Buyer Beware - Viking Vouchers & TripMate

[takingster]

Pre covid my wife and I were scheduled on a Viking Homelands cruise.  When the trip was cancelled we accepted the vouchers and applied them to the Homelands cruise this past August. Unfortunately my wife fell and broke her hip after arriving in Europe. A  claim was filed with TripMate.  Apparently Viking and TripMate do not feel there is any "cash value" associated with these vouchers!  I don't agree with that as Viking agreed to keep my cash so that I could use their voucher as a future credit.

 

I would encourage everyone to reconsider agreeing to accept a voucher from Viking. Or make certain you can afford to lose it's value if filing a claim with TripMate.

[shadowlover]

Thats not good.  I hope viking does well by you.  They should have made that clear when you purchased the insurance through viking.

[keokukjoe]

45 minutes ago, takingster said:

Pre covid my wife and I were scheduled on a Viking Homelands cruise.  When the trip was cancelled we accepted the vouchers and applied them to the Homelands cruise this past August. Unfortunately my wife fell and broke her hip after arriving in Europe. A  claim was filed with TripMate.  Apparently Viking and TripMate do not feel there is any "cash value" associated with these vouchers!  I don't agree with that as Viking agreed to keep my cash so that I could use their voucher as a future credit.

 

I would encourage everyone to reconsider agreeing to accept a voucher from Viking. Or make certain you can afford to lose it's value if filing a claim with TripMate.

In the future I recommend that you speak to Steve at the Trip Insurance Store. He has policies that cover the value of the vouchers. He's very detail oriented. Also his policies are less expensive than TripMate and if you need to make a claim, he and his staff intervenes and gets things processed correctly. 

[CCWineLover]

51 minutes ago, takingster said:

Pre covid my wife and I were scheduled on a Viking Homelands cruise.  When the trip was cancelled we accepted the vouchers and applied them to the Homelands cruise this past August. Unfortunately my wife fell and broke her hip after arriving in Europe. A  claim was filed with TripMate.  Apparently Viking and TripMate do not feel there is any "cash value" associated with these vouchers!  I don't agree with that as Viking agreed to keep my cash so that I could use their voucher as a future credit.

 

I would encourage everyone to reconsider agreeing to accept a voucher from Viking. Or make certain you can afford to lose it's value if filing a claim with TripMate.

I am so sorry for you.

One of the great things about Cruise Critic is that this topic has been discussed at length on various threads and that is where I learned about the voucher-no value issue.

As such, I use Steve at The Trip Insurance Store to buy insurance to cover the voucher portion of trips I have upcoming that have vouchers on them.

 

Debating whether vouchers should have value or not is of little use.  It is what it is, and at least most of us are aware of that now, after 2 years of COVID cancellations and vouchers.  Everyone has to make their own decisions regarding vouchers. 

 

I'm so sorry you did not know this ahead of time - as you likely would have insured the extra portion of your cruise covered by vouchers.

[Heidi13]

41 minutes ago, takingster said:

Pre covid my wife and I were scheduled on a Viking Homelands cruise.  When the trip was cancelled we accepted the vouchers and applied them to the Homelands cruise this past August. Unfortunately my wife fell and broke her hip after arriving in Europe. A  claim was filed with TripMate.  Apparently Viking and TripMate do not feel there is any "cash value" associated with these vouchers!  I don't agree with that as Viking agreed to keep my cash so that I could use their voucher as a future credit.

 

I would encourage everyone to reconsider agreeing to accept a voucher from Viking. Or make certain you can afford to lose it's value if filing a claim with TripMate.

 

This is common knowledge and has been discussed here many times.

 

If you purchase Viking's (Tripmate) insurance for a cruise that is partially paid for with FCV, you only pay the premium on the cash paid. This has been widely discussed on this Board.

 

When we booked a cruise with FCV's, I noted that the Tripmate premium was lower than expected, so our TA explained that Tripmate does not insure the FCV's, only the cash paid. Since your first cruise was cancelled and you accepted FCV, your TA should have explained the insurance doesn't cover vouchers, or you should have noted the reduction and questioned the difference. If you don't use a TA then you are responsible for researching the relevant information, which is readily available.

 

If you wish to insure the FCV's you must purchase appropriate 3rd party insurance and pay premiums on the entire value.

 

Since many pax have used FCV's without issues, rather than discouraging others from accepting them, I'll suggest that prior to accepting vouchers, it pays to be a fully informed consumer, comprehending the risks and limitations involved. We have had multiple vouchers and Viking has operated as per the guidelines, which we knew in advance.

[Pegct]

I think many Viking customers have found out the downside of accepting vouchers instead of cash refunds when the cruising industry was shut down due to the Covid pandemic. Although vouchers offered a 25% premium over cash refunds the downside was cruise prices increased and customers gave up their right to decide how to spend voucher. Not many people expected pandemic to last so long and unexpected circumstances occurred to people who two years later that were now unable cruise. I consider myself a well informed consumer and had accepted multiple vouchers for cancelled cruises but never thought I would hear a Viking agent tell me I could not use a voucher as the deposit on a future cruise as it had “no cash value” after they had my money for 3 fully paid cruises for several years. I learned a valuable lesson to accept cash refunds only and will no longer consider booking and paying for any cruise way in advance. Viking offers a good travel experience but will explore other options based on how they dictated use of vouchers which have no cash value but which cost me a significant amount of money prior to the pandemic virus. 

[Squawkman]

With the exception that no one knew how long the pandemic would delay cruising, I have to totally disagree with your assessment. Like Heidi13, I found Viking’s FCVs to be very fair and worked very well - as long as one understands the conditions. We booked and rebooked and rebooked - in a few cases, where we changed our minds or Viking canceled/changed the itinerary. When rebooking, if the total cost of the new cruise exceeds the value of the FCV, yes, a deposit is due at booking - to assure you won’t change your mind as with any other booking. FCVs have different conditions, etc. and the it’s the user’s responsibility to check that out with their agent before accepting. We just used a FCV with a promo code and got a better deal than we did the first time in addition to 25%.

[CurlerRob]

6 hours ago, Pegct said:

never thought I would hear a Viking agent tell me I could not use a voucher as the deposit on a future cruise as it had “no cash value” ... will explore other options based on how they dictated use of vouchers ...

 

Regarding your intention to look elsewhere - a word of caution. My personal experience is that it is an industry practice to not accept vouchers in place of down payments - I had exactly that happen on a different line, who insisted that a new cash deposit was required before applying my voucher. I was astonished but got nowhere, even though this does not seem to be a written condition anywhere that I could find.

 

Regarding your other points, I'm afraid I'm in the 'limited sympathy' camp. When we accepted vouchers from several lines, it was very clear what the risks we were assuming in exchange for the increased value of the FCVs. I don't hold the lines responsible for my assumptions regarding the length of the pandemic, my ability to use the FCVs or the decisions I made to accept them. 🍺🥌

[zalusky]

We had to cancel a Midnight Sun cruise this summer due to catching Covid right before.   We made a point of going the insurance route vs the voucher route.   We eventually got the money after 60 days or so and wound up using it on an itinerary on a competitor line that happen to open up for later this year.  We could not have done that with vouchers.   Viking did not offer this itinerary.

[powderhorn]

I did some shopping for cancellation insurance for a cruise we have coming up on Viking 'paid' entirely using FCVs and promos. Original cash payment to Viking happened in November last year for a cruise we had to cancel. CAA and Manulife don't cover vouchers, however, travel guard does. Their response to my query as follows:  "Our insurance is able to cover the value of credits or vouchers as long as you paid cash for the original tickets.  If so, you can insure the entire value of that voucher using our insurance."

So it looks like you can get insurance for vouchers in Canada anyway....buyer beware for sure.....