Can you change a booking's itinerary after the Final Payment Date to avoid cancellation penalty fees?

[Ken the cruiser]

More specifically, if you have fully paid for your Celebrity booking and it is well past the booking's Final Payment Due Date and in the penalty phase if you have to cancel your cruise, can you instead transfer the booking to a different itinerary scheduled to sail at some later date to avoid any cancellation penalties, other than to pay the $100 per person fee associated with transferring a booking with a nonrefundable deposit?

 

[Keys Kathy]

It would seem that way. Call your TA

[Ken the cruiser]

Just now, Keys Kathy said:

It would seem that way. Call your TA

We currently don't have the issue, so I really don't want to bother our TA with hypothetical scenarios. What I'm trying to do is figure out Plan B just in case we use AARP Celebrity Gift Cards to help pay for a cruise, which become nonrefundable if we have to cancel the cruise at the last minute for some unplanned reason after the Final Payment Date. If changing the itinerary while keeping the booking intact after final payment is not an option, then purchasing AARP Celebrity Gift Cards becomes a lot less desirable as we are low stress cruisers.

[CHEZMARYLOU]

Typically you would not be able to move the booking after final payment date.  I would not take the chance on using the gift cards.  But if you can move the booking and have to cancel you would be out the money anyways. I've heard there are some restrictions on how the cards are applied and how much you can use to pay for the cruise.

[Ken the cruiser]

4 minutes ago, CHEZMARYLOU said:

Typically you would not be able to move the booking after final payment date.  I would not take the chance on using the gift cards.  But if you can move the booking and have to cancel you would be out the money anyways. I've heard there are some restrictions on how the cards are applied and how much you can use to pay for the cruise.

Not quite sure what you mean regarding the above bolded sentence. Basically, to avoid having to cancel any booking after Final Payment, I was hoping it was possible to treat the original (to be cancelled) booking as a "place holder" booking where we could keep the same booking number and just change the itinerary to one where we would be able to go on later on (and keep any GCs originally posted to it, just like we would with the OBC we got when we booked a cruise onboard).

 

I've been contributing to this below thread as Celebrity has made some recent changes to purchasing AARP Gift Cards, with the big change being the removal of the $1000 GC restriction.

 

Gift Card Limit - Celebrity Cruises - Cruise Critic Community

 

[gfkcruiser]

Just prior to Covid I had to cancel a week before sailing and did not have insurance with celebrity.  They offered to move it two months out but that would not have worked as that was when surgery was planned.  Covid would have cancelled it anyway but did not know that.  Had insurance with credit card company and recovered funds.  Doesn’t hurt to call.  But not usually the norm. 

[NorthStarStateCruiser]

1 minute ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Not quite sure what you mean regarding the above bolded sentence. Basically, to avoid having to cancel any booking after Final Payment, I was hoping it was possible to treat the original (to be cancelled) booking as a "place holder" booking where we could keep the same booking number and just change the itinerary to one where we would be able to go on later on (and keep any GCs originally posted to it, just like we would with the OBC we got when we booked a cruise onboard).

 

I've been contributing to this below thread as Celebrity has made some recent changes to purchasing AARP Gift Cards, with the big change being the removal of the $1000 GC restriction.

 

Gift Card Limit - Celebrity Cruises - Cruise Critic Community

 

I believe the rule is that any changes to the ship or sail date after final payment constitute a cancellation and are then subject to the cancellation penalty schedule listed in the cruise contract.

 

If what you were suggesting is true where anyone could make a change after final payment up until sail date for only $100 change fee per person, everyone would do just that and push the booking out further to preserve the value of the money paid in.  There's no way they would allow that.  There may be an option to preserve the value of the gift cards used towards the cruise you'd be cancelling subject to the cancellation penalty schedule, but the T&Cs of the gift card do not provide that level of detail and therefore any verbal conversations that you have with agents at Celebrity is not worth risking paying the full cruise fare in gift cards.

 

Another option you could look into would be purchasing the CruiseCare travel insurance offered through Celebrity.  There's the benefit of a 90% FCC in the event of cancellation for an uncovered reason.  There's no stipulation in those terms that the cruise must have been paid in cash.

 

At the end of the day, these gift cards are way too much hassle than the savings that they provide in my opinion.

[39august]

Actually, you get 90% back of monies paid for the cruise, not FCC. I did this a few years ago. 

[wrk2cruise]

3 minutes ago, 39august said:

Actually, you get 90% back of monies paid for the cruise, not FCC. I did this a few years ago. 

 

Maybe not Celebrity.   Celebrity used to be 70% FCC and just raised this to 90% about a year ago.  I've heard some other lines do some % refund.

 

If it's a covered event I believe travel insurance would cover the value paid in gift card as it would be a non-refundable payment.

Edited June 30, 2023 by wrk2cruise

[CHEZMARYLOU]

28 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Not quite sure what you mean regarding the above bolded sentence. Basically, to avoid having to cancel any booking after Final Payment, I was hoping it was possible to treat the original (to be cancelled) booking as a "place holder" booking where we could keep the same booking number and just change the itinerary to one where we would be able to go on later on (and keep any GCs originally posted to it, just like we would with the OBC we got when we booked a cruise onboard).

 

I've been contributing to this below thread as Celebrity has made some recent changes to purchasing AARP Gift Cards, with the big change being the removal of the $1000 GC restriction.

 

Gift Card Limit - Celebrity Cruises - Cruise Critic Community

 

Sorry, should have read if you CANNOT move the booking.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

13 minutes ago, 39august said:

Actually, you get 90% back of monies paid for the cruise, not FCC. I did this a few years ago. 

 

The OP's issue is they didn't pay Celebrity the money. They paid AARP for discounted gift cards - which from the fine print read after the fact seem to make anything paid with them non-refundable.

[Ken the cruiser]

53 minutes ago, NorthStarStateCruiser said:

I believe the rule is that any changes to the ship or sail date after final payment constitute a cancellation and are then subject to the cancellation penalty schedule listed in the cruise contract.

 

If what you were suggesting is true where anyone could make a change after final payment up until sail date for only $100 change fee per person, everyone would do just that and push the booking out further to preserve the value of the money paid in.  There's no way they would allow that.  There may be an option to preserve the value of the gift cards used towards the cruise you'd be cancelling subject to the cancellation penalty schedule, but the T&Cs of the gift card do not provide that level of detail and therefore any verbal conversations that you have with agents at Celebrity is not worth risking paying the full cruise fare in gift cards.

 

Another option you could look into would be purchasing the CruiseCare travel insurance offered through Celebrity.  There's the benefit of a 90% FCC in the event of cancellation for an uncovered reason.  There's no stipulation in those terms that the cruise must have been paid in cash.

 

At the end of the day, these gift cards are way too much hassle than the savings that they provide in my opinion.

I agree, it was a stretch to think one could change a booking after Final Payment like you can prior to that fixed date. But I wanted to ask as we’ve have never had to test that theory before.