Payment Glitch a Royal Caribbean Wonder

[Miggsoo3]

So after many years of cruising and reading all kinds of stories I finally have one of my own to share. We leave for a Mediterranean cruise on July 10th this cruise was lifted and shifted from 2020 to 2021 to 2022. In January I made my final payment at got an invoice showing $0 so imagine my surprise when tonight I receive an email that I have an outstanding balance of $654 and if I don’t contact Royal my reservation is at risk of being canceled normally I would ignore this email since I know it’s an error on their part but being I leave for Barcelona in 21 days figured I should investigate. I check the invoice sent with the invoice I have same exact amounts yet they say I owe $654. Next step log in to my cruise planner no balance shown. Final step go to the payment site on Royal there is the $654 outstanding balance again. Now I’m confused so I finally make the call after the initial research of approximately 10 minutes the person on the phone decides she needs to speak to resolution department and this is where things get weird. She proceeds to tell me they know it’s an error on their end and I don’t have a balance but the only way to fix it is for them to issue me a credit for the amount of the invoice I received $654 once the credit is applied to my card I need to call back and make a payment for the same amount. Confused I ask why can’t I just give you the payment now then you refund me the overpayment she says no that’s an overpayment and not allowed. I then ask why do I need to wait for this mysterious refund before I can make the payment she says because otherwise it’s an overpayment and again not allowed. Being experienced with Royal’s customer service reps I ask for this information and confirmation my reservation won’t be cancelled in writing and I’m told nope can’t do that either instead the calls are recorded and that is the record that I can request if anything goes wrong. So now 21 days before I leave for Europe I need to wait 7 business days for a refund I’m not entitled to but am receiving so that I can then call Royal back and apply the amount back to my reservation. Has anyone dealt with something similar this seems completely insane to me?

[arlodog]

Don't wait the 7 days.  Someone else posted that they were also part of this silly IT issue and didn't make the payment and their cruise was cancelled.  Pay it and wait for the refund.  Shouldn't take long, but if it does you can dispute it with your credit card. Screen shot your zero balance with a date/time stamp as proof. 

[Biker19]

36 minutes ago, Miggsoo3 said:

Has anyone dealt with something similar this seems completely insane to me?

Seems to come up almost weekly. Not only might your cruise be canceled, but all your planner purchases. While the cruise can be reinstated  the planner items can’t. As mentioned, try to pay the balance. 

[Miggsoo3]

Just tried to make the payment with the two different cards both declined seems I’m not allowed to make the payment this is ridiculous 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Miggsoo3
Update reply

[Ashland]

5 hours ago, Miggsoo3 said:

Just tried to make the payment with the two different cards both declined seems I’m not allowed to make the payment this is ridiculous 

Did you book directly or with a TA ?...If with a TA you can only make the payment to them.

[ReneeFLL]

5 minutes ago, Ashland said:

Did you book directly or with a TA ?...If with a TA you can only make the payment to them.

She must not have aTA otherwise Royal wouldn’t have talked to her in the first place.

[rozen]

I received yesterday an email from Royal for my B2B cruise to pay the balance or my reservation will be canceled, My balance is 0. I called 2 different Royal representative that told me to ignore it, and assured me that it will not be canceled. I hope they are right

[johnjen]

Just reading the OP's post made me angry. I pity the OP. Absolutely horrid experience. OP, you are deserving of a massive make-up from this in the form of monetary compensation (even a free drink package). I'd be arguing to the hilt over the added stress over that nonsense.

[smokeybandit]

There's a lot of things I'd ignore, but having a payment due notice, even for $0, is not something I would just ignore. 

[Tlbecker1]

This happened to us on our Anthem TA.  We also received a notice that we had a balance due for $368.00 and somehow they cancelled one of our shore excursions into Paris.  We finally got it all straightened out, but it took a few calls with our TA to get it all sorted out. Hang in there and be persistent.

[Cruising89143]

1 hour ago, rozen said:

I received yesterday an email from Royal for my B2B cruise to pay the balance or my reservation will be canceled, My balance is 0. I called 2 different Royal representative that told me to ignore it, and assured me that it will not be canceled. I hope they are right

Same thing happened to me yesterday on an upcoming B2B. Our balance has been zero since April on both cruises. I called RCI and was told to ignore it. What’s interesting is that it showed final payment due May 22nd. 

[Retired LEO]

I got an email yesterday that one of my cruises has been canceled for non payment. It just so happens to be the cruise I'm currently on. Am I now considered a stowaway? Ok waiting to be thrown overboard. 

[Cruising89143]

I just spoke with RCI again. The agent stated that this was a known issue. He assured me that our cruises were both paid in full and would not be canceled. RCI really needs to get this corrected ASAP since they have been aware of the issue. At least this agent seemed to have a good grasp of the issues. We shall see. 

[MightyMike]

16 minutes ago, cruisingator2 said:

He assured me that our cruises were both paid in full and would not be canceled. 

 

From some other threads, this sounds like what they usually say right before it gets cancelled.

[Miggsoo3]

So I looked at the payment site again and I noticed they pushed my final payment date to 6/30 which 1 week before the cruise should be interesting rest of the month smh

[Jimbo]

Call back up and cancel the entire cruise and take your money elsewhere. Ask for a full refund. It's crazy they can't take care of this with one simple phone call.

You shouldn't have to worry about this.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Jimbo

[ryano]

3 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

Call back up and cancel the entire cruise and take your money elsewhere. Ask for a full refund. It's crazy they can't take care of this with one simple phone call.

You shouldn't have to worry about this.

 

Based on the reviews Ive seen as of late since Royal went back to 100% capacity with about 50% of their staff, that is exactly what I would do.

Edited June 15, 2022 by ryano

[Another_Critic]

4 hours ago, Retired LEO said:

I got an email yesterday that one of my cruises has been canceled for non payment. It just so happens to be the cruise I'm currently on. Am I now considered a stowaway? Ok waiting to be thrown overboard. 

Ask for a refund when you get back.  🙂

[Miggsoo3]

I'm back with a quick update it has been 7 business days and still no refund so I spent the morning on the phone trying to get a resolution. The solution was to extend my final payment to two days before the cruise departs this was not acceptable. So I did the only thing I could think of I sent a Facebook message to M. Bailey someone from the executive resolutions called me confirmed the refund has been processed and will be reflected on my CC next week but more importantly the system finally allows me to make the payment to get the balance back to $0, I was also given some onboard credit which was not the reason I contacted them but was a nice gesture. I did make it known that whoever decided this was the way to handle the situation picked the absolute worst way to make things right and they need to find a way to make those back end adjustments without involving the customer, she confirmed the issue is tied to the new cruise planner system they implemented and that IT is aware of it and trying to figure out the issue but they have seen an uptick of funky stuff happening to reservations once you cancel something on the cruise planner.

[soremekun]

Crazy!  I'm glad it worked out but how can the CTO/CIO get away with not resolving the problem?

[Miggsoo3]

Since the system allowed me to make the payment I went ahead and did so even though the refund hasn't been credited to my credit card yet. I was then able to get a new $0 balance invoice now I feel better about the cruise not being cancelled and will just wait for the refund to hit my credit card next week.

[tonto524]

I’m stuck in something similar.  Final for IN 4 nt cruise  was due 6/15. On 6/12, Royal cancelled my booking and cruise planner purchases. Discovered this the morning of 6/13 - spent literally three hrs on the phone with them (btw, I am also the TA on his booking) reinstating the res, rebooking the cruise planner stuff.  On 6/14 I couldn’t get payment to go thru for the final or the cruise planner items so I called the C and A Desk and an agent handled it. On 6/22, I suddenly had a cruise balance due of the amount of my cruise planner purchases. Another hour on the phone. Resolutions has put in an “IT ticket” which may take weeks to resolve and has extended he final payment date (which of course I’ve already paid).  Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. 

[bobmacliberty]

I know the term SNAFU originated in the military, but it often fits Royal equally well.  Sorry to those who have to go through this colossal waste of time.

[jagsfan]

On 6/14/2022 at 9:00 PM, Biker19 said:

Seems to come up almost weekly. Not only might your cruise be canceled, but all your planner purchases. While the cruise can be reinstated  the planner items can’t. As mentioned, try to pay the balance. 

I had a zero balance in my March cruise. Also lift and shifted from ‘20 to ‘21 to ‘22. 
A couple of weeks before my cruise I got an email saying because my plans changed Royal was refunding my purchases.
I had no clue what was going on. 
I called and was told my TA was notified I was in danger of cancellation. They say they were not notified. 
I asked what the balance was. It was for a purchase I didn’t make. I was told it was an error. 
So I spent more than an hour uncanceling my cruise. Luckily my cabin was still available. Then came getting me to a zero balance again. 
My Voom, of course was higher but I was told they couldn’t help that. Told  me to buy it again and then work on getting the price lowered. 
C&A fixed the Voom. 

Somehow we also wound up with OBC that I still don’t think we were entitled to, but Guest Services said to spend it, so I  did. 
It didn’t quite make up for the fright I was given or the more than an hour on the phone. 

[screwsmcernst]

What I really don't understand is how a MAJOR company like RCI can have such a horrible IT department.  This is not a post covid thing, RCI (and Celebrity as well) have had terrible IT issues and their websites have  not been user friendly for years.