Can we use our TA’s OBC to pay daily gratuities?

[Ken the cruiser]

Hopefully, an easy question as we have only cruised once with NCL and that was 5 years ago. We are going to have enough OBC posted to our onboard account by our TA to pay for our daily gratuities for our Club Balcony cabin. Can we use our TA’s nonrefundable OBC to pay those gratuities?

[Ken the cruiser]

Since I didn’t get any responses yet, I will assume we can use our TA OBC to pay for our daily gratuity charges to our shipboard account. 😁

[hallux]

If the OBC is refundable - yes.  If it's non-refundable - no.

 

Here's a thread from February, there are others as well..

 

23 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Since I didn’t get any responses yet, I will assume we can use our TA OBC to pay for our daily gratuity charges to our shipboard account. 😁

Not everyone is constantly monitoring the forum, the people that know were likely not online during those 80 minutes your thread was active before making your own decision...

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, hallux said:

If the OBC is refundable - yes.  If it's non-refundable - no.

 

Here's a thread from February, there are others as well..

 

Which brings up another question. If a TA does post nonrefundable OBC to your account and you have already pre-paid for shore excursions using a credit card prior to the cruise, can you go to the Shore Excursions desk and “rebook” those prepaid excursions once onboard (if not sold out with a waiting list) using the nonrefundable OBC to in effect convert the nonrefundable OBC to refundable?
 

If so, one would think we should then be able to use our now refundable OBC to pay for our daily service (gratuity) charges.

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[MoCruiseFan]

6 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Hopefully, an easy question as we have only cruised once with NCL and that was 5 years ago. We are going to have enough OBC posted to our onboard account by our TA to pay for our daily gratuities for our Club Balcony cabin. Can we use our TA’s nonrefundable OBC to pay those gratuities?

 

 

There are no daily gratuities on NCL.  However if you have OBC that is refundable (no matter the source) you can us it to offset the DSC.  Nonrefundble, not so much.

[EllieinNJ]

Isn't all OBC given by a TA refundable?

[ziggyuk]

7 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Which brings up another question. If a TA does post nonrefundable OBC to your account and you have already pre-paid for shore excursions using a credit card prior to the cruise, can you go to the Shore Excursions desk and “rebook” those prepaid excursions once onboard (if not sold out with a waiting list) using the nonrefundable OBC to in effect convert the nonrefundable OBC to refundable?
 

If so, one would think we should then be able to use our now refundable OBC to pay for our daily service (gratuity) charges.

 

 

You would need to cancel and rebook the shore excursions within the allowed 48hr time period, if done after boarding it would be refunded to your onboard account as a refundable OBC which you can withdraw as cash. If you cancel before arrival in port it will be refunded to your credit card.

A refundable OBC can also be used for the DSC as you say.

Edited September 7, 2022 by ziggyuk

[hallux]

9 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

But I am relatively new to the NCL forum and had not seen this question addressed in the relatively short time I’ve been following it

and that's where the search box comes in.  Using the search term of OBC, refundable OBC or even non-refundable OBC and targeting thread topics you could have found posts discussing such in about 10 minutes rather than waiting over an hour, especially if time was important...

[hallux]

1 hour ago, EllieinNJ said:

Isn't all OBC given by a TA refundable?

no, I actually think non-refundable is more common.

7 hours ago, MoCruiseFan said:

There are no daily gratuities on NCL

 

7 hours ago, MoCruiseFan said:

DSC

while DSC is actually DISCRETIONARY Service Charge, it's often interchanged with the term 'gratuities' to normalize it with what other brands may call it.

[ggTexasGal]

Some people believe that OBC and FCC are interchangeable terms, which leads to the need for further explanations, since they certainly are NOT on NCL!

 

NCL posts lots of "Terms and Conditions" (Onboard Credit, Future Cruise Credit, Cruise Next Certificate and Cruise First Certificate), which are each very lengthy (and not particularly well written).

Also, the T&Cs are, generally, at the bottom of an already lengthy page.  It's not surprising that people seek a "quick and easy" clarification.

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, ziggyuk said:

 

You would need to cancel and rebook the shore excursions within the allowed 48hr time period, if done after boarding it would be refunded to your onboard account as a refundable OBC which you can withdraw as cash. If you cancel before arrival in port it will be refunded to your credit card.

A refundable OBC can also be used for the DSC as you say.

Thanks! That's now our plan B if we can't get our TA to either pre-purchase the DSC for our B2B or give us a rebate check prior to sailing. We used to do this on Oceania cruises awhile back before they changed their policy of allowing guests to pre-book excursions with OBC on their pre-cruise account issued either through an O perk or SHB. 

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, ggTexasGal said:

Some people believe that OBC and FCC are interchangeable terms, which leads to the need for further explanations, since they certainly are NOT on NCL!

 

NCL posts lots of "Terms and Conditions" (Onboard Credit, Future Cruise Credit, Cruise Next Certificate and Cruise First Certificate), which are each very lengthy (and not particularly well written).

Also, the T&Cs are, generally, at the bottom of an already lengthy page.  It's not surprising that people seek a "quick and easy" clarification.

You're so right! Each cruise line has their own "ever evolving" passenger strategy and that's where CC has been so valuable for us when it comes to learning about some of them. When we first started sailing with HAL back in 2012, we never knew we could "refare" a booking if the price had gone down until we sailed with them 5 times. I know, who knew!! 😂

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[Ken the cruiser]

I want to thank everyone that contributed to this thread so far to help us understand more about how NCL deals with their Onboard Service Charges (aka Gratuities on some of the other cruise lines we sail with), especially when it comes to paying for them once onboard with OBC we receive from our TA.

 

One thing this knowledge has helped us with is to now ask our TA if they will pay for our Onboard Service Charge in advance of our upcoming cruise in lieu of giving us OBC as a booking perk, especially if it’s nonrefundable. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, we will have a positive answer to our question. 😁

 

http://www.ncl.com/cruise-faq/what-is-onboard-service-charge

[prov2727]

On 9/7/2022 at 8:00 AM, ggTexasGal said:

Some people believe that OBC and FCC are interchangeable terms, which leads to the need for further explanations, since they certainly are NOT on NCL!

 

NCL posts lots of "Terms and Conditions" (Onboard Credit, Future Cruise Credit, Cruise Next Certificate and Cruise First Certificate), which are each very lengthy (and not particularly well written).

Also, the T&Cs are, generally, at the bottom of an already lengthy page.  It's not surprising that people seek a "quick and easy" clarification.

And then there are FCC which are not FCCs only discounts or coupons which if not all used at once are forfeited. Not that they ever tell you that until you go to use it and they tell you it is gone.

[Ken the cruiser]

16 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

One thing this knowledge has helped us with is to now ask our TA if they will pay for our Onboard Service Charge in advance of our upcoming cruise in lieu of giving us OBC as a booking perk, especially if it’s nonrefundable. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, we will have a positive answer to our question. 😁

Just heard from our wonderful TA, and they did one better. They converted their original nonrefundable OBC perk given to us for booking the NCL B2B with them to a Cash Back perk once we told them our issue! Yes!! 

[ontheweb]

10 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Just heard from our wonderful TA, and they did one better. They converted their original nonrefundable OBC perk given to us for booking the NCL B2B with them to a Cash Back perk once we told them our issue! Yes!! 

Let us hear it for wonderful TAs. HOORAY!

[Ken the cruiser]

1 minute ago, ontheweb said:

Let us hear it for wonderful TAs. HOORAY!

Yay!! It took a while, but we finally found one we very much enjoy working with!! 🕺🕺

[MoCruiseFan]

21 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

I want to thank everyone that contributed to this thread so far to help us understand more about how NCL deals with their Onboard Service Charges (aka Gratuities on some of the other cruise lines we sail with), especially when it comes to paying for them once onboard with OBC we receive from our TA.

 

One thing this knowledge has helped us with is to now ask our TA if they will pay for our Onboard Service Charge in advance of our upcoming cruise in lieu of giving us OBC as a booking perk, especially if it’s nonrefundable. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, we will have a positive answer to our question. 😁

 

http://www.ncl.com/cruise-faq/what-is-onboard-service-charge

 

I hope you have a fantastic time on NCL and come back to cruise many times!

[Ken the cruiser]

36 minutes ago, MoCruiseFan said:

 

I hope you have a fantastic time on NCL and come back to cruise many times!

Thanks! We’re definitely looking forward to our Jade cruise through the Suez Canal and along the coast of East Africa starting in late November. Even more so now since we’ve learned about what you can and can’t use a TA’s nonrefundable OBC for. We’ve also learned recently on the NCL forum about some of the unique aspects of booking a NCL cruise onboard, which for us might be a July 2024 cruise on the NCL Star to Longyearbyen, if they decide to release the itineraries before our cruise ends.
 

Since cruising started back up we’ve cruised over 130 days with Celebrity and Princess. But this cruise caught my DW’s eye when it first came out in Dec 2020 and thought we’d give NCL a try again. I’m 70 and my DW is just a few years behind and we enjoy longer cruises, so this B2B definitely hit all the right buttons.
 

My plan is to do a “Live From” thread while we’re on the Jade, so hopefully we’ll have a great time and be able to share some great moments along the way!

 

[jessMN74]

I haven't read all the responses but I just applied or FCC (from Covid 2019 canceled cruise) to travel insurance, daily service charge, and excursions and the beverage package premium plus package. It has to be applied up by 12/31/2022 and sail date before 5/2023 or you lose it. The only thing I was not able to use it for so far was the extra star bucks package. Hope this helps someone 🙂