Help with never ending FCC fiasco

[ludocdoc]

Short: Had a family cruise booked for June 2020 -MIL's 75th BDay, and it was cancelled by RCL per COVID. Took forever to get FCCS straight, and rebooked 3 cabins for June 2022. My wife got cancer and we cancelled befor ethey changed the friendly policy. It's been 10 months and we still dont have FCCs right. Our travel agent has escalated through RCL, but they keep delaying, are full of excuses... meanwhile we cant book our next cruise. How can I escalate this?

 

More details: Booked the 2020 cruise with gift cards, which they say made it hard to give us the original FCCS. They never refunded the original taxes. We were paid in full for the 2022 cruise when the cancer came. We cancelled in March while RCL was still permitting no penaly cancellations. My wife was in the infusion center getting chemo on sail day :(. She's ok now and we'd like to re-re schedule. 

 

We had applied FCCs for the 3 cabins, plus had to pay extra out of pocket on final payment because of course, even with 25% bonus on the originla FCCs, costs were way up. We had beverage packages. 

RCL refunded one of the 3 cabins final payments (the tiny $60 one) and the soda package for one cabin.

RCL hasnt refunded the $500 and $400 final payments for the other cabins.

RCL says they refunded the original taxes from 2019 and the larger beverage package, but... nope. They refunded $9,9 and 10 fragemnts, but not the hundres of original price.

Each cabin has 5 FCCS (for 2 people) and none add up to the right amounts. Overall, we're $600 + short on the FCC side and $1300+ short on the cash side.

 

I used to be able to get through to RCL, and hear their excuses and promises to get back to me in 7 days, which they never do. Now I cant get through at all. My travel agent is working hard and getting the run around. She's escalated to management, but it's been ten months of effort and as we do this, the price for the cruise that we want to book on keeps going up and up, and cabins are vanishing. 

 

Any suggestions on getting action on this? Twitter, facebook have yielded nothing. 

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by ludocdoc

[S.A.M.J.R.]

I'm sorry you're going through this.  I have no practical advice, aside from working with your TA and possibly sending an email to the mbayley address (if you search this board, I know it's been mentioned a couple times).

 

One thing that jumps out to me (if you end up copying/pasting what you wrote)... you mention your June 2019 cruise was cancelled by RCI because of Covid.  Covid didn't hit the US until January 2020.  You might want to double check your dates. 

[ludocdoc]

3 minutes ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

I'm sorry you're going through this.  I have no practical advice, aside from working with your TA and possibly sending an email to the mbayley address (if you search this board, I know it's been mentioned a couple times).

 

One thing that jumps out to me (if you end up copying/pasting what you wrote)... you mention your June 2019 cruise was cancelled by RCI because of Covid.  Covid didn't hit the US until January 2020.  You might want to double check your dates. 

 Yup. Was 2020 cruise, booked n 2019. ty.

Edited January 31, 2023 by ludocdoc

[Biker19]

51 minutes ago, ludocdoc said:

Any suggestions on getting action on this?

A concise email to mbayley@rccl.com.

[Ourusualbeach]

52 minutes ago, ludocdoc said:

Short: Had a family cruise booked for June 2020 -MIL's 75th BDay, and it was cancelled by RCL per COVID. Took forever to get FCCS straight, and rebooked 3 cabins for June 2022. My wife got cancer and we cancelled befor ethey changed the friendly policy. It's been 10 months and we still dont have FCCs right. Our travel agent has escalated through RCL, but they keep delaying, are full of excuses... meanwhile we cant book our next cruise. How can I escalate this?

 

More details: Booked the 2020 cruise with gift cards, which they say made it hard to give us the original FCCS. They never refunded the original taxes. We were paid in full for the 2022 cruise when the cancer came. We cancelled in March while RCL was still permitting no penaly cancellations. My wife was in the infusion center getting chemo on sail day :(. She's ok now and we'd like to re-re schedule. 

 

We had applied FCCs for the 3 cabins, plus had to pay extra out of pocket on final payment because of course, even with 25% bonus on the originla FCCs, costs were way up. We had beverage packages. 

RCL refunded one of the 3 cabins final payments (the tiny $60 one) and the soda package for one cabin.

RCL hasnt refunded the $500 and $400 final payments for the other cabins.

RCL says they refunded the original taxes from 2019 and the larger beverage package, but... nope. They refunded $9,9 and 10 fragemnts, but not the hundres of original price.

Each cabin has 5 FCCS (for 2 people) and none add up to the right amounts. Overall, we're $600 + short on the FCC side and $1300+ short on the cash side.

 

I used to be able to get through to RCL, and hear their excuses and promises to get back to me in 7 days, which they never do. Now I cant get through at all. My travel agent is working hard and getting the run around. She's escalated to management, but it's been ten months of effort and as we do this, the price for the cruise that we want to book on keeps going up and up, and cabins are vanishing. 

 

Any suggestions on getting action on this? Twitter, facebook have yielded nothing. 

 

send an e mail to mbayley@rccl.com  Someone in the executive office will help ensure that you get this resolved.

[jbrinkm]

I'd include a dated grid of payments made and payments received back with any specific notations that seem relevent (i.e. paid with gift cards).

[Cruiser_1977]

I concur with all of the above. I would email mbayley with what you mentioned in your original post and include a spreadsheet with dates and amounts paid and via which method. Then include the same for refunds. I would also attach receipts and supporting documents you may have from RCCL to support the payments and refunds. Please make sure you are polite/courteous, concise and clear. As the Executive Assistant to a CEO, I assure you those things matter.

[ludocdoc]

I've actually got a google spreadsheet for them. The gift cards saved me 15%, but wow what a hassle. Given that after the cards, I had correct FCCS from the 2020 cruise, I think they should be irrelevant, but RCL seems to have their own convoluted process.

 

I'm impressed by the $9, $10, refunds. One was a partial refund for a $280 beverage package - they kept the other 270. It's not enough to be tips, so .... what the heck?  THanks, will email the CEO.

[ludocdoc]

Hi followers. I got a response from RCL - an admin in the CEOs office Feb 2, and nothing since. I've emailed once a week asking for an update and... crickets. Any ideas?

[ludocdoc]

CEO's office turfed it back to my travel agent who has been trying to get RCL to fix this for a year now. Of course, nobody cares about my money as much as me - which is the RCL strategy - my TA isnt going to battle them for my missing $1000. She just accepts their BS about "give us 7-10 days to reaserch this" and then they come back with nothing. So I remain out $1000 cash and nearly $1000 in FCCs, a year into this.

[Cigar King]

I mean seriously, what do you expect us to do?  

 

[ludocdoc]

Be a resource. Share solutions that have worked for experienced cruisers. Get public exposure for a major RCL fail. 

[Dewaldcruiser]

I had a similar problem with Royal Caribbean over covid cancelation FCC of about $1800.  I had to file with the Florida Better Business Bureau to finally get it resolved in my favor.  Sometime it takes bad publicity to get sticky issues resolved with Royal Caribbean.