Speciality Dining Package Questions

[lx200gps]

We'll be on the Equinox to the ABCs in late May, for our second Celebrity trip. We prefer to eat in the Specialty restaurants on most nights on cruises, and so are looking at one of the dining packages being offered. The X web site even has a small discount of 7 or 8% for each package if purchased pre-cruise rather than once on board. For this particular trip, we find ourselves with a massive amount of OBC and would prefer to use it to book the dining package.  If we book the package on-line now, will we be able to apply the OBC we have, or will the system demand a Credit Card payment and not tie the purchase to our OBC?  If so, we would presumably have to wait until we board, forgo the small discount, at which point I would expect the use of our OBC would be a non-issue.  Thanks in advance....

[dgparent]

You can use OBC we just did that for our cruise in March, in fact the default is to use your OBC, same as excursions

[RichYak]

1 hour ago, lx200gps said:

If we book the package on-line now, will we be able to apply the OBC

You'll be able to use your Celebrity provided OBC as payment. Any TA provided OBC won't be available until after you board.

[jwlane]

36 minutes ago, dgparent said:

 in fact the default is to use your OBC, same as excursions

Not so.  There are multiple posts on this forum where posters complain about having to cancel cruise planner purchases that posted to their credit card (default) because they failed to choose OBC as default payment method.

[LGW59]

2 minutes ago, jwlane said:

Not so.  There are multiple posts on this forum where posters complain about having to cancel cruise planner purchases that posted to their credit card (default) because they failed to choose OBC as default payment method.

So in other words they made a mistake when checking out.

[RichYak]

7 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

So in other words they made a mistake when checking out.

Yes, assuming that OBC will automatically be used first is a mistake.

[lx200gps]

1 hour ago, RichYak said:

You'll be able to use your Celebrity provided OBC as payment. Any TA provided OBC won't be available until after you board.

That's important to know, thanks for the heads up.  We have more than enough OBC from both X and our TA that either can cover the dining package, and if we can only use the X OBC pre-cruise, that SHOULD be OK.  I say should because I just reminded myself that the Celebrity OBC is from us having selected the Elevate Package many months ago, and IIRC that OBC was for shore excursions.  When I look at our Celebrity invoice however, it just says OBC and makes no mention of it being restricted to just shorexs, so I imagine we should be OK to use it for the dining package.

[Chardonnay Char]

My TA made it clear that the onboard credit the company is giving us would not show up until Day 2.  So if I want to book specialty dining in advance, it will go on my credit card -- not on the OB credit account.  So I will have to wait and take my chances.

[RichYak]

6 hours ago, lx200gps said:

That's important to know, thanks for the heads up.  We have more than enough OBC from both X and our TA that either can cover the dining package, and if we can only use the X OBC pre-cruise, that SHOULD be OK.  I say should because I just reminded myself that the Celebrity OBC is from us having selected the Elevate Package many months ago, and IIRC that OBC was for shore excursions.  When I look at our Celebrity invoice however, it just says OBC and makes no mention of it being restricted to just shorexs, so I imagine we should be OK to use it for the dining package.

IME OBC is OBC and as you imagined, there should be no restriction on how it’s used. It’s also important to note that when you purchase a multi night specialty dining package, there’s no way to make reservations until you board. 

[lx200gps]

12 hours ago, Chardonnay Char said:

My TA made it clear that the onboard credit the company is giving us would not show up until Day 2.  So if I want to book specialty dining in advance, it will go on my credit card -- not on the OB credit account.  So I will have to wait and take my chances.

Our Celebrity invoice mentions this second-day restriction as well, though in our case, it says "...Please note that $50 US will appear on your on board account as of the 2nd day of sailing"  so we should be OK