Excursion Pricing in AUD with an OBC in USD

[capriccio]

We are in the process of booking a Princess excursion for our Australia cruise that is priced in Australian dollars.  We both have OBC in US dollars.  When Princess calculates the balance due they do not account for the fact that the AUD and USD are not at par.  With the current exchange rate $1 AUD equals $.72 USD.  As you can see in the attachment, Princess is not recognizing that.  If they calculated correctly the summary for each of us should read.

Reservation:  $329.95 AUD = $238.24 USD

Minus OBC: $150 USD

Subtotal:  $88.24

Instead Princess wants to charge us each $179.95

Has anyone experienced this before and, if so, how did you handle it? 

 

Thanks!

[Guest ldtr]

If the OBC is from Princess in the form of marketing offer, FCD, shareholder, or Veteran, the norm is for that OBC to be issued in the form of whatever currency is used on board.

 

If you check the fine print for all of the above it should state the nature of the OBC.  Caught us by surprise once, but after we looked into it we did find that the disclosures do exist linked to each of the OBC types.

 

As such what you would be getting is 150 Australian dollars, not US dollars

 

If the OBC came from a TA or some other source in US dollars other than the cruise line they should convert it to Australian dollars, but not if it comes from Princess.

 

Since you have indicated that it is from FCDs, the text on the bottom of the form includes the  following "Onboard spending is based upon the ships currency"

As such a ship with Australian currency means that the OBC is in Australian dollars.

 

Here is the text from the shareholder information sheet

 

The onboard credit for Carnival Cruise Line, Costa Cruises, Cunard and Princess Cruises is determined based on the operational currency onboard the vessel. 

Edited June 5, 2022 by ldtr

[capriccio]

Thank you @ldtr!  I confirmed by looking at my Open FCDs that $150 was applied to this cruise but it makes a point of saying that it was in USD.  Then I checked the Personalizer Payments and Credits section the credit was a FCD in Australian dollars.  This is the first time we are sailing on a ship not using US dollars but of course we are billed our fare in US dollars.  It is all rather confusing!

 

Credits in my Circle Savings:

 

Credit ID#	Description	Earned	Expires	Status	Amount
1111111	Future Cruise Deposit	06/21/19	Book By 06/19/21	Applied to Booking# XXXXXX	$150.00 (USD)

 

 

 

Credits on the Personalizer:

Credits are in AU Dollars (AUD)

                                                               Me          DH      Total
Booking Future Cruise Deposit* $150.00 $150.00 $300.00

Total Onboard Credits                  $150.00 $150.00 $300.00

Edited June 5, 2022 by capriccio

[Guest ldtr]

12 minutes ago, capriccio said:

Thank you @ldtr!  I confirmed by looking at my Open FCDs that $150 was applied to this cruise but it makes a point of saying that it was in USD.  Then I checked the Personalizer Payments and Credits section the credit was a FCD in Australian dollars.  This is the first time we are sailing on a ship not using US dollars but of course we are billed our fare in US dollars.  It is all rather confusing!

 

Credits in my Circle Savings:

 

Credit ID#	Description	Earned	Expires	Status	Amount
1111111	Future Cruise Deposit	06/21/19	Book By 06/19/21	Applied to Booking# XXXXXX	$150.00 (USD)

 

 

 

Credits on the Personalizer:

Credits are in AU Dollars (AUD)

                                                               Me          DH      Total
Booking Future Cruise Deposit* $150.00 $150.00 $300.00

Total Onboard Credits                  $150.00 $150.00 $300.00

Caught us by surprise the first time as well.   

[PescadoAmarillo]

The military OBC is not translated to AUD. So whatever the amount in USD, it’s the same amount in AUD. There was another one like that too, but I don’t recall which one it was. We call it the Australian cruise penalty…but it didn’t stop us from cruising Down Under four times. 😉