Pre pay gratuities

[CGinMTL]

On 5/19/2023 at 1:39 AM, dawnvip said:

Pre-pay the gratuities in CAD unless you have a secret stash of USD bought at par back in 2010. Who knows what the exchange rate will be when you sail... 

This is what we did for our cruise next week.

I booked the cruise directly from Hal in cad as my TA could not match the exchange rate. 

Also prepaid gratuites. 

[rodndonna]

2 hours ago, CGinMTL said:

This is what we did for our cruise next week.

I booked the cruise directly from Hal in cad as my TA could not match the exchange rate. 

Also prepaid gratuites. 

 

That's interesting that your TA could not match the exchange rate. We book direct with HAL anyway, but would have assumed the price (with exchange rate) would  have been the same with a TA. 

[alwaysfrantic]

It isn’t just onboard that HAL can have billing errors.  I made a very large payment for an upcoming trip.  When I get my credit card bill it’s huge.  Look through the charges.  HAL ran my payment twice.  I reach out and they say must be error on my part…..one is pending and will drop off and they only show the one amount on my account.  I have to send them a copy of the statement before they will reverse their error.  
 

They never did say where the extra payment went…..it was not on my account.  

[d9704011]

2 minutes ago, alwaysfrantic said:

It isn’t just onboard that HAL can have billing errors.  I made a very large payment for an upcoming trip.  When I get my credit card bill it’s huge.  Look through the charges.  HAL ran my payment twice.  I reach out and they say must be error on my part…..one is pending and will drop off and they only show the one amount on my account.  I have to send them a copy of the statement before they will reverse their error.  
 

They never did say where the extra payment went…..it was not on my account.  

And, of course, you don't ever get a credit card bill with pending charges.

[Florida_gal_50]

1 hour ago, alwaysfrantic said:

It isn’t just onboard that HAL can have billing errors.  I made a very large payment for an upcoming trip.  When I get my credit card bill it’s huge.  Look through the charges.  HAL ran my payment twice.  I reach out and they say must be error on my part…..one is pending and will drop off and they only show the one amount on my account.  I have to send them a copy of the statement before they will reverse their error.  
 

They never did say where the extra payment went…..it was not on my account.  

Yup, although not to the same extent this has happened to me twice.  I’ve booked a cabana several times.  There is one person in guest services or whatever it’s called when you phone.  She doesn’t get it.  She charged me twice one time and the wrong week (I don’t even know how that is possible) the second time.  Of course the debits all go through but the credits have to go through a different department 🙄.  It took months to resolve in the first situation.  I will not deal with this person again because she can’t do anything right.  The credits always come out less because of the exchange.

[Sunseeker810]

I always used to pay up front, but not anymore.  I had to cancel a cruise because I had COVID.  Everything went to FCC and I lost it all because it was only good for a year.

[lextsy]

So you are saying any pre paid gratuities, orders if cancelled aren’t refundable but added to credit? 

[Sunseeker810]

Yes.  It was put into future cruise credit, which expired in one years time.

[Florida_gal_50]

1 minute ago, Sunseeker810 said:

Yes.  It was put into future cruise credit, which expired in one years time.

Was this a non refundable fare that you booked?  Usually extra items that you book on top of the cruise are immediately refunded.  I’m thinking things like specialty dining.  

[BermudaBound2014]

1 hour ago, Sunseeker810 said:

I always used to pay up front, but not anymore.  I had to cancel a cruise because I had COVID.  Everything went to FCC and I lost it all because it was only good for a year.

 

I'm sorry you lost everything and thank you in advance for sharing your experience.

 

Did HAL refuse to return your cruise purchases to the gift cards themselves (which have no expiration?) 

 

Do you happen to have a link to this policy? I thought gift card purchases had to be refunded to the actual gift card. 

[Sunseeker810]

They keep changing the rules.  Taxes and fees were refunded, because they have to do that legally.  The purchase was made by credit card, not gift card.  

 

It was a casino deal that I added the "have it all package" to.

[Florida_gal_50]

8 minutes ago, Sunseeker810 said:

They keep changing the rules.  Taxes and fees were refunded, because they have to do that legally.  The purchase was made by credit card, not gift card.  

 

It was a casino deal that I added the "have it all package" to.

Ok so it was probably non refundable.  That makes a difference I’m assuming.  

[lissie]

On 5/20/2023 at 1:58 PM, dawnvip said:

It may be that lissie's card is similar to the AC Conversion card available in Canada. That "credit card" is actually pre-paid, meaning you load CAD onto the card and then set up/exchange the CAD to anything up to 10 wallets in differing currencies. Sounds great, but terrible CIBC exchange rates made me cancel after the first try. No possibility of adding funds in any currency other than CAD. For instance, I always have left over Pesos, Euros, etc, so it would be great to have a method of saving those funds digitally rather than in my piggy banks!  

No we have cards like that -they are horrible. Mine is a genuine multi-currency debit card - I can load any of many major currencies. That's how I have A$ - it was  refund from a car hire I had to cancel that was prepaid. I could transfer the A$ to my base currency NZ$ but I've left it there because Australia is nearby and we often travel there.  The card provides me local bank accounts in these many currencies including C$ US$ A$ EUR etc etc - so  I can get paid directly too which is convenient too. wise dot com is mine but I think revoulut  does something similar.  

[dawnvip]

35 minutes ago, lissie said:

No we have cards like that -they are horrible. Mine is a genuine multi-currency debit card - I can load any of many major currencies. That's how I have A$ - it was  refund from a car hire I had to cancel that was prepaid. I could transfer the A$ to my base currency NZ$ but I've left it there because Australia is nearby and we often travel there.  The card provides me local bank accounts in these many currencies including C$ US$ A$ EUR etc etc - so  I can get paid directly too which is convenient too. wise dot com is mine but I think revoulut  does something similar.  

Nice! I have several foreign accounts through my main bank, and can transfer funds between CAD/US/Euro/GBP digitally, but each foreign account has its own debit card (which is a pain) so I end up just using our no-forex credit card