REDICULOUS NCL Policy

[ChiefMateJRK]

I checked Chase after reading this thread.  There is a link for travel notification but it simply takes you to a page that says they don't use those anymore.

[dwkennedy]

I have an uncle, let's call him Shady X. Crook.  my grandfather's name is Shady Y. Crook.  Shady X. has been known to pull such stunts in the past, playing on the confusion between the two names, so there is probably a good reason that the cruise line might be shy about taking a credit card with a name that doesn't match exactly.  It's not like they can squeeze the food and drinks out of you later...

 

I have a nickname as well, but I try to use my "real" name on all financial and identity documents just to keep things straight.

 

That being said they should have cleared up the issue and got you squared away after the first incident.

 

Also, I wouldn't be embarassed in the least if my credit card was declined... I have such an advanced sense of self-assurance I would just assume that it was their fault 

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by dwkennedy
adding extra stupid stuff

[bostonphil]

This scares me. 

 

I had NCL add my middle name to match my passport and driver's license so I would have no problems but I think none of  my credit cards use my middle name.

 

I have been paying off my cruise with my credit cards and booking my excursions with my credit cards. There has been no problem.

 

I  am going to call my PCC just to be safe.

[bostonphil]

On 5/23/2023 at 10:55 AM, NoobCroozer said:

Forgive me for my rant, I looked to see if this has been previously discussed and found nothing.

 

Joy>Bermuda 5/14

 

First night on board, everything was copacetic. Beautiful ship, good vibes. Happy as a clam. Room card worked as its supposed to, used it throughout the ship.

 

Next morning, go to Starbucks, card declined. Go to bar at observation lounge. Card declined.

 

Goto Guest Services, wait in line for 45 minutes, sorry sir, your card is now active. No explanation given for the issue.

 

Next day, Specialty restaurant, food brought to the table, "sorry sir, card declined, but my manager out of the kindness of her heart is covering it". Crowded restaurant, mortified. Goto guest services. "Oh, here's the problem sir. (Not using my real name obviously here)----On the credit card assigned to your room key, it says Ed Smith, but on your room key it says Edward Smith". I explained to them that I paid for the entire cruise using the "Ed Smith" credit card. Produce another credit card with "Edward" on the card, to match the room key. Card works for another day.

 

Next evening, Observation Lounge Bar, sorry sir, card declined. THIRD TIME MORTIFIED in front of everyone. Back to the sixth deck. I was FUMING.

 

Guest services says, sorry sir, the problem is that you have "Edward Smith Jr" on the credit card assigned to your room key, and your room key does not have the JR displayed. The staff could not understand or wrap their heads around the fact that;

 

Ed and Edward are one in the same, as is

Jim/James

Joe/Joseph

Rob/Bob/Robert

Al/Albert

Steve/Stephen, etc, etc, etc.

 

He says sorry sir, unless you can produce a credit card WITHOUT the JR designation, there is nothing we can do. He went back and forth with finance which went on for 30 minutes. Nothing we can do. I said, "you mean to tell me I have to go the next 2.5 days aboard this ship and not be able to make ANY purchases?"--- "Thats correct sir, we do not accept any other forms of payment" (meanwhile there were no issues with either one of the before mentioned credit card accounts).......I said you better get a white shirt down here right now. I go through the same thing with the officer as described above for the next 15 minutes. Luckily, I went through all of my credit cards which were fanned out all over the counter and found a Best Buy and Macy's card with "Edward Smith Jr" on it. The officer comes back 10 minutes later and says, "good thing you found those two cards.....we will go back to square one with the original card you paid for the cruise on" (Ed Smith).

 

I have been on multiple cruises and paid the exact same way for each cruise (1 other with Norwegian) and NEVER had this problem.

 

I STRONGLY encourage you to use a credit card with the EXACT name on the credit card assigned to your room key as what is displayed on your passport.

 

Made what was a perfect cruise into an unenjoyable experience. Well, the disembarking in NYC was a whole other story, for another day.

 

/End Rant

did you have any problems like you are describing in ports including pre cruise and post cruise port? Was it just on ship?

[NoobCroozer]

 

17 hours ago, bostonphil said:

did you have any problems like you are describing in ports including pre cruise and post cruise port? Was it just on ship?

Was fine in port, rented Jet Ski's etc.....

[Homosassa]

22 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I checked Chase after reading this thread.  There is a link for travel notification but it simply takes you to a page that says they don't use those anymore.

My credit card  is the same way.  However, I learned  after having the card rejected for a  cruise ship authorization, to call and ask for a representative and have a specific notation made on the account for any unusual or very large charges.

 

I also let them know if  I will be traveling without my husband, that charges may be appearing for the same days in distant sections of the country.

[9tee2Sea]

Boy, am I glad i do not have a middle name.

[bostonphil]

3 hours ago, NoobCroozer said:

 

Was fine in port, rented Jet Ski's etc.....

That makes me feel better. It sounds like your problem on the ship was a NCL problem and customer service SHOULD have been able to fully resolve it right from the get go.  Have you reported this to customer service after the cruise because they might give you something towards your next cruise?

[European_CruiseGirl]

Ahhahahaha…just waiting to see how NCL will handle my credit card details (and the details of all of us scandinavians who have Ä or Ö in our names) 🤣 My credit cards all have the Ä that is in my name but obviously NCL’s systems do not allow special characters so on NCL ressie I am instead of Ä an AE which is the official way of writing Ä when special characters cannot be used. Passport shows my name with Ä. 
 

Have sailed 7 times with NCL without a problem so far 😁

Edited May 30, 2023 by European_CruiseGirl

[dwkennedy]

46 minutes ago, 9tee2Sea said:

Boy, am I glad i do not have a middle name.

Don't be too glad, some computer systems still won't believe you have no middle name or initial and insist that you put something.

 

In the earlier days of the web, a lot of systems wouldn't take last names with an apostrophe (like O'Bannon) or an hyphen. That's pretty much fixed these days, but if you have a hyphenated or two word FIRST name, like a lot of Asian people, you're going to have problems... they often don't have a "middle" name either, and sometimes their hyphenated first name is split into a first and middle name, which is completely wrong and causes all kinds of problems!  It's not strictly the computer's fault, but the people who program them don't consider every case.

 

God help you if you have a name like flüggåәnkб€čhiœßølįên, at that point you might as well consign yourself to paying in cash 😉

 

 

 

 

[cruiseny4life]

2 minutes ago, dwkennedy said:

Don't be too glad, some computer systems still won't believe you have no middle name or initial and insist that you put something.

 

In the earlier days of the web, a lot of systems wouldn't take last names with an apostrophe (like O'Bannon) or an hyphen. That's pretty much fixed these days, but if you have a hyphenated or two word FIRST name, like a lot of Asian people, you're going to have problems... they often don't have a "middle" name either, and sometimes their hyphenated first name is split into a first and middle name, which is completely wrong and causes all kinds of problems!  It's not strictly the computer's fault, but the people who program them don't consider every case.

 

God help you if you have a name like flüggåәnkб€čhiœßølįên, at that point you might as well consign yourself to paying in cash 😉

 

 

 

 

So true! My husband had to fill out a form this weekend for the government. Every time it asked for his middle name, he had to put NMN (No Middle Name)...so, now I guess his initials are ANMNS. Yikes! 

[jrt.mom]

I cruised twice as "Mary Smith Jones". This time I registered as just "Mary Jones". None of my Latitudes credits showed up. I called NCL and they said they would fix it. Wasn't fixed but I suddenly had a $50 charge on my bill...when I called NCL yet again they said it was a name change fee. They waived it after I made a fuss but they STILL haven't fixed my Latitudes issue, I think I'll wait until I'm on the cruise to fix it so I don't incur another fee!

[Travelling2Some]

56 minutes ago, dwkennedy said:

Don't be too glad, some computer systems still won't believe you have no middle name or initial and insist that you put something.

 

. . . if you have a hyphenated or two word FIRST name, like a lot of Asian people, you're going to have problems... they often don't have a "middle" name either, and sometimes their hyphenated first name is split into a first and middle name, which is completely wrong and causes all kinds of problems!  It's not strictly the computer's fault, but the people who program them don't consider every case.

 

God help you if you have a name like flüggåәnkб€čhiœßølįên, at that point you might as well consign yourself to paying in cash 😉

 

 

 

 

Yes, I had to get rather testy with the earnest young man at immigration who tried to divide an Asian first name into first and middle incorrectly.  I think I only succeeded because I was a citizen.  He also asked me with a straight face if my infant daughter had ever been a member of the communist party!

 

My husband has a ridiculous (see, I can spell it!) middle name that always gets the final letters chopped off on boarding passes, etc.  Never been a problem but you never know when you will run into someone being uncooperative/obstructionist (which seems to be the norm these days with NCL).

 

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Travelling2Some

[carohs]

On 5/23/2023 at 8:55 AM, NoobCroozer said:

Ed and Edward are one in the same, as is

Jim/James

Joe/Joseph

Rob/Bob/Robert

Al/Albert

Steve/Stephen, etc, etc, etc.

That is simply not true. Just because someone my go by their nickname doesn't mean that's the name on the birth cert. I've also known plenty of people whose legal name is Bob and not Robert, or Tom and not Tomas. Frankly, I'm a little surprised one can put their non legal name on a credit card, as these require a credit check and result in a legal obligatory debt. 

 

As for the Jr vs non Jr...well not all family members are completely honest and loving toward each other. By this I mean it's not entirely unheard of that father or son have used the other's name in an action that could be characterized as theft or fraud. 

 

Yes, it's frustrating to deal with on a ship but I wouldn't go so far as to call the policy ridiculous. Actually, I believe the opposite. I'm never mad when there's a policy in place that can protect me from fraud. 

 

I do appreciate the heads up though because my legal last name on my passport (and in my country of birth) is my birth name and not my legal US name now. I could see this potentially being a problem if I were to use my passport name on my reservation but the card on file is in my married name.

[Ozmodiar]

The card being accepted at retail locations off the ship is a different process - there you have the physical card and swipe or have the chip read. The card holder's name/address is not used in that validation process.

 

I forget if they swipe the card at embarkation or simply ask if you want to use the card on file - if they swipe, then names matching exactly is irrelevant like any retail sale. But if the CC company declines a purchase/hold during the cruise, the ship may need to resubmit the charge without access to the physical card - at which point it seems possible that the ship, like when you use a credit card online, needs to submit in addition to the CC number the usual information like the expiration date, name, address, etc. which needs to match the bank records for that information. If the ship staff only have access to the ship records for name (also used to produce the key card) for submitting the information, that might not work if that data doesn't match the card exactly, as seems to have happened here.

 

An online purchase being declined due to mismatch of data tends to not automatically lock the card, so the card could work off the ship even if NCL was having issues.

 

So many people likely have differences between their submitted passenger name (like shortening their name from Edward to Ed) and the full name on the credit card that if this was a systemic issue we'd be hearing about it 100 times a cruise. And I assume many couples use one credit card for both passengers where the name on the "key card" for at least one person doesn't match the name on the credit card. So I doubt that this name mismatch is a regular or even common issue, and it may only pop up if the ship needs to - for lack of a better term - manually submit a charge.

[RB9643]

9 hours ago, jrt.mom said:

I cruised twice as "Mary Smith Jones". This time I registered as just "Mary Jones". None of my Latitudes credits showed up.

 

Have you tried attaching your reservation to your good latitudes account through the app or the website?

[mugtech]

I'm guessing Jack Reacher would not have a problem cruising, since he has no middle name.

[LouChamp]

On 5/23/2023 at 3:13 PM, DCGuy64 said:

That's true, but as a lawyer, you know that names matter a great deal. When someone does a title search on a property, seeing John Doe Jr, John Doe, Jon Doe, etc. might as well be completely different names. Having said that, it should have been obvious fairly quickly that the OP is who he says he is, and he should have been spared the additional frustration and embarrassment.

Aloha. Also a lawyer and perhaps he could of “authorized “ the different spellings as authorized users for that voyage. Not sure if their systems would let that work.