I couldn’t believe the story about NCL

[ontheweb]

4 hours ago, ontheweb said:

or maybe because they don't care as long as they have the money from the fully paid cruise?

Quoting myself 🤣, I guess they now seem to care as I would bet they are not enjoying the bad publicity and beginning to wonder if it is worth it not to reverse this.

[ChiefMateJRK]

51 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

You have to wonder how much the article had to do with this.

The article itself?  Likely not much.

The article being posted on CC and resulting in seven pages of violent agreement that NCL behaved very badly in this situation?  Absolutely.

 

Any cruise line in their right mind will have somebody monitoring the number one cruise forum for press (both bad and good).  Part of me believes that the eMuster is back for this very same reason.

[PATRLR]

3 hours ago, SeaShark said:

On me? lol. Again, if it isn't an insult, then why not use the alternate wording? Why the label? Who in the thread are you referring to as someone who "stands up for their cruise line no matter what the issue is"? 

 

Or...how should we address those who blame the cruise line no matter what the issue is? What is their non-insulting label?

 

What are you the word police?  I used the words I used because I wanted to use them.  

[UKstages]

2 hours ago, ngrund said:

I still don't get that she didn't realize she clicked on "add to cart" and was not just viewing the transfer.

 

i do.

 

that's because when i add something to my cart on amazon or any other e-commerce site, it doesn't demand payment and then cancel all the other merchandise that i've already paid for, but which hasn't yet shipped.

 

1 hour ago, ontheweb said:

You have to wonder how much the article had to do with this.

 

my own belief is that NCL is much more likely to monitor and pay attention to a 7-page thread on cruise critic than a consumer advocacy site, but that site certainly did get the ball rolling. bravo! my understanding is also that two popular youtube cruise personalities covered the story extensively.  that probably had a lot to do with it, too.

 

 

1 hour ago, Oldsweets said:

Having said that it still leaves NCL with a problem as far as I am concerned in that the opportunity to snare other unsuspecting customers at risk for a policy that seems most unfair at best

 

that's just it... they have no such policy. what they have is wonky and thoughtless web developers.

 

i can assure you that it was never NCL's intent to cancel fully paid reservations over an abandoned cart item. their app sucks and they are behind schedule in realizing it and taking appropriate action to make it a best in class booking tool.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by UKstages

[davencl]

9 minutes ago, UKstages said:

 

that's just it... they have no such policy. what they have is wonky and thoughtless web developers.

 

i can assure you that it was never NCL's intent to cancel fully paid reservations over an abandoned cart item. their app sucks and they are behind schedule in realizing it and taking appropriate action to make it a best in class booking tool.

 

 

Yes I agree the main cause is poor UI design.   I've had developers argue with me " it contains all the data  who cares what order it's in?"     

[ngrund]

13 minutes ago, UKstages said:

 

i do.

 

that's because when i add something to my cart on amazon or any other e-commerce site, it doesn't demand payment and then cancel all the other merchandise that i've already paid for, but which hasn't yet shipped.

 

 

 

Yes, I agree that she can certainly be "forgiven" for not knowing that NCL was going to expect immediate payment and that NCL should have been much more transparent about that, but she was saying she just looked at the price of the transfer and never added it to her cart at all-

[ChiefMateJRK]

3 minutes ago, ngrund said:

she was saying she just looked at the price of the transfer and never added it to her cart at all

I'm guessing that most of us don't believe that part.

[Oldsweets]

31 minutes ago, UKstages said:

 

i do.

 

that's because when i add something to my cart on amazon or any other e-commerce site, it doesn't demand payment and then cancel all the other merchandise that i've already paid for, but which hasn't yet shipped.

 

 

my own belief is that NCL is much more likely to monitor and pay attention to a 7-page thread on cruise critic than a consumer advocacy site, but that site certainly did get the ball rolling. bravo! my understanding is also that two popular youtube cruise personalities covered the story extensively.  that probably had a lot to do with it, too.

 

 

 

that's just it... they have no such policy. what they have is wonky and thoughtless web developers.

 

i can assure you that it was never NCL's intent to cancel fully paid reservations over an abandoned cart item. their app sucks and they are behind schedule in realizing it and taking appropriate action to make it a best in class booking tool.

 

 

I agree that the ap is poor but believe that at least some of NCL’s people believed it was ok to cancel with full penalty given the letter they sent which I posted below.  This Policy was confirmed by NCL by the Consumer Advocate in her attempts to resolve.  So had this policy and intent and that NCL had NO intention of reversing this decision except for the outcry on Cruise Critic and other sites.  So congratulations to the Consumer Advocate and to the Cruise Critic participants for helping change NCL’s mind on “THIS CASE”.  
NORWEGIAN
CRUISE LINE®
Ms. Evangella Koumanidis
US
Re: Norwegian Prima Voyage of 2/19/2023
Dear Ms. Koumanidis:
This is to further the previous correspondence and in response to your recent lotter.
Per our records, reservation
I was made via nel.com and was cancelled due to non-payment of ground
Transfers added on 1/29/23. Please see attached confirmation for your records. While wo sympathize with your situation and please understand that it is not our intent to cause any further distress, unfortunately, we are unable lo offer compensation or credit for the cancellation fees assessed lo your reservation. The terms and conditions governing our cancellation policy and applicable fees are outlined in our brochure. It would be
inconsistent for us to make exceptions when other passongers have cancelled and accepted these terms and apologize
for any disappointment in this rogard. Thank you for this opportunity to respond, once again. We trust our explanation will help you to understand our position
in this matter and hope you will consider Norwogian Cruise Line in your futuro travel plans.
Sincerely.
Roxane S.
Guest Experience Coordinator
Norwegian Cruise Line

Edited March 24, 2023 by Oldsweets

[ChiefMateJRK]

2 minutes ago, Oldsweets said:

I agree that the ap is poor but believe that at least some of NCL’s people believed it was ok to cancel with full penalty given the letter they sent which I posted below.  I also believe NCL had NO intention of reversing this decision except for the outcry on Cruise Critic and other sites.  
 

KNORWEGIAN
CRUISE LINE®
Ms. Evangella Koumanidis
US
Re: Norwegian Prima Voyage of 2/19/2023
Dear Ms. Koumanidis:
This is to further the previous correspondence and in response to your recent lotter.
Per our records, reservation
I was made via nel.com and was cancelled due to non-payment of ground
Transfers added on 1/29/23. Please see attached confirmation for your records. While wo sympathize with your situation and please understand that it is not our intent to cause any further distress, unfortunately, we are unable lo offer compensation or credit for the cancellation fees assessed lo your reservation. The terms and conditions governing our cancellation policy and applicable fees are outlined in our brochure. It would be
inconsistent for us to make exceptions when other passongers have cancelled and accepted these terms and apologize
for any disappointment in this rogard. Thank you for this opportunity to respond, once again. We trust our explanation will help you to understand our position
in this matter and hope you will consider Norwogian Cruise Line in your futuro travel plans.
Sincerely.
Roxane S.
Guest Experience Coordinator
Norwegian Cruise Line

Wow.  That letter is like the icing on the (crap)cake.

[julig22]

3 minutes ago, Oldsweets said:

Roxane S.

Guest Experience Coordinator
Norwegian Cruise Line

One thing that I've noticed is the disconnect between departments.  For future reference, Guest Services (Katy Byrd) would be where I would have gone. From my experience, not everyone has the ability to override system glitches or make policy decisions, which is understandable. Essentially,  my department, my rules, end of discussion.  

While I can only speculate just how far up the chain of command this went initially, I have an idea. And yes, Guest Services does have the authority, I have personally seen it in action.

[carohs]

1 hour ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Any cruise line in their right mind will have somebody monitoring the number one cruise forum for press (both bad and good).  Part of me believes that the eMuster is back for this very same reason.

I would certainly think the cruise lines pay attention to cruise critic! I hope that they also read all the talk on once daily service and make some adjustments to their changed policy. 

[UKstages]

1 hour ago, Oldsweets said:

I agree that the ap is poor but believe that at least some of NCL’s people believed it was ok to cancel with full penalty given the letter they sent which I posted below.  This Policy was confirmed by NCL by the Consumer Advocate in her attempts to resolve.

 

yes, absolutely, ALL of the NCL personnel involved believe that they could do this because they are not empowered to creatively problem solve, to think outside the box or to recognize when something isn't what it first appears. everybody who looked at this asked "what do we have here? oh, this is a simple case of somebody who didn't pay their balance." the question they should have been asking is "why do we think this customer owes us money? does she in fact owe us money?" if you create an app that cancels fully paid reservations under this scenario, you will always have customer resolution team members who will back up the behavior of the app. "well, that must be the policy. the app wouldn't have canceled the reservation if it wasn't appropriate... after all, it's a computer! computers don't make mistakes!"

 

the policy you keep referencing is a policy that says reservations not paid in full will get canceled within a certain time frame. there is no policy that states they will cancel your reservation if you attempt to add a product or service and the transaction falls through within that same time frame. there is a memo to travel agents explaining that this might happen... a defensive tactic presumably rolled out by NCL to warn travel agents of this unexpected app behavior. they built an app that follows their business rules regarding unpaid cancellation, but  never imagined that the app would actually follow those rules after a simple failed transaction. 

 

this is a failure of imagination.

 

few at NCL likely have direct experience with the app, few at NCL have likely made mock bookings in a test or staging environment. they could never imagine that a business policy would be misinterpreted to such disastrous results by their app. and they only know there's a problem when this sort of thing happens and people complain. then it takes weeks or months to rectify because they haven't prioritized web development. meanwhile, the front line customer resolution folks hold the company line... because they won't listen to the customer. if they did, they would have quickly realized that this thing is not like other problems of this type that they have handled.

Edited March 25, 2023 by UKstages

[Sinbadssailors]

It's ridiculous that the letter justifies this action by saying she didn't pay for transfers, (not the cruise itself.)

 

And doubles down on the terms and conditions blah blah blah. As if this situation made any sense.

 

Does this apply to all things in your cart? Can they keep my cruise fare if I fail to pay for a bon voyage package? A bottle of champagne?

 

Do I have to read multiple pages of fine print in order to be sure?

 

And it's inexcusable that they warned travel agents but not those who booked directly with NCL 

 

 

 

 

[fshagan]

4 hours ago, Sinbadssailors said:

Does this apply to all things in your cart? Can they keep my cruise fare if I fail to pay for a bon voyage package? A bottle of champagne?

 

No. There's a list of which unpaid charges in your cart will cancel the entire reservation at this post

 

[ontheweb]

12 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

The article itself?  Likely not much.

The article being posted on CC and resulting in seven pages of violent agreement that NCL behaved very badly in this situation?  Absolutely.

 

Any cruise line in their right mind will have somebody monitoring the number one cruise forum for press (both bad and good).  Part of me believes that the eMuster is back for this very same reason.

If it was not for the article, this thread would have never been started.

 

Also, we have to remember though we are all on cc because we are passionate about cruising, we are still just a small minority of the population of people who cruise.

[ontheweb]

10 hours ago, UKstages said:

 

yes, absolutely, ALL of the NCL personnel involved believe that they could do this because they are not empowered to creatively problem solve, to think outside the box or to recognize when something isn't what it first appears. everybody who looked at this asked "what do we have here? oh, this is a simple case of somebody who didn't pay their balance." the question they should have been asking is "why do we think this customer owes us money? does she in fact owe us money?" if you create an app that cancels fully paid reservations under this scenario, you will always have customer resolution team members who will back up the behavior of the app. "well, that must be the policy. the app wouldn't have canceled the reservation if it wasn't appropriate... after all, it's a computer! computers don't make mistakes!"

 

the policy you keep referencing is a policy that says reservations not paid in full will get canceled within a certain time frame. there is no policy that states they will cancel your reservation if you attempt to add a product or service and the transaction falls through within that same time frame. there is a memo to travel agents explaining that this might happen... a defensive tactic presumably rolled out by NCL to warn travel agents of this unexpected app behavior. they built an app that follows their business rules regarding unpaid cancellation, but  never imagined that the app would actually follow those rules after a simple failed transaction. 

 

this is a failure of imagination.

 

few at NCL likely have direct experience with the app, few at NCL have likely made mock bookings in a test or staging environment. they could never imagine that a business policy would be misinterpreted to such disastrous results by their app. and they only know there's a problem when this sort of thing happens and people complain. then it takes weeks or months to rectify because they haven't prioritized web development. meanwhile, the front line customer resolution folks hold the company line... because they won't listen to the customer. if they did, they would have quickly realized that this thing is not like other problems of this type that they have handled.

One has to wonder if the general principal of a lack of imagination and a defending of policies no matter how inane is limited to Norwegian Cruise Line. I have a feeling that most if not all cruise lines have this problem. Basically it comes down to those in customer service who answer the phones are not empowered to solve problems even if they understand the problem.

[PATRLR]

6 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

One has to wonder if the general principal of a lack of imagination and a defending of policies no matter how inane is limited to Norwegian Cruise Line. I have a feeling that most if not all cruise lines have this problem. Basically it comes down to those in customer service who answer the phones are not empowered to solve problems even if they understand the problem.

I have a feeling it's not just cruise lines.

[mking8288]

Glad to read about this advocated outcome in a somewhat positive way.  Good work and those other channels get credits for their share of the publicity to shame NCL into executive resolution.  Find it troublesome that some rather cheered NCL for the app & systems design to fault the passengers for the add-on, from what I can read as a partial view.  And, yes, I looked & browsed at other sensational "sources" for information not "available" here.  

 

Remains unseen whether this trap remain not changed or fixed as TA were alerted but these add-ons from, at least the add-on app ... could stll be lurking to ruin others.   

 

And, we won't know what happened to those deleted posts and just leave it up to the imaginations and called it editorial prerogative  🤔🙄

 

Happy cruising ! 

Edited March 25, 2023 by mking8288

[hawkeyetlse]

8 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

And, we won't know what happened to those deleted posts.  🤔🙄

I don't know what all was deleted, but CC has a specific rule about participation by media professionals. If the author of the article just created an account and started posting, that's not allowed.

 

Anyway I'm glad she got a positive result for this customer, although I agree that they deserve more than 100% FCC for what NCL did here.

 

[Ozmodiar]

At risk of being labeled an apologist, I think it is unfair to assume that NCL only resolved this to fend off negative PR, or to imply that this policy was some scheme to purposely rip people off instead of an unintended consequence. It sometimes takes a while for a new, unique issue to make it up to a level where someone can make the right decision in large organizations, especially if the people responding to it initially don't have the authority to make the right decision themselves and the situation is something out of the ordinary.

 

To the extent that publicity helps things like this get to the right people's attention and not lost, sure that matters - and people shouldn't have to go through hoops to get things to happen - but it is a lot easier for me to believe that the higher-ups didn't even know this was going on, or that the people dealing with it may have been in a position where they had to stick to the policy until they heard back from someone who had authority. Not that everyone at NCL thought this made sense and was fair.

[ontheweb]

3 hours ago, PATRLR said:

I have a feeling it's not just cruise lines.

Probably true, but we are all in a forum discussing cruises.

[Sinbadssailors]

34 minutes ago, SeaShark said:

I know that...I'm just pointing it out. If your position was more sound, then you wouldn't need to use derogatory labels. I'm also just pointing that out. 

 

Interesting that you can't expain why you couldn't make the same point without the labels.

 

I've been here long enough to know there are people on this board who will defend NCL no matter how ridiculous the policy.

 

 "Apologists" is an apt description.

 

Complainers, whiners and (my favorite) "entitled" are the labels put on those who point out the ridiculousness of a policy.

[hawkeyetlse]

23 minutes ago, Ozmodiar said:

I think it is unfair to assume that NCL only resolved this to fend off negative PR, or to imply that this policy was some scheme to purposely rip people off instead of an unintended consequence. It sometimes takes a while for a new, unique issue to make it up to a level where someone can make the right decision in large organizations

I don't think you can say this was an unintended consequence. From the information sent to TAs:

 

The auto-cancel process is enabled for all North America NCL Direct and Trade agencies. It applies to booked (BK) reservations with a balance (net due) owed of $1 or more, based on the final payment due date (120 days from the sail date). If an invoice item is added to a reservation inside the final payment and the payment is not immediately collected or is declined when the item is added, the reservation will automatically cancel.

 

This is something that NCL has deliberately implemented, and the intended consequence is to cause immediate cancellation of people's entire paid-in-full bookings after final payment. That is the specific purpose of the "auto-cancel process". Why in the world they ever came up with this process, I am still struggling to understand.

 

And you say it can take a while to properly escalate and resolve customer service issues, but this woman spent the 21 days before her cruise begging NCL to reinstate her booking. I get that at any given time there are thousands of people about to sail who are bugging NCL about their insignifcant personal emergencies, but if a customer reaches out to contest a last-minute auto-cancellation by NCL of a fully paid booking, honestly that should be recognized as a legitimate "get the boss involved" situation.

[Ozmodiar]

1 minute ago, hawkeyetlse said:

I don't think you can say this was an unintended consequence. From the information sent to TAs:

 

The auto-cancel process is enabled for all North America NCL Direct and Trade agencies. It applies to booked (BK) reservations with a balance (net due) owed of $1 or more, based on the final payment due date (120 days from the sail date). If an invoice item is added to a reservation inside the final payment and the payment is not immediately collected or is declined when the item is added, the reservation will automatically cancel.

 

This is something that NCL has deliberately implemented, and the intended consequence is to cause immediate cancellation of people's entire paid-in-full bookings after final payment.

I believe they wanted to auto-cancel reservations that were not fully paid so they weren't blocking people from booking a cabin they hadn't actually sold. Which is likely what happens 99.9% of the time.

 

The unintended part was that someone who had paid for their cruise could have everything canceled with an add-on being left unpaid. I doubt that was their intention as that policy makes no sense, but it is how it ended up being implemented. 

 

I think it is a major leap to go from them warning TAs that this will happen due to how the system has been programmed (which I suspect this scenario was not accounted for when the programming was scoped) to saying "our new policy is if you try to add something and that payment is declined/missed, we take all the money you have paid us".  

 

I agree that it should have been resolved immediately and that it wasn't was a shame. But I personally think assigning malice of intent when incompetence is more likely is not helpful. Neither are good, but one is worse.

[UKstages]

6 hours ago, Ozmodiar said:

It sometimes takes a while for a new, unique issue to make it up to a level where someone can make the right decision in large organizations, especially if the people responding to it initially don't have the authority to make the right decision themselves and the situation is something out of the ordinary.

 

it was only a unique issue once. it has clearly happened a number of times or they would not have issued a TA advisory. they treat each occurrence as a one-off at the front line level, however, and that is a problem. that's why this occurred.

 

5 hours ago, hawkeyetlse said:

I don't think you can say this was an unintended consequence.

 

@Ozmodiar did a good job of explaining this in post #174, but let me just say once again that they designed a penalty to support a valid business rule, they designed behind-the-scenes code to automatically implement that penalty, but they did not design an appropriate process.

 

there are known defects in the app with regard to how it handles abandoned cart items. and that glitch does not play well with their automatic cancellation business rule and subjects a number of customers to cancellation of fully paid reservations.

 

5 hours ago, hawkeyetlse said:

This is something that NCL has deliberately implemented, and the intended consequence is to cause immediate cancellation of people's entire paid-in-full bookings after final payment. That is the specific purpose of the "auto-cancel process". Why in the world they ever came up with this process, I am still struggling to understand.

 

the business rule - cancel people who haven't paid - makes sense.

 

the definition of what constitutes an unpaid reservation does not make any sense at all.