Military and shareholders OBC no longer combinable soon.

[vjmatty]

4 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Here's an interesting Cruise Hive article I just saw that was posted 9 hours ago. Did anyone else other than through an internal memo get notified of this pending change?

 

Shareholder Benefits

 

Princess Cruises sent a letter on June 15 to shareholders and military members announcing several changes to how the onboard credits they are eligible for can be applied. The change is effective from June 29, for all voyages departing on or after that date.

 

Princess Cruises Makes a Policy Change on Benefits (cruisehive.com)

 

I like the frequent use of the word “individual” in the article, which suggests that the bar against having both is when they’re applied to the same passenger, not the same cabin. That being said, it may be time to transfer those shares to my name since hubby is the veteran in the family. 😉

[Guest ldtr]

4 minutes ago, nasa1974 said:

I requested my SOBC for my two Sun Princess cruises in October 2024. I just checked and I got the SOBC for the 5 day but not the 7 day. Also my MOBC does not show non-refundable for both cruises. I'll check my 7 day cruise later today or tomorrow and see if it pops up. I did request both in the same email.

It's not June 29th yet. So as of today nothing has changed  After June 29 we will if the existing approved obc is grandfathered in under old term or not. We will also see after that date how new approvals will be handled.

 

Not much we can determined until that date unless Princess comes our with an actual public announcement, instead of leaked internal documents, that presents more details. Do not expect that until the 29th.

[vjmatty]

6 minutes ago, nasa1974 said:

I requested my SOBC for my two Sun Princess cruises in October 2024. I just checked and I got the SOBC for the 5 day but not the 7 day. Also my MOBC does not show non-refundable for both cruises. I'll check my 7 day cruise later today or tomorrow and see if it pops up. I did request both in the same email.

I noticed that as well, the MOBC is still showing as refundable, however we’re still a week away from the deadline so things may change. 

[Guest ldtr]

1 minute ago, vjmatty said:

I like the frequent use of the word “individual” in the article, which suggests that the bar against having both is when they’re applied to the same passenger, not the same cabin. That being said, it may be time to transfer those shares to my name since hubby is the veteran in the family. 😉

I would not put any trust in a Cruise Hive article being accurate when it cones to details not yet made public by the cruise line.

[wec931]

Basically Princess Cruise line is saying that being a veteran is valued as same as someone who owns 100 shares of stock. They owe a great apology for those who have sacrificed for their country.  

[Guest ldtr]

8 minutes ago, wec931 said:

Basically Princess Cruise line is saying that being a veteran is valued as same as someone who owns 100 shares of stock. They owe a great apology for those who have sacrificed for their country.  

Well I would guess then that you consider the other lines, including, Hal that give less than the shareholder to value veterans even less.

 

We still do not know if it is per cabin or per person. If per person than 1 can claim the veterans and 1 the shareholder. Not so of they enforce it per cabin. We will find that out after the 29th.

 

Being a veteran who has taken advantage of both the veterans and shareholder benefit and the ability to stack them to the tune of about $20,000 over the years including a$2000 in the past year, I would prefer that it remain. After all who would turn down free money. In reality it is no different than if they raised the price of a 7 day cruise by $100 or a 14 day $250.  Actually for most with only 1 veteran, including myself, the comparable price increase be $50 and 125.

Edited June 22, 2023 by ldtr

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, ldtr said:

Cruise hive is not known for accuracy. Recently it seems like they have pulled their information from CC discussions with a number of pretty major errors.

Or they used the internal memo and decide to "over report" the situation.

 

My guess is that PCL will officially notify customers on June 29 when it is too late for the uninformed and the tardy to react and get double credits posted.

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, ldtr said:

It's not June 29th yet. So as of today nothing has changed  After June 29 we will if the existing approved obc is grandfathered in under old term or not. We will also see after that date how new approvals will be handled.

 

Not much we can determined until that date unless Princess comes our with an actual public announcement, instead of leaked internal documents, that presents more details. Do not expect that until the 29th.

True, but in PCL past habits, the announcement will be vague enough to still raise questions on some fine points.  But let's see what they say.

[Steelers36]

34 minutes ago, wec931 said:

Basically Princess Cruise line is saying that being a veteran is valued as same as someone who owns 100 shares of stock. They owe a great apology for those who have sacrificed for their country.  

Welcome to the party.  The amounts have been the same for years now.  The only difference is the MOBC was essentially a cash gift as it was refundable OBC and now it won't be.  I do understand that it makes sense to be non-refundable like all other granted OBC (i.e. what the guest did not purchase for themselves).

 

Or, were you referring to the fact that a couple could double up on MOBC, whereas we could not double up on SOBC.

[cr8tiv1]

I really enjoy Don's Vacation.  He posted a video today and it is not flattering to Princess.  I am not "outraged" because it does not apply to me.  But I am disappointed that Princess is definitely moving in the "wrong" direction with all of it's cuts.  Hitting veterans is beyond low.

 

 

 

[Guest ldtr]

35 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

True, but in PCL past habits, the announcement will be vague enough to still raise questions on some fine points.  But let's see what they say.

Sure, but then we will what they actually will do in practice. At this point we can speculate but not much else.

[Guest ldtr]

16 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

I really enjoy Don's Vacation.  He posted a video today and it is not flattering to Princess.  I am not "outraged" because it does not apply to me.  But I am disappointed that Princess is definitely moving in the "wrong" direction with all of it's cuts.  Hitting veterans is beyond low.

 

 

 

I am not outraged and and it does apply to me. I consider it to basically be the equivalent of a 50 fare increase per person for a 7 day cruise or a 125 increase for a 14 day cruise. That only if it is per cabin. 

[cr8tiv1]

38 minutes ago, ldtr said:

I am not outraged and and it does apply to me. I consider it to basically be the equivalent of a 50 fare increase per person for a 7 day cruise or a 125 increase for a 14 day cruise. That only if it is per cabin. 

 

Well, maybe "outraged" is too strong a word.  I am just worn down by all the reductions for "valued" passengers.  Every time I talk to Princess, I am "read" a canned script:  "Thank you for your loyalty to Princess."

 

If I were to make a list, I am sure the removals would be twice/thrice as long as the added benefits.

 

Yes, Princess is after the younger crowd.  But the younger crowd will not be the ones that sail off season or on longer cruises or to far away places.  They are killing their golden goose.

[dreams_of_travel]

Data Point/Update:  As I posted earlier, I sent in my shareholder OBC request for my three 2024 cruises this morning.  Two out of the three have posted.  No idea why the middle cruise did not get the SOBC.  The only thing I can think of is that that one is a Travel Agent booked cruise.   I'll resend the missing one in the morning, just in case the three separate emails sent in quick succession somehow confused someone.  My MOBC is currently intact across the same three cruises.  Now i guess I wait until the 29th of June, and see what happens.

[dreams_of_travel]

45 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

Yes, Princess is after the younger crowd.  But the younger crowd will not be the ones that sail off season or on longer cruises or to far away places.  They are killing their golden goose.

 

Absolutely!  The younger crowd may not be willing to sail as often, and/or spend for extras, especially with a family.  To be fair, I don't often spend on extras when I cruise but that doesn't mean I don't ever splurge.   I guess that may not be enough for my demographic. 

[damiross]

6 hours ago, MissP22 said:

They did make it non-refundable.

"However, under the updated policy, the Military onboard credit will now be non-refundable."

They still haven't addressed the situation with a military person sailing with a non related stock holder in the same cabin. Right now it appears that only one person in that cabin can apply for OBC even if they're non related.

I meant non-refundable but still available even if you have shareholder OBC.

[thinfool]

On 6/15/2023 at 8:48 PM, galelynn said:

So when do you'll thing Princess will reinstate the dividends payments on stock ownership? Loved it when it went to $0.50 per share/ per quarter. That's $2 per share, per year. I own 3,100 shares, can't wait.

Probably you already know this...and  not to be too picky....Princess never did pay a dividend.  So you must cheer all of the lines in the Carnival family to fill their ships to return to the dividends of yesteryear.

[jwattle]

1 hour ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

Well, maybe "outraged" is too strong a word.  I am just worn down by all the reductions for "valued" passengers.  Every time I talk to Princess, I am "read" a canned script:  "Thank you for your loyalty to Princess."

 

If I were to make a list, I am sure the removals would be twice/thrice as long as the added benefits.

 

Yes, Princess is after the younger crowd.  But the younger crowd will not be the ones that sail off season or on longer cruises or to far away places.  They are killing their golden goose.

There are a lot of younger veterans too, just to be fair

[Seacruise]

 I am NOT surprised at all with this. I recently booked Emerald Princess and with all the OBC it came to $1285 to spend onboard. How does this make good sense? They are paying me to cruise how do they stay afloat for very long with all the OBC?
This is a either or, not all cancelled.
May I suggest we all take a deep breathe on this one.

[Guest ldtr]

3 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

Well, maybe "outraged" is too strong a word.  I am just worn down by all the reductions for "valued" passengers.  Every time I talk to Princess, I am "read" a canned script:  "Thank you for your loyalty to Princess."

 

If I were to make a list, I am sure the removals would be twice/thrice as long as the added benefits.

 

Yes, Princess is after the younger crowd.  But the younger crowd will not be the ones that sail off season or on longer cruises or to far away places.  They are killing their golden goose.

Same script for basically all companies, even those that do not have a loyalty program.  I get the same from just about every company I have an account with from credit card companies to Verizon, to car deals, etc.

 

Loyalty programs are marketing programs, they are funded only as long as they return benefits to the company.  The company has far more data then we have and I would be pretty certain that they examined that data, including modeling the impact of such a change.

 

The cruise line would know exactly what the cruising habits of those (this would be analyzed as a group not by name) that have received both stacked OBCs, both in the number and type as well as their spending habits vs other customers.

 

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by ldtr

[Happiest when cruising]

A post from a Princess Cruise Vacation Planner from another very popular social media site.
Her name is Jeanine Light. You can even join her page. 
 

Attention: CCL Shareholders and Military Benefit OBC!

Effective on 8 a.m. PDT on June 29, 2023 for all voyages departing after September 12, 2023, Shareholder and Military Onboard Credits have the following policy changes.

• The Shareholder and Military OBC will no longer be combinable with each other.

• The Military OBC will be non-refundable.

• The Shareholder OBC is currently and will remain non-refundable.

Non-Compatibility is at the guest level and not at the booking level.

Example Scenarios:

1.    Guest 1 has Military, Guest 2 has Shareholders - this is allowed.

2.    Guest 1 and Guest 2 both have Military, so neither can have Shareholders. If Guest 3 has Shareholders, this is allowed since they don't have Military.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Happiest when cruising

[Guest ldtr]

1 minute ago, Happiest when cruising said:

A post from a Princess Vacation Planner.
 

Attention: CCL Shareholders and Military Benefit OBC!

Effective on 8 a.m. PDT on June 29, 2023 for all voyages departing after September 12, 2023, Shareholder and Military Onboard Credits have the following policy changes.

• The Shareholder and Military OBC will no longer be combinable with each other.

• The Military OBC will be non-refundable.

• The Shareholder OBC is currently and will remain non-refundable.

Non-Compatibility is at the guest level and not at the booking level.

Example Scenarios:

1.    Guest 1 has Military, Guest 2 has Shareholders - this is allowed.

2.    Guest 1 and Guest 2 both have Military, so neither can have Shareholders. If Guest 3 has Shareholders, this is allowed since they don't have Military.

If this holds up this is very good news.  This eliminates the impact for most of us, but still does impact those were both passengers are veterans.

[Ken the cruiser]

17 minutes ago, ldtr said:

If this holds up this is very good news.  This eliminates the impact for most of us, but still does impact those were both passengers are veterans.

Not too much. We’re still quite happy getting up to $500 free OBC on our future cruises with Princess. On the bright side we won’t have to worry any more about submitting the SHB form anymore, especially after we refare a cruise once or twice. 😁

Now we just need to find about the grandfathering status of all of the existing bookings where we have both SOBC and MOBC (for both of us).

Edited June 23, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[satxdiver]

We have 5 cruises scheduled for the period after Sept 12. 2023.  I have both the military and stockholder credits applied to all 5 cruises which according to what I have read one will go away on each cruise.  This changes things and causes me to reevaluate if I want to do these cruises or move to another cruise line.  Since they are all cancelable (until they change that also!) it could be time to look at RCCL or Celebrity cruises instead.  Really bad more by PCL.  

[Ken the cruiser]

My DW just made a very good point. What’s the purpose of the June 29 date if PCL is not going to allow previously authorized MOBC and SOBC postings to remain on existing bookings? Our guess from over here in the peanut gallery is PCL will allow them to be grandfathered.