HAL customer service

[BermudaBound2014]

On 6/3/2022 at 2:20 PM, ldtr said:

Would it really impact that much.

 

Those that are concerned about testing to fly home, are probably also concerned about flying internationally and then testing positive prior to boarding the cruise.  So while it might help some, probably not that much when it comes to cruises starting in a foreign country.

I think it would impact bookings (although you bring up good points). I can self quarantine easy enough pre cruise. Thus lowering my odds of testing positive pre-cruise.

 

However; the variants are getting more and more contagious. After spending time onboard I think the odds of testing negative at the end of the cruise are MUCH higher than testing positive pre-cruise due to the nature of cruising. 

[2inSETexas]

On 6/3/2022 at 3:44 PM, grammi said:

That's what I keep thinking, how can they do business this way.  An hour hold time whenever you call to get someone who doesn't know what they are talking about.  It is a rough situation for all but I don't want to cancel or be cancelled a 4th time.

HAL Customer service isn't even responding to emails, not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement that they received it and will get back to us. We had to cancel in mid-May because of a pre-departure positive covid test. Our TA contacted HAL and was told the FCC would be posted by Accounting in 10-15 business days. It is now 20 business days and no FCC posted on our account yet. I just want someone to give us information on the status or ensure it was handled correctly. But nothing at all.

Edited June 10, 2022 by 2inSETexas

[zgscl]

On 6/4/2022 at 7:12 AM, Florida_gal_50 said:

That is nuts.  I bet if you wanted to extend your cruise for another week they’d be able to help no problem 🙄.  Trying to get ahold of these people presents another issue because they seems to be busy for the limited hours they work. 

I have no doubt they could book you very quickly on your next cruise.

 

I had an interesting chat with the consultants on my last K'dam cruise. They said that they have an extremely large amount of paperwork. For every 1 hour the desk is open they have 1-2 hours of office work they have to do. In addition to processing the FCD purchases they have to do additional paperwork on all the bookings made onboard. I was really surprised at how much it takes considering central reservations or the website can do it without anything. 

[Florida_gal_50]

4 hours ago, zgscl said:

I have no doubt they could book you very quickly on your next cruise.

 

I had an interesting chat with the consultants on my last K'dam cruise. They said that they have an extremely large amount of paperwork. For every 1 hour the desk is open they have 1-2 hours of office work they have to do. In addition to processing the FCD purchases they have to do additional paperwork on all the bookings made onboard. I was really surprised at how much it takes considering central reservations or the website can do it without anything. 

Yes I’ve heard that several times but how much paperwork could there be?  It’s sounds illogical to me.

[Cruise Suzy]

5 hours ago, zgscl said:

I had an interesting chat with the consultants on my last K'dam cruise. They said that they have an extremely large amount of paperwork. For every 1 hour the desk is open they have 1-2 hours of office work they have to do. In addition to processing the FCD purchases they have to do additional paperwork on all the bookings made onboard. I was really surprised at how much it takes considering central reservations or the website can do it without anything. 

 

Perhaps some of it has to do with the fact that cruises booked onboard are credited/transferred to the TA. This is something central reservations or the Website don't do. When I book onboard they aren't able to print a confirmation, but they can e-mail me the PDF file they send to the TA.

[Mosaic]

I really despise lack of customer service---when you have PAID for a product or service.  EG, my wife yesterday went to ATT to get a 55.00 fee waved for the purchase of an iPad data plan (for a month) to use in Canada (we live in USA). She went to that same store to buy that plan for "international" use and was sold a plan.  IT DOES NOT WORK IN CANADA AT ALL.  They will NOT refund the money, they say they cannot.  She spent 4 HOURS in the store yesterday to no avail...

 

It is not just HAL...

[gailellen12]

On 6/4/2022 at 5:00 PM, Mary229 said:

@TiogaCruiser  I wonder what flight ease is doing.   They seem to be the greatest source of urgent issues 

Especially for me. They failed to ticket my Philadelphia to Barcelona flight and I am currently out of pocket over 2500.00. My travel agent and I will both be pursuing this vigorously as you might imagine. 

[TiogaCruiser]

2 hours ago, Mosaic said:

I really despise lack of customer service---when you have PAID for a product or service.  EG, my wife yesterday went to ATT to get a 55.00 fee waved for the purchase of an iPad data plan (for a month) to use in Canada (we live in USA). She went to that same store to buy that plan for "international" use and was sold a plan.  IT DOES NOT WORK IN CANADA AT ALL.  They will NOT refund the money, they say they cannot.  She spent 4 HOURS in the store yesterday to no avail...

 

It is not just HAL...

Interesting. This MAY be totally different for your situation , but in my circumstance they were able to reverse it.

 

 I was going to add my Dad to our grandfathered plan. We have a data cap that we don’t get any where near, so no reason to upgrade. The AT&T rep suggested I move us into a plan that would be unlimited, for only $10 more per month ( applying Dad’s military discount.) He could not give me paperwork. When I got home, I received a statement (~$200) showing over $20 ( I think it was actually $40) per device initiation fee, a final monthly total over $30 more than what we had been paying, and the loss of my ability to hotspot to my iPad. It was the new unlimited plan - which we don’t need. I marched right back and got there as the employee was going off duty. He confirmed he had not given me the details, and told a colleague to call in and authorize the reinstatement of our old plan. *All they had to do was call a special number, they exchanged several security codes, and the employee told them THE STORE was authorizing it.*

 

Maybe, just maybe this might help? This was an AT&T store, not a reseller.

Edited June 14, 2022 by TiogaCruiser

[fatcat04]

I don't know about you but after about the 45 minutes on hold mark, I start to lose faith in "Your call is important to us" and "An agent will be with you as soon as possible."

 

 

*I am presently on hold with HAL guest relations. 

[five.]

I was on with ship services yesterday about booking a retreat cabana - it took 39 minutes. Most of that on hold and then I forgot to switch my dining time. I tried an old email address I found on here for that, who knows if it'll work. No accent though, easy to understand.

 

Last week in the middle of the night, I was on with Alaska Air for over an hour, but it was an American out of Seattle and she really bent over backwards to assist me. It was amazing service, just took forever to get her on the phone.

 

I did go to the customer service desk 5 times on the 5/28 Koningsdam cruise, short wait entire time, but I did purposefully go when I thought it would be light. I will say the same guy helped me every time and one of the times it was 7AM and 10:30 PM the same day. I asked him what his shift hours were, but he just responded: "I work hard and show up when they need me."

[Guest ldtr]

On 6/4/2022 at 2:19 PM, BermudaBound2014 said:

I think it would impact bookings (although you bring up good points). I can self quarantine easy enough pre cruise. Thus lowering my odds of testing positive pre-cruise.

 

However; the variants are getting more and more contagious. After spending time onboard I think the odds of testing negative at the end of the cruise are MUCH higher than testing positive pre-cruise due to the nature of cruising. 

The cruise lines would be the only ones to know for sure, but haveseen more reports of large numbers (over 100) testing positive near the end of a cruise (several reports of that, somewhat confirmed with cruise line changing of protocols after cruise) compared to any reports of large numbers testing positive prior to cruise.

 

On one of the several cruises I have taken, near the peak of the Omicron wave, the ship was about half full. I was talking  with the head of customer service on board thst they had a lot of cancellations from people concerned about the wave  but that they only had 3 rooms cancel during the 3 day test window, due to positive tests. 

 

Back in the early days of the pandemic analysis of the cases on board ships when it was thr initial less, contagious varient, and prevention measures were not in place, R0 was determined to be higher on ships than was demonstrated  between two family members living in the same household.  Requiring vaccination drops the R0 by around 40%.

 

Thr only place where I have seen large numbers pre  cruise is some of the people on the Alaska land tours pre cruise, but not for people traveling independently.

Edited June 14, 2022 by ldtr

[fatcat04]

My 2 hours and 10 mins on hold is paying off. I got the best of the best of Guest Relations on the phone. Her name is Chris and she should get a big raise for being so efficient! I told her she made my day!

Edited June 14, 2022 by fatcat04

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, fatcat04 said:

My 2 hours and 10 mins on hold is paying off. I got the best of the best of Guest Relations on the phone. Her name is Chris and she should get a big raise for being so efficient! I told her she made my day!

Lucky you. 👍 for Chris, and here's hoping there are a lot more like her!

[Kamfish642]

On 6/2/2022 at 5:04 PM, grammi said:

I'll start by saying I'm frustrated so I apologize if I come off as whiney.  I was a travel agent for 23 years and retired in 2005.  I've booked and taken a lot of cruises, long before there were computers.  3 years ago I booked an Alaskan cruise tour for 3 couples including myself.  Things were peachy, booked it on line but when working with phone reps they were very knowledgeable and I didn't wait long.

 

Move forward 3 years, 3 cancels and rebooks(Covid)  and I have a few questions for customer service.  On hold for 45min to an hour no matter what time I call, agent seems to work in a different industry, knows nothing about cruising or details regarding an Alaska Cruise tour.  On the 4th attempt waiting the 45 minutes plus each time and having inexperienced agents I finally get an agent who is knowledgeable and can answer my questions.

 

Is this just the way it is now? 

 

Anyway, I'm very excited to probably be going in August, fingers crossed and I want to thank everyone for all your reports and info from those that departed and toured in May.  You have been a huge help.  

We have an upcoming cruise in July 2022, and like several others, we have had troubles with cancelled flights and seat assignments.  I have contacted HAL several times and have been on hold from 1-2 hours only to reach a representative who spoke English poorly, bad phone connection, or lacked knowledge to answer question.  Generally, HAL just blamed airline, which in turn blamed cruise line.

 

Supposedly, I have a confirmed reservation on flights to Europe but unable to get seat assignments.  Fingers crossed when arriving at MIA?  Not sure what else to do.

[Nickelpenny]

1 hour ago, Kamfish642 said:

We have an upcoming cruise in July 2022, and like several others, we have had troubles with cancelled flights and seat assignments.  I have contacted HAL several times and have been on hold from 1-2 hours only to reach a representative who spoke English poorly, bad phone connection, or lacked knowledge to answer question.  Generally, HAL just blamed airline, which in turn blamed cruise line.

 

Supposedly, I have a confirmed reservation on flights to Europe but unable to get seat assignments.  Fingers crossed when arriving at MIA?  Not sure what else to do.

Have you tried the airline website?

[tunafish]

whole reason working from  home is a big BS.

[Kamfish642]

2 hours ago, Nickelpenny said:

Have you tried the airline website?

Website was of no use.  HAL representative was not sure why seat assignments would not show up on HAL site for cruise and simply referred me to airline to resolve.

[rotjeknor]

Same in the Netherlands, the Rotterdam office is understaffed. I was on hold for about 1 hour, but the agent was able to do what I asked for : print my airline tickets so I could get my seats . 
She told me they are trying to get more agents , but like most businesses in the Netherlands who are looking for staff , a difficult task. Makes you wonder where everybody went ….

[Florida_gal_50]

2 hours ago, tunafish said:

whole reason working from  home is a big BS.

They have been doing that for years.  If people are responsible it should make zero difference where they sit.  This is coming from someone who prefers to be in the office but most of my colleagues prefer home.  Everyone is getting their work done.

[Mary229]

44 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

They have been doing that for years.  If people are responsible it should make zero difference where they sit.  This is coming from someone who prefers to be in the office but most of my colleagues prefer home.  Everyone is getting their work done.

Veering away from cruising for a moment: some jobs or at some points in people’s career in a job collaboration is very important.  I had one of those head hurting jobs at one time.  As to why it matters in travel is there are so many new hires who don’t know the minutiae which can make leisure travel work for the customer.  This forum is a testament to the vast knowledge which is hidden in the corners of people’s minds only learned from experience 

[NCTribeFan]

Just off a B2B on Zuiderdam.  I had issues regarding my pre-cruise travel which I stupidly booked through HAL thinking it was be easier and less stressful - it was NOT.

 

Anyway, although not the fault of Zuiderdam's crew/staff, I went to the service desk early Thursday morning (we sailed Wednesday afternoon) and sat and talked to Christine and told her all the issues I'd had.  She took many notes and asked what they could do for me.  I told her I didn't expect anything (expect maybe do my Covid test to fly home from Vancouver since, when I booked, and up until a couple of weeks prior to sailing, HAL was doing the testing).  I told her I was just so disappointed because I NEVER give up control over my travel plans, but the one time I did, and paid a premium to turn over that to HAL, it was not a good outcome.  It was just so atypical from HAL.

 

Then I mentioned I was on for 2 weeks, solo the first and had friends joining me for the 2nd week.  She wanted to know their names and cabin number.  I had added for Club Orange to "ugrade" myself so I could specifically chose my wonderful Large Inside cabin on Deck 1.  She came back out and said she would se if she could upgrade me to a verandah near my friends for the 2nd week.

 

She called me late afternoon on the sea day heading back to Vancouver and said she was having me moved but didn't know the cabin yet and they were still assigning guarantees.  Late morning on Wednesday, I went down to the desk and asked if they knew where I was moving and I was put on Deck 4 forward, starboard, about 3 cabins from my friends.

 

So, good outcome.  They did what they could to make it better after a stressful couple of travel days although, again, it had nothing to do with the ship.

 

One thing I will say is that it seemed the vast majority of people at the service desk the first couple of days are trying to figure out how to use the app and internet.  It was the same in November on Eurodam and December on N. Amsterdam.  I think they need to set up an area with a couple of people to JUST handle the app/internet setup.  That would leave people at the desk to take care of other issues.

 

And, having Club Orange wasn't much of a help at the service desk because everyone behind the desk just kept taking people from the regular line.  So, not really a priority line at all.

 

BTW, I still plan on writing to HAL to give them all the details of my pre-cruise issues.  I'm just happy my PCC didn't vanish during the shutdown.  He's great.

[Florida_gal_50]

17 minutes ago, NCTribeFan said:

Just off a B2B on Zuiderdam.  I had issues regarding my pre-cruise travel which I stupidly booked through HAL thinking it was be easier and less stressful - it was NOT.

 

Anyway, although not the fault of Zuiderdam's crew/staff, I went to the service desk early Thursday morning (we sailed Wednesday afternoon) and sat and talked to Christine and told her all the issues I'd had.  She took many notes and asked what they could do for me.  I told her I didn't expect anything (expect maybe do my Covid test to fly home from Vancouver since, when I booked, and up until a couple of weeks prior to sailing, HAL was doing the testing).  I told her I was just so disappointed because I NEVER give up control over my travel plans, but the one time I did, and paid a premium to turn over that to HAL, it was not a good outcome.  It was just so atypical from HAL.

 

Then I mentioned I was on for 2 weeks, solo the first and had friends joining me for the 2nd week.  She wanted to know their names and cabin number.  I had added for Club Orange to "ugrade" myself so I could specifically chose my wonderful Large Inside cabin on Deck 1.  She came back out and said she would se if she could upgrade me to a verandah near my friends for the 2nd week.

 

She called me late afternoon on the sea day heading back to Vancouver and said she was having me moved but didn't know the cabin yet and they were still assigning guarantees.  Late morning on Wednesday, I went down to the desk and asked if they knew where I was moving and I was put on Deck 4 forward, starboard, about 3 cabins from my friends.

 

So, good outcome.  They did what they could to make it better after a stressful couple of travel days although, again, it had nothing to do with the ship.

 

One thing I will say is that it seemed the vast majority of people at the service desk the first couple of days are trying to figure out how to use the app and internet.  It was the same in November on Eurodam and December on N. Amsterdam.  I think they need to set up an area with a couple of people to JUST handle the app/internet setup.  That would leave people at the desk to take care of other issues.

 

And, having Club Orange wasn't much of a help at the service desk because everyone behind the desk just kept taking people from the regular line.  So, not really a priority line at all.

 

BTW, I still plan on writing to HAL to give them all the details of my pre-cruise issues.  I'm just happy my PCC didn't vanish during the shutdown.  He's great.

I had the same problem with the club orange line on the Koningsdam.  Took multiple people from the regular line.  I had to say excuse me I've been waiting in line longer than all the people you have served.  I don't understand why they wouldn't get that.

[Florida_gal_50]

23 hours ago, Mary229 said:

Veering away from cruising for a moment: some jobs or at some points in people’s career in a job collaboration is very important.  I had one of those head hurting jobs at one time.  As to why it matters in travel is there are so many new hires who don’t know the minutiae which can make leisure travel work for the customer.  This forum is a testament to the vast knowledge which is hidden in the corners of people’s minds only learned from experience 

Sure I can see that.  I don't think a blanket statement about working from home is the cause of hals woes.  Hals woes are likely caused by not having enough staff or having too many inexperienced staff.

[Guest ldtr]

17 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

Sure I can see that.  I don't think a blanket statement about working from home is the cause of hals woes.  Hals woes are likely caused by not having enough staff or having too many inexperienced staff.

Know an person that was a senior customer rep.(worked from home pre-pandemic)  Got laid off during the pandemic.  They wanted to return when HAL started staffing up customer service, but instead of bringing them back at their old salary they would only bring them back as a new hire, with a considerably reduced salary.  They chose not to return.

Edited June 16, 2022 by ldtr

[ontheweb]

3 hours ago, ldtr said:

Know an person that was a senior customer rep.(worked from home pre-pandemic)  Got laid off during the pandemic.  They wanted to return when HAL started staffing up customer service, but instead of bringing them back at their old salary they would only bring them back as a new hire, with a considerably reduced salary.  They chose not to return.

That is awful. And things like that is one of the reasons that customer service has rapidly gone downhill.