Losing money because of canceled excursions?

[Greebo]

Since booking my cruise, I paid for 3 excursions. Unfortunately all 3 are now canceled. Apart from looking forward to the excursions, due to the exchange rate of my credit card, I”m starting to loose money. Since the bookings were for 4 people, the amount is getting quite substantial. 
Any tips? 
Is there an email adres to where I can send this issue?

 

Apart from not seeing a lot of other interesting excursions, I’m afraid to book any other excursion if they keep getting canceled.  

[Torquer]

Interesting problem that I never thought about, since I am American and have only cruised on lines that only deal in dollars.  Of course I have thought about our upcoming cruise in Europe where the declining dollar has effectively raised the prices we will have to pay for the pre/post-cruise hotels we have booked.

 

I am curious, if you are not from the US, when you book a cruise is the price locked in for your own currency and then at final payment you pay that amount?  If not that could be a large difference if it is dollar based.  From your question, I presume when you pre-book a shore excursion, it is dollars so you would now get less money back in terms of your local currency, if it is cancelled due to the declining dollar?

 

If so, I agree that is not fair, but I don't know if HAL would do anything about it.  After all, if the dollar was rising versus the Euro you would get more money back when it is cancelled.

[Mary229]

Buy HAL gift cards for excursions?

[3rdGenCunarder]

I don't think there's anything you can do about this. I know when I have booked excursions directly in other countries, the T&C usually say that the price is set in local currency and the price paid (or refunded, if cancelled)  will depend on exchange rates, which can change. 

[FOPMan]

The three  options I see are 1) use a different tool for payment.  2) Ask that the.l excursion provider charge you in whatever currently is native to your credit card. I would expect that, it the provider is willing to provide this service, that they would include a convenience fee. I don’t know which way works better for you, again, if the excursion providers offer the service.

 

3) Delay purchase until later.

[Oceansaway17]

wow I never gave it a thought about those not from USA and losing money due to exchange rate.

That is a shame to lose excursions and money.

 

I would be curious as to know what excursions and what ship.

[Arizona Wildcat]

If you book additional excursions they will all be priced in USD.  Compared to the thousands of $$ you will spend on your cruise the loss due to exchange rates is small.

Really much the same for those travelling to Europe this summer as the USD has fallen by some 10% recently thus more expensive.  Travelling out of one's home country certainly has an element of chance in how the exchange rate might change.

[Cruise Junky]

It’s not just exchange rate it’s credit card companies getting their cut on both sides.  Currency aside, the card fees are likely 2.5% on each side or another 5%. As a Canadian, I feel your pain.  

[Florida_gal_50]

1 hour ago, Cruise Junky said:

It’s not just exchange rate it’s credit card companies getting their cut on both sides.  Currency aside, the card fees are likely 2.5% on each side or another 5%. As a Canadian, I feel your pain.  

If you want to avoid the 2.5 % look into a home trust visa.  The card has no yearly fee.

 

I feel your pain op. There used to be someone at guest services that would screw up my cabana purchase every time.  It's substantial so it makes a difference.  She would charge me twice for the cabana, charge me for the wrong weeks, you name it.  She was incompetent.  I can only hope she's gone.  I haven't talked to her lately.  I had to chase the credits down because they take forever to come through.  The debits come through right away.

[lissie]

It's the buy/sell spread on any currency conversion -.  The only way to avoid it is to use a multi-currency card like Wise.   I'm going to do this with my Canadian rental car reservations - set up a C$ balance on the card - snd make the charge in C$ if I have to cancel they will refund say C$500 as C$500 - I can then spend C$500 in Canada. If used my NZ card I'd get that annoying difference in buy/sell  rate plus the over 2% that the card charges for a foreign exchange. transaction 

[Torquer]

I guess we are lucky in the US that there are many credit cards available without any foreign transaction fees.  Our main one we use at home does charge them, so we don't use that one out of the country (but we have it along in case of emergency).  But we have two other very good cards with no foreign fee and the exchange rate they give us is always just a tiny fraction of a percent away from what a high volume currency trader could get.

[Florida_gal_50]

It's not that common in Canada unless you have a card with a yearly fee.

[Greebo]

9 hours ago, Torquer said:

 

I am curious, if you are not from the US, when you book a cruise is the price locked in for your own currency and then at final payment you pay that amount?  If not that could be a large difference if it is dollar based.  From your question, I presume when you pre-book a shore excursion, it is dollars so you would now get less money back in terms of your local currency, if it is cancelled due to the declining dollar?

The price I see advertised by HAL are in euro. 
But in this case I booked several parts of my holiday (car rental, hotels, cruise, flights) via a TA, and make the payments to the TA according to the quotation. If the TA makes payment to the vendors at different timepoints, I guess the risk (or gain) of exchange rate is for the TA. 

10 hours ago, Torquer said:

 

If so, I agree that is not fair, but I don't know if HAL would do anything about it.  After all, if the dollar was rising versus the Euro you would get more money back when it is cancelled.

At the moment it is HAL canceling the excursions, not sure why, but I heard more cancellations on the same itinary in a different period. 
Not sure if they can do anything about it, but at least I want them to be aware of this problem. 

[Greebo]

9 hours ago, Mary229 said:

Buy HAL gift cards for excursions?

How does that work? Buy giftcards, use those to pay for excursions instead of credit card? And if canceled I get back my giftcard?

And what happenes with the gift card if I don’t use them?

[Greebo]

9 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

I don't think there's anything you can do about this. I know when I have booked excursions directly in other countries, the T&C usually say that the price is set in local currency and the price paid (or refunded, if cancelled)  will depend on exchange rates, which can change. 

This is all in US dollar since the excursions are via HAL. 
And it is not exchange rate, but the credit card company using different exchange rates for credit and debit. 

Seems the only way not to loose money for nothing, is not buying via HAL, but look for excursions outside HAL, where I can make a reservation without paying directly.
 

[Greebo]

9 hours ago, FOPMan said:

The three  options I see are 1) use a different tool for payment.  2) Ask that the.l excursion provider charge you in whatever currently is native to your credit card. I would expect that, it the provider is willing to provide this service, that they would include a convenience fee. I don’t know which way works better for you, again, if the excursion providers offer the service.

 

3) Delay purchase until later.

The provider is HAL, and the only way to pay I could see was via credit card, and directly. 
For now, after the 3 cancellations, I chose option 3 😃

We will see if anything interesting is left by the time I’m on the ship. 

[Greebo]

9 hours ago, Oceansaway17 said:

wow I never gave it a thought about those not from USA and losing money due to exchange rate.

That is a shame to lose excursions and money.

 

I would be curious as to know what excursions and what ship.

Yes, I guess I’m more disappointed about losing the excursions 🙂

 

It’s the Zaandam in July, different excursions on the Canada New England itinary. Not only Bar Harbor (I know there are a lot of discussions about cruise ships there, but seems we are still welcome this summer), but e.g. also an excursion in Sydney, the bird islands. 

[Greebo]

9 hours ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

If you book additional excursions they will all be priced in USD.  Compared to the thousands of $$ you will spend on your cruise the loss due to exchange rates is small.

Really much the same for those travelling to Europe this summer as the USD has fallen by some 10% recently thus more expensive.  Travelling out of one's home country certainly has an element of chance in how the exchange rate might change.

Only problem, this is not about the change in exchange rates. I’m certainly willing to spend money on my vacation (which is not only the cruise). But this is partly HAL offering things, then not delivering, and therefor I’m losing money. So I pay money for getting no activity. And the losing money is every time in a couple of weeks. 
I just start to wonder if HAL is offering something before they check if they can deliver 🤔

[Greebo]

7 hours ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

 

I feel your pain op. There used to be someone at guest services that would screw up my cabana purchase every time.  It's substantial so it makes a difference.  She would charge me twice for the cabana, charge me for the wrong weeks, you name it.  She was incompetent.  I can only hope she's gone.  I haven't talked to her lately.  I had to chase the credits down because they take forever to come through.  The debits come through right away.

That is really frustrating…..

[Mary229]

4 hours ago, Greebo said:

How does that work? Buy giftcards, use those to pay for excursions instead of credit card? And if canceled I get back my giftcard?

And what happenes with the gift card if I don’t use them?

Yes, if you cancel the money goes back to the gift card.  Gift cards don’t expire. You can use them to pay for any cruise expenses including fares, future cruise deposits, onboard spending, beverage packages and so on. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

6 hours ago, Greebo said:

I just start to wonder if HAL is offering something before they check if they can deliver 🤔

 

I have wondered the same thing, as have others. Last month, there were threads about excursion cancellations. On my January cruise, an excursion on HMC was cancelled 2 weeks before the cruise, even though they had known the excursion would not run for the entire season. They should not have sold it in the first place. But they did. It's frustrating, and HAL just shrugs it off.

[waiting2retire]

Just a quick heads-up on the gift cards. They are sold only in USD.  They will only work for pre-purchases if the cruise was purchased in USD. 

[Greebo]

4 hours ago, Mary229 said:

Yes, if you cancel the money goes back to the gift card.  Gift cards don’t expire. You can use them to pay for any cruise expenses including fares, future cruise deposits, onboard spending, beverage packages and so on. 

Ok, thank you for the tip 🙂

[Oceansaway17]

12 hours ago, Greebo said:

Yes, I guess I’m more disappointed about losing the excursions 🙂

 

It’s the Zaandam in July, different excursions on the Canada New England itinary. Not only Bar Harbor (I know there are a lot of discussions about cruise ships there, but seems we are still welcome this summer), but e.g. also an excursion in Sydney, the bird islands. 

unfortunately for some reason NE cruising has some issues.  Last year my cruise on Adventure OTS they had a port change due to overbooking with a ship coming back from Europe, and my Halifax port was moved to Sydney.   Now I am hearing issues with Bar Harbor too with limits to ships.

 

So glad I have done a few NE trips in the past.  One one this year and best part is overnight in Quebec City.

[Greebo]

3 minutes ago, Oceansaway17 said:

So glad I have done a few NE trips in the past.  One one this year and best part is overnight in Quebec City.

Quebec is a great city, visited 22 years ago when on a camper vacation in Canada.