New to Platinum - help with dinner reservations

[cruise4family]

Hi to all,

After my cruise this month, I will finally be Platinum.  My cruise in February gives me 4 Free at Sea dinners (I booked this 12 day a long time ago).  I know I will be entitled to 2 Platinum dinners and understand that the information for the dinners will be in my stateroom.

My question is this -- when the February cruise opens up for dinner reservations, can I make reservations for the 4 FAS meals as well as the Platinum meals?  Or do I have to wait until I'm on the the ship to reserve the Platinum meals?

I understand the limitations of the Platinum meals versus the FAS regarding number of apps, etc.

Thank you for any information.

[BirdTravels]

You book all of your dinners exactly 120 days prior to departure. The decision of how to pay for the dinner (FAS, platinum, room charge) is made at time of dining. 
 

Remember to book fixed price dinners first (Teppanyaki, Moderno). Then everything else. The two platinum dinners can be done at any restaurant. Currently, you can not make more than one reservation for the same restaurant online. You have to call to make two or more. 
 

BTW: we ordered extra apps for our platinum dinners last week and were not charged. 

Edited October 19, 2022 by BirdTravels

[Vacationlover2]

Curious as to why you should book fixed price first. I am in the same boat (no pun intended) with op as I will also be Platinum for the first time in my March cruise.

[stefmaia]

16 minutes ago, Vacationlover2 said:

Curious as to why you should book fixed price first. I am in the same boat (no pun intended) with op as I will also be Platinum for the first time in my March cruise.

 

 

To put it as simply as possible.

FAS dinners are applied to your reservations in the order they are booked. The price is set at Teppanyaki and Moderno, one price eat all you want, easy. Booked and done, can immediately zero out.

The others are "a la carte" in other words, once they know how much the bill is for, they will "zero out" your bill on board. So reserve and wait.

The wondrous awesomeness of the NCL booking program has only one focus, and that is to charge you for anything with a set price that is not immediately zeroed out by the FAS.

That does not mean you have to eat at Teppanyaki and Moderno first, just book then first.

[BirdTravels]

1 hour ago, Vacationlover2 said:

Curious as to why you should book fixed price first. I am in the same boat (no pun intended) with op as I will also be Platinum for the first time in my March cruise.

Quirk of the NCL planner. It knows nothing of your platinum dinners. And won’t charge you for fixed priced restaurants if it thinks you have FAS dinners left. Otherwise it charges you for the dinners. You can get refund at time of dining, but you get stuck with OBC. 

[CaptainBazz]

38 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

Quirk of the NCL planner. It knows nothing of your platinum dinners. And won’t charge you for fixed priced restaurants if it thinks you have FAS dinners left. Otherwise it charges you for the dinners. You can get refund at time of dining, but you get stuck with OBC. 

Sorry but I have to disagree...we are Platinum and on a 7 day cruise book our 2 FAS and 2 Platinum dinners 125 days out and have never been charged. Did this 4 times in the last 10 months.

[Sand and Seas]

2 hours ago, CaptainBazz said:

Sorry but I have to disagree...we are Platinum and on a 7 day cruise book our 2 FAS and 2 Platinum dinners 125 days out and have never been charged. Did this 4 times in the last 10 months.

The charge comes only if you are booking a flat fee restaurant like Teppanyaki or Moderno after you have booked the number of your FAS meals.  That's why you are advised to book them first.  Then no fee charged.   BirdTravels is correct.

[CaptainBazz]

12 hours ago, Sand and Seas said:

The charge comes only if you are booking a flat fee restaurant like Teppanyaki or Moderno after you have booked the number of your FAS meals.  That's why you are advised to book them first.  Then no fee charged.   BirdTravels is correct.

Sorry...but that is not what @BirdTravels said..she said "It knows nothing of your platinum dinners" which is not correct...I booked my FAS and Platinum dinners and was not charged. Or I am missing something in what was said?

[bookbabe]

16 minutes ago, CaptainBazz said:

Sorry...but that is not what @BirdTravels said..she said "It knows nothing of your platinum dinners" which is not correct...I booked my FAS and Platinum dinners and was not charged. Or I am missing something in what was said?

It didn’t charge you for the fixed charge places because it thinks you are using your FAS for those, and it didn’t charge you for the a la carte places because it doesn’t know what you are eating yet.  

I have an upcoming cruise where I have no FAS dinners, just my platinum ones, and I couldn’t book Moderna unless I paid for it up front, and they wanted to charge me for a party of 4 because they don’t have any advance reservations for three, so I skipped making the reservation and will just book on board. Tried online and by phone.  Same result either way.

Edited October 20, 2022 by bookbabe

[KeithJenner]

33 minutes ago, CaptainBazz said:

Sorry...but that is not what @BirdTravels said..she said "It knows nothing of your platinum dinners" which is not correct...I booked my FAS and Platinum dinners and was not charged. Or I am missing something in what was said?

The booking system knows nothing of your latitudes meals. You are charged the full amount due for any bookings that you make after the number of free at sea meals you have.

 

However, the full amount due for booking such meals is zero at every restaurant other than Teppanyaki and Moderno. For those restaurants you would be charged the cover charge.

 

So, in your position where you have two FAS and two latitudes, if you book Cagney, Le Bistro, La Cucina and Teppanyaki then you would get charged the cost of Teppanyaki if you booked them in that order, but if you booked Teppanyaki first then it would be covered by FAS so there would be no charge for booking.

 

It’s been that way for years. The link in my signature is the second version of the post I made to explain it (and other things).

[CaptainBazz]

Thanks @bookbabe and @KeithJenner...I understand now what @BirdTravels was saying. I never book Teppanyaki but have booked Moderno. I guess I must have booked that first or second because I have never been charged. I will watch for that going forward. You learn something everyday 😊

[seemoreroyals]

We did our dinner reservations some time back with CAS.  This will be our first time platinum on our sailing in mid November.   Being a 7 day cruise we have 2 platinum and 2 FAS  specialty dinners.  When I booked them I booked them in order of the days on the cruise when we would be using them.  Last one I booked was at Teppanyaki.  So, it looks like we will have to go to customer service and get this resolved towards the end of our cruise.

 

When I called back to CAS the other day and explained my dilemma,  I was told I had nothing to worry about as when I booked it with them I clearly let them know which of the dinners I reserved were platinum benefit dinners and which ones were free at sea dinners.  

 

I guess we will see.  I will be watching our portfolio to see what happens.  

[KeithJenner]

2 hours ago, seemoreroyals said:

We did our dinner reservations some time back with CAS.  This will be our first time platinum on our sailing in mid November.   Being a 7 day cruise we have 2 platinum and 2 FAS  specialty dinners.  When I booked them I booked them in order of the days on the cruise when we would be using them.  Last one I booked was at Teppanyaki.  So, it looks like we will have to go to customer service and get this resolved towards the end of our cruise.

 

When I called back to CAS the other day and explained my dilemma,  I was told I had nothing to worry about as when I booked it with them I clearly let them know which of the dinners I reserved were platinum benefit dinners and which ones were free at sea dinners.  

 

I guess we will see.  I will be watching our portfolio to see what happens.  

Did they charge you when you booked your meals? It isn't clear whether you are wondering whether you will get any payment back or whether you are worried you may get charged.

 

You certainly won't end up being charged. You have four included meals and you have four meals booked, so unless you decide to add another then they will be covered. There is no need to let them know when booking how you will be paying. That is decided at the time of dining. The discussion that we are having is regarding whether they take a payment on reservation, not whether there will be a charge in the end. If you have paid on reservation then you will get it back. If you haven't made a reservation payment then you are sorted.

[seemoreroyals]

31 minutes ago, KeithJenner said:

Did they charge you when you booked your meals? It isn't clear whether you are wondering whether you will get any payment back or whether you are worried you may get charged.

 

You certainly won't end up being charged. You have four included meals and you have four meals booked, so unless you decide to add another then they will be covered. There is no need to let them know when booking how you will be paying. That is decided at the time of dining. The discussion that we are having is regarding whether they take a payment on reservation, not whether there will be a charge in the end. If you have paid on reservation then you will get it back. If you haven't made a reservation payment then you are sorted.

 

I was not charged while booking.  Post #10 is similar to our situation in that Teppanyaki was the last of the 4 SD's we booked.  We have 2 FAS's and 2 PLAT's.   In reading this discussion it seems that since I booked a fixed charge place last ( Teppanyaki ),  that there will be some extra charges on our folio because I did not book them in the proper order originally.

[ggTexasGal]

8 minutes ago, seemoreroyals said:

 

I was not charged while booking.  Post #10 is similar to our situation in that Teppanyaki was the last of the 4 SD's we booked.  We have 2 FAS's and 2 PLAT's.   In reading this discussion it seems that since I booked a fixed charge place last ( Teppanyaki ),  that there will be some extra charges on our folio because I did not book them in the proper order originally.

This should not present a problem to you onboard, since you can use either FAS or Latitudes in almost every restaurant now (since the rules changed recently)!

[seemoreroyals]

14 minutes ago, ggTexasGal said:

This should not present a problem to you onboard, since you can use either FAS or Latitudes in almost every restaurant now (since the rules changed recently)!

 

That is what I was thinking as well.   I am concerned though after reading post #5 by @BirdTravels and post #7 by @Sand and Seas.   

[ggTexasGal]

1 minute ago, seemoreroyals said:

That is what I was thinking as well.   I am concerned though after reading post #5 by @BirdTravels and post #7 by @Sand and Seas.   

They are both correct in what they stated.

You just need to use your perks in the best way possible.  The main thing is that, recently, the "Platinum certificates" rules changed.  Therefore there are fewer restrictions!

They can help you at the Host/Hostess desk(s) if you are still uncertain about the order you need to use your perks!  If you were not billed anything when you booked your restaurants, you should not have a problem, unless you order outside of the "one Starter, one Main, and a dessert" rules that some wait staff use. (Even then, there have been people who have stated that they were not charged any extra.)

[KeithJenner]

2 hours ago, seemoreroyals said:

 

I was not charged while booking.  Post #10 is similar to our situation in that Teppanyaki was the last of the 4 SD's we booked.  We have 2 FAS's and 2 PLAT's.   In reading this discussion it seems that since I booked a fixed charge place last ( Teppanyaki ),  that there will be some extra charges on our folio because I did not book them in the proper order originally.

As I said in my post that you quoted, we are talking about getting charged AT THE TIME OF BOOKING. There is no impact on the final amount that you will be charged for the meal. Anyone who does get charged when booking will have the charge refunded onboard and if they aren’t charged when booking then there will be nothing to pay onboard.

 

It seems, from what you say, that CAS don’t charge you when booking, regardless of the order you book them in (maybe because the rep actually booked them in the correct order) in which case this whole discussion would be irrelevant to you anyway, but once again this is a discussion about whether you pay a deposit, but that deposit is refunded anyway.