FCD in CAD$, but booking with US agent?

[sunviking90]

Does anyone have experience with this. I am trying out a U.S. agency as they have a price that is a good 10% better than I can get with Princess. The agent says they can only book it in USD, and she’ll check on what to do about my FCDs in CAD. The terms in the FCD say the currency can’t be changed, so do we have an issue here? 
I used to have a family member who was a US travel agent (now retired) and she would always ask me if I wanted the booking in USD or CAD, so it should be possible.

Edited May 31, 2023 by sunviking90

[blizzard44ca]

I have a FCD in US$, and recently booked a cruise in Cdn$. Unfortunately I could not apply my FCD. Maybe you’ll have better luck.

[seachelt]

I had a similar experience with 2000US$ in gift cards. In order to use the $US, I had to book and pay for the entire cruise in $US. Cannot mix currencies. It did not work to our advantage and we will never purchase gift cards again.

Good luck with your booking.

 

seachelt

[cjpj]

You cannot mix a cruise booked in one fund and use a FCC in another fund. The on line agency chooses to book only in US dollars. I don't know if you could book with Princess in Can $, use your FCC and the transfer to the online agency to get the better price. The online agency might not accept the transfer. Anyone know the answer?

[blizzard44ca]

Following up to add that I’ll probably make sure I have one in each currency going forward.

[Steelers36]

21 hours ago, seachelt said:

I had a similar experience with 2000US$ in gift cards. In order to use the $US, I had to book and pay for the entire cruise in $US. Cannot mix currencies. It did not work to our advantage and we will never purchase gift cards again.

Good luck with your booking.

 

seachelt

There are other ways to use the USD gift cards.  OBC is one and then pay for things.

 

Also, not sure why a cruise booked in USD would hurt - as long as you have USD bank account and credit card. 

[Steelers36]

7 hours ago, blizzard44ca said:

Following up to add that I’ll probably make sure I have one in each currency going forward.

You still might get "stuck" with one as a left-over.  I just decided many years ago to stick with USD cruise bookings because I save a lot of money using US agents that discount the cruise fare and that just doesn't happen in Canada.

[Steelers36]

15 hours ago, cjpj said:

You cannot mix a cruise booked in one fund and use a FCC in another fund. The on line agency chooses to book only in US dollars. I don't know if you could book with Princess in Can $, use your FCC and the transfer to the online agency to get the better price. The online agency might not accept the transfer. Anyone know the answer?

Most US agencies do not register with PCL (or other lines as well I suppose) in both USD and CAD currencies.  I was informed some years back that an agency wishing to offer both currencies needs to be "double-registered" with PCL - one as the CAD agency and one as the USD agency.  At the time, the information was that this was too much of an accounting pain and they were also affected with a split sales volume as PCL was not combining them and treating them like two different agencies.

 

[Steelers36]

On 5/30/2023 at 8:49 PM, sunviking90 said:

Does anyone have experience with this. I am trying out a U.S. agency as they have a price that is a good 10% better than I can get with Princess. The agent says they can only book it in USD, and she’ll check on what to do about my FCDs in CAD. The terms in the FCD say the currency can’t be changed, so do we have an issue here? 
I used to have a family member who was a US travel agent (now retired) and she would always ask me if I wanted the booking in USD or CAD, so it should be possible.

I had this situation once a long time ago when I was switching to booking with US agency.  I recall having CAD FCD's.  I am not sure how it was done for us, but it was done somehow.  I think what PCL did (and it may have been a Customer Relations action at the time) was refund me the two CAD FCD's we had at the time and then billed my USD credit card $200 US in order to purchase USD FCD's.  So, it was like a swap, but they could not just make the CAD FCD's USD FCD's (which makes sense).

 

In effect, it was a conversion done by refunding back $200 CAD and charging me $200 USD.  The new FCD's were added to our CC Member profiles.  So, it was like being able to buy a FCD off a ship, but allowed since we already owned the CAD FCD's.

 

I have no idea if CR Dept would still do such a thing, but you lose nothing by asking.

 

Needless to say, ever since then, I bought all our FCD's in USD and I also started buying more than one each when I realized later we might be booking more than one voyage before sailing the next one.

[westcoaster]

Several years ago (2014) I was able to use a $USD FCD for a cruise booked in $CAD.  Princess was able to convert the $US FCD to a $CAD FCD.  Essentially, they had to refund the $US FCD then allowed me to purchase the $CAD FCD over the phone. 

 

More recently (2022), I was able to do the reverse: use a $CAD FCD on a cruise booked in $USD.  This time it seemed to be much more of a hassle, and it took a couple of weeks to get it all sorted out.  Perhaps they have now done away with this entirely.

[seachelt]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

There are other ways to use the USD gift cards.  OBC is one and then pay for things.

 

Also, not sure why a cruise booked in USD would hurt - as long as you have USD bank account and credit card. 

Yeah, a couple of things Steelers36: we do not have a US credit card. At the time of booking we had a complete dud of a TA, and she insisted that we bring her the final payment in $US. We are on the Sunshine Coast of BC and she is on Vancouver Island. You might be able to imagine how inconvenient that was with ferries and buses to contend with. I do not time travel, so I'm unable to now go back and do things differently. We now use another TA. But we would still not consider taking $2000.US in OBC!

Good that booking in $US works for you. So far we are happy with our new US based TA booking for us in $CAD.

[Steelers36]

16 minutes ago, seachelt said:

Yeah, a couple of things Steelers36: we do not have a US credit card. At the time of booking we had a complete dud of a TA, and she insisted that we bring her the final payment in $US. We are on the Sunshine Coast of BC and she is on Vancouver Island. You might be able to imagine how inconvenient that was with ferries and buses to contend with. I do not time travel, so I'm unable to now go back and do things differently. We now use another TA. But we would still not consider taking $2000.US in OBC!

Good that booking in $US works for you. So far we are happy with our new US based TA booking for us in $CAD.

Works for you then.  I did forget to add that there are credit cards that don't add the currency conversion surcharge when using them for non-CAD transactions.  Most useful for international travel.

[sunviking90]

Thank you @Steelers36, @westcoaster, @seachelt and everyone else for your helpful replies. The TA called Princess and she said they are doing paperwork to convert them into USD. It can take up to 5 days, so they’ve extended my hold (cruise is past final payment). 
I’ve always done my bookings myself, (I was in the travel business myself years ago) and post pandemic used a PVP simply so I wouldn’t have to wait on hold if needed myself with Princess. I finally decided to book my next 2 cruises with 2 different US travel agents and I have definitely saved some $$. One of these agents was able to book in CAD, but the one for this particular cruise wasn’t able to for some reason.
@Steelers36 we don’t have a US credit card, but I have an HSBC world Elite MC that I use only for USD purchases as it has no fx fees. It also has excellent travel coverage up to 31days, so it’s good for the longer trips.

Edited June 1, 2023 by sunviking90