swap one of the freebie excursions. Realised that there was more walking than we were able to do. It was amended on our booking within a few minutes.

[GICNJC]

as said above it can not be done online.  We had to call Oceania and change one booking and added one more due to St Petersburg being cancelled due to the overnight in Stockholm.

[ShopperfiendTO]

For the OLife excursions option, if you only select the free ones, how do you know that the free excursions you've chosen are booked and recorded in O's records?

 

I've chosen my included excursions and at the cart, it shows "Confirm" and all I get is a message from the website saying that the details are confirmed but nothing else.

 

This is in contrast to a previous cruise where I booked extra excursions to get the "YWYW" discount and paid for the extra not-included excursions.  When I did that, I got an email confirmation from O which listed *all* of my booked excursions, i.e., it listed the ones I paid for (with discount) and the included/free excursions as well, and the bottom line total was the net payment for the discounted extra non-OLife-included excursions. 

 

I didn't get a similar email from O even though I thought I would, listing all of my booked excursions with a bottom line total of NIL since they were all part of the Olife-included excursions package.

 

I looked at my booking and don't see anywhere to see which excursions I've booked either.

 

Is this normal?  I'd like to have some record that my excursions are confirmed in case I board and the excursion tickets don't show up in my cabin and even worse if they sell out before boarding.

[basor]

29 minutes ago, ShopperfiendTO said:

For the OLife excursions option, if you only select the free ones, how do you know that the free excursions you've chosen are booked and recorded in O's records?

 

I've chosen my included excursions and at the cart, it shows "Confirm" and all I get is a message from the website saying that the details are confirmed but nothing else.

 

This is in contrast to a previous cruise where I booked extra excursions to get the "YWYW" discount and paid for the extra not-included excursions.  When I did that, I got an email confirmation from O which listed *all* of my booked excursions, i.e., it listed the ones I paid for (with discount) and the included/free excursions as well, and the bottom line total was the net payment for the discounted extra non-OLife-included excursions. 

 

I didn't get a similar email from O even though I thought I would, listing all of my booked excursions with a bottom line total of NIL since they were all part of the Olife-included excursions package.

 

I looked at my booking and don't see anywhere to see which excursions I've booked either.

 

Is this normal?  I'd like to have some record that my excursions are confirmed in case I board and the excursion tickets don't show up in my cabin and even worse if they sell out before boarding.

Did you actually go finish the process and check out?  The excursions sitting in the cart is not a confirmed excursion.

[Flatbush Flyer]

13 minutes ago, basor said:

Did you actually go finish the process and check out?  The excursions sitting in the cart is not a confirmed excursion.

Better still: Don’t use the Cart except for a mock booking to see if your own bottom line math (on O Life and YWYW) matches the Cart’s bottom line.

 

Next, call and book the excursions direct with O. And, even if it means calling back to a different phone rep, confirm that you’ll be sent the “pre-purchased” shore excursions PDF which shows all the math (this comes in very handy if there are itinerary changes that affect the pricing mix at a later date). If you are buying it directly, any rep who tells you that it only goes to the TA is incorrect. 
Booking via the Cart only sends you an email with your tours listed (imo, pretty much useless compared to the math doc).

 

BTW: some folks here will tell you to have your TA do it. Know that even the best O-savvy TA may not fully understand (or pay attention to) the math you’ll find in that “pre-purchased” doc.

 

[LHT28]

5 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Better still: Don’t use the Cart except for a mock booking to see if your own bottom line math (on O Life and YWYW) matches the Cart’s bottom line.

 

 

If they are only booking the O life  free excursions  what math do they need to do??

Do you  even understand  what you are reading ??

 

[ShopperfiendTO]

22 minutes ago, basor said:

Did you actually go finish the process and check out?  The excursions sitting in the cart is not a confirmed excursion.

 

Thanks!  I didn't realize that the "Confirm" blue button at the bottom is different than the "Proceed to checkout" hyperlink at the top. 

 

However, when I do click the "Proceed to checkout" link and enter my credit card details to pay the zero amount owing, I get a red "ERROR" banner message with no other detail/information of the error.  I checked my information and card details and everything's correct.  I also tried another credit card (and checked that the information was entered correctly too) and the same thing happened.

 

2 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Better still: Don’t use the Cart except for a mock booking to see if your own bottom line math (on O Life and YWYW) matches the Cart’s bottom line.

 

Next, call and book the excursions direct with O. And, even if it means calling back to a different phone rep, confirm that you’ll be sent the “pre-purchased” shore excursions PDF which shows all the math (this comes in very handy if there are itinerary changes that affect the pricing mix at a later date). If you are buying it directly, any rep who tells you that it only goes to the TA is incorrect. 
Booking via the Cart only sends you an email with your tours listed (imo, pretty much useless compared to the math doc).

 

BTW: some folks here will tell you to have your TA do it. Know that even the best O-savvy TA may not fully understand (or pay attention to) the math you’ll find in that “pre-purchased” doc.

 

 

We are not going to buy any extra excursions beyond the ones included with the OLife excursions option so I'm not sure if this will help us?

[basor]

5 minutes ago, ShopperfiendTO said:

 

Thanks!  I didn't realize that the "Confirm" blue button at the bottom is different than the "Proceed to checkout" hyperlink at the top. 

 

However, when I do click the "Proceed to checkout" link and enter my credit card details to pay the zero amount owing, I get a red "ERROR" banner message with no other detail/information of the error.  I checked my information and card details and everything's correct.  I also tried another credit card (and checked that the information was entered correctly too) and the same thing happened.

 

 

We are not going to buy any extra excursions beyond the ones included with the OLife excursions option so I'm not sure if this will help us?

Call O and have them book your free excursions....they do not mind

[no fuss travel]

They are super nice to you when you call them to book excursions. I have done this several times as I could not get the online booking to work

[Flatbush Flyer]

8 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

If they are only booking the O life  free excursions  what math do they need to do??

Do you  even understand  what you are reading ??

 

“Oh ye of little faith.”

The “pre-purchased” math pdf shows the list price and $0 net cost of each O Life selection. If there are no itinerary changes and OP decides to not add any additional (ergo, paid) ones, all is well with or without that pdf.

 

However, if O Life tours are cancelled (pre or during the cruise) by O and OP wants to replace them with other eligible O Life tours or paid tours (e.g., OS), there are instances where the newer O Life allowable tours will “trump” the prior ones thus generating both a refund and a charge for the trumped original O Life tour cost. Having that PDF allows you to double check the changes/charges/refunds to your onboard account. Basically, under the right circumstances, you need to know what was the retail price of your original O Life selections when certain changes are at hand (and, in the current industry environment, that is  far more often than some folks realize).
 

Actually,  I went through this exercise on Insignia this morning: - two paid OS tours cancelled/refunded by O left only O Life eligible selections. Chose replacements from them and, because they were more expensive (retail $) than some of the pre-purchased O Life, they trumped original ones as my O Life freebies which then required me to pay the price of those displaced freebies (fortunately with a YWYW discount). In any case, having the tour math pdf at hand allowed me to predict exactly which of the original freebies would now incur a charge (having been replaced as freebies by more expensive ones) and what the net difference would be from the refund of the cancelled OS tours.

 

As you may know, your onboard account doesn’t always show all the details of a charge. Moreover, some adjustments (e.g., some refunds) don’t show until the end of the cruise. Having that PDF allows you to figure exactly what is correctly owed to you or required of you in terms of $$$. And, everyone on the same page regarding $ before you disembark is important for all of the obvious reasons.

 

BTW: In this morning’s exercise, the Destination Services person on duty was relatively new and the “pre-purchased” tours PDF doc  helped her to understand what needed to happen on her end. Bottom line: refunds/charges posted immediately and correctly.

[Flatbush Flyer]

42 minutes ago, ShopperfiendTO said:

 

Thanks!  I didn't realize that the "Confirm" blue button at the bottom is different than the "Proceed to checkout" hyperlink at the top. 

 

However, when I do click the "Proceed to checkout" link and enter my credit card details to pay the zero amount owing, I get a red "ERROR" banner message with no other detail/information of the error.  I checked my information and card details and everything's correct.  I also tried another credit card (and checked that the information was entered correctly too) and the same thing happened.

 

 

We are not going to buy any extra excursions beyond the ones included with the OLife excursions option so I'm not sure if this will help us?

See my post #15. The tours you booked today may be cancelled tomorrow- just the way it is in these uncertain times.