Bankruptcy settlement update?

[Stickman1990]

1 hour ago, cruise_loverinlaval said:

Hello every one, here is the latest news about payments to us…

 

https://crystalcruiseclaims.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/07.31.23-Motion-for-Interim-Distribution-to-Priority-Creditors.pdf

 

The check will be in the mail!  Have a nice day!

Thanks for posting this - yes the cheque will be in the mail - $2225 maximum for consumer creditors initially and approx $12m in reserve to settle the claims - you can work out roughly how much that leaves per claimant… 

 

I’d say people want to be grateful to new Crystal for the Exceptional initiative 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Stickman1990

[TER777]

On 7/24/2023 at 9:55 PM, travelberlin said:

And from the ones they have completed, some  (many ?) are those with errors 😔 so imagine how long it will take to finish this undertaking. 
Ivi

Just heard from Exceptional Initiative that Moecker has corrected their two errors!

[PaulMCO]

It is $2225 per person.  But is is good that they do see that they have sufficient funds to pay the priority claims (consumer, wages, taxes) up State of Florida maximums.  The court will take at least 30 days, allowing then to finish.

 

The balance gets rolled in with the original list of persons owed including TA's, food vendors, port fees, fuel providers, musicians and independent on ship contractors.

[TER777]

On 8/1/2023 at 3:56 PM, TER777 said:

Just heard from Exceptional Initiative that Moecker has corrected their two errors!

Turns out Exceptional Initiative proactively corrected the Moecker errors on EI’s use of the data. No idea what if anything Moecker has done. 

[Whipsnade]

EI has nothing to do with Moecker. EI is a very welcome sales promotion for folks who are out some Big Bucks. EI will nit be reduced once we receive $$ from bankruptcy. 

[reenief]

I have to find out if the cruise I booked is vulnerable to not receiving the payment?  If I get reimbursed before the cruise sails but after I made all the payments?  If I make a payment now for a 2025 cruise can they take back my payment IF I get reimbursed between now and then?  I have a substantial amount and I would possibly go on another cruise line If I cannot count on the discount.  Especially since they are just starting up getting those affected negatively onboard again!

[Keith1010]

2 hours ago, reenief said:

I have to find out if the cruise I booked is vulnerable to not receiving the payment?  If I get reimbursed before the cruise sails but after I made all the payments?  If I make a payment now for a 2025 cruise can they take back my payment IF I get reimbursed between now and then?  I have a substantial amount and I would possibly go on another cruise line If I cannot count on the discount.  Especially since they are just starting up getting those affected negatively onboard again!

If you apply your sub credits to any cruise and get money back from Moecker whatever you applied does not change. The only thing that would change are those sub credits you haven't used and they would be reduced by whatever you  got back from Moecker.

 

Keith

[PaulMCO]

Guess it pays to be a lawyer..  They get paid first....

 

[USCAdventurer]

I got the same email.  does this mean they are finally distributing the claims?  i sure hope so.  yes, i guess the lawyers get paid first but i hope the rest of us commoners get payments soon.  is there anyway to know when we might expect payment?

[PaulMCO]

17 minutes ago, USC Adventurer said:

I got the same email.  does this mean they are finally distributing the claims?  i sure hope so.  yes, i guess the lawyers get paid first but i hope the rest of us commoners get payments soon.  is there anyway to know when we might expect payment?

They made a motion to the court to begin to pay the priority claimants.  They have a zoom hearing with the judge on the motion scheduled after labor day.    They are still going through the claims and just disqualified (number 40) and other 100+.  I would expect them to begin in October/November.

 

 

[USCAdventurer]

thanks for your prompt reply.  every month it seems to get pushed back another month or two.  i remember when they told me i should expect to get my money in august.  at least i haven't been disqualified so that's a plus.

[Keith1010]

I am in no rush now. I hope to use the rest of my sub credits from our most recent voucher when they release the 2025 itineraries so would like to use them first before i might get the little sum of money that I could possibly get given the small ceiling on what is possible to get.

Keith 

[Whipsnade]

Agree we are not likely to get any $$$ until Oct and then only priority amounts. We may get more when they go to the next level down. 
a reminder that these $$ in no way affect our Exceptional Initiative credits from new Crystal. 

[Keith1010]

2 hours ago, Whipsnade said:

Agree we are not likely to get any $$$ until Oct and then only priority amounts. We may get more when they go to the next level down. 
a reminder that these $$ in no way affect our Exceptional Initiative credits from new Crystal. 

They can if you get dollars back before you have applied any of your sub credits so I am not in a rush for the money. 

Keith

[Whipsnade]

Totally incorrect. I have talked with the Moeker people. They have told me in no uncertain terms that their refunds are related only to bankruptcy. The EI is a sales promotion from new Crystal. My EI credits reflect the full amount I originally filed for even though both Chase Visa and Amex made me some substantial refunds. 
Hope this is clear. If not let me know. 

[Roland4]

1 minute ago, Whipsnade said:

Totally incorrect. I have talked with the Moeker people. They have told me in no uncertain terms that their refunds are related only to bankruptcy. The EI is a sales promotion from new Crystal. My EI credits reflect the full amount I originally filed for even though both Chase Visa and Amex made me some substantial refunds. 
Hope this is clear. If not let me know. 

That is my understanding as well. I asked when the EI was launched whether subsequent refunds from Moecker would affect the IE credit and was told it would not. Now, in our case, any credit from Moecker will be so small as to not really matter.

[May B]

1 hour ago, Whipsnade said:

Totally incorrect. I have talked with the Moeker people. They have told me in no uncertain terms that their refunds are related only to bankruptcy. The EI is a sales promotion from new Crystal. My EI credits reflect the full amount I originally filed for even though both Chase Visa and Amex made me some substantial refunds. 
Hope this is clear. If not let me know. 

You got EI credits for $$$ your Chase and Amex accts. refunded to you?

[Keith1010]

3 hours ago, Whipsnade said:

Totally incorrect. I have talked with the Moeker people. They have told me in no uncertain terms that their refunds are related only to bankruptcy. The EI is a sales promotion from new Crystal. My EI credits reflect the full amount I originally filed for even though both Chase Visa and Amex made me some substantial refunds. 
Hope this is clear. If not let me know. 

This is not my understanding but I will double check.

 

[Whipsnade]

Yes we got EI credits for total amount submitted to Moecker. Of course they will deduct amounts received from Chase and Amex before calculating our refund. Crystal only asked for the total submitted to Moecker before calculating our EI credits. 

[Keith1010]

3 hours ago, Whipsnade said:

Totally incorrect. I have talked with the Moeker people. They have told me in no uncertain terms that their refunds are related only to bankruptcy. The EI is a sales promotion from new Crystal. My EI credits reflect the full amount I originally filed for even though both Chase Visa and Amex made me some substantial refunds. 
Hope this is clear. If not let me know. 

Sorry but if your comment was directed to me I disagree.

 

I went back to my notes from a couple of months ago.

 

This is how it was explained to me a few weeks after the program rolled out.

 

Let's say you were owed $25,000.00 and you got an EI credit of five sub credits each of $5,000.00.

 

Let's say before Moecker refunded you any money you booked three cruises and used three vouchers of $5,000 each.

 

Now let's say you got a refund of $2,000.00 from Moecker as part of the settlement before you used your last two vouchers.

 

Your remaining two vouchers which had totaled $10,000 would now be worth a total of $8,000.00

 

In short,

 

Whatever you got from EI's has no baring on any money you will get back from Moecker because they do not check with Crystal about the EI program.

 

But any money you get back from Moecker does impact the value any vouchers you had not used.

 

This was explained to me by an executive at Crystal who would know.

 

With that said I have now reached out again to see if anything changed.

 

Keith 

[crickette]

Keith - sounds like double dipping.

[BWIVince]

9 minutes ago, crickette said:

Keith - sounds like double dipping.

 

It can't be considered double-dipping because Crystal is just offering a rebate/discount incentive for people to book a cruise with them, and had no connection in any way to the old bookings with GHK.  Even if MM&A wanted to count EI as compensation, I don't think they legally could.  

 

NOW, if Crystal wanted to mail everyone an unconditional cash reimbursement, that might be a different story.  Even then it would be kind of questionable because, again, they still don't have any connection to the original transaction, but at least that would be closer to an actual reimbursement.

 

...But getting up to 1/5 of your loss back from another company via a discount on up to 5 new bookings is not technically a reimbursement, even if people feel like that makes them closer to whole.

 

Vince

[Emdee]

1 hour ago, BWIVince said:

 

It can't be considered double-dipping because Crystal is just offering a rebate/discount incentive for people to book a cruise with them, and had no connection in any way to the old bookings with GHK.  Even if MM&A wanted to count EI as compensation, I don't think they legally could.  

 

NOW, if Crystal wanted to mail everyone an unconditional cash reimbursement, that might be a different story.  Even then it would be kind of questionable because, again, they still don't have any connection to the original transaction, but at least that would be closer to an actual reimbursement.

 

...But getting up to 1/5 of your loss back from another company via a discount on up to 5 new bookings is not technically a reimbursement, even if people feel like that makes them closer to whole.

 

Vince

But taking the EI discount for amounts already made whole by credit card companies is definitely double dipping. We were fortunate to have received all our monies back because they were refunded by AMEX. We therefore didn’t apply to EI for a discount and didn’t put through our Moecker claim. The Moecker was close in timing but then AMEX approved our refunds in the nick of time so we didn’t put it through. 

[Roland4]

12 minutes ago, Emdee said:

But taking the EI discount for amounts already made whole by credit card companies is definitely double dipping. We were fortunate to have received all our monies back because they were refunded by AMEX. We therefore didn’t apply to EI for a discount and didn’t put through our Moecker claim. The Moecker was close in timing but then AMEX approved our refunds in the nick of time so we didn’t put it through. 

Agreed, but what Keith is saying is that any monetary settlement from Moecker in future would be deducted from any unused EI credits. That is NOT what I was told, and I asked that question specifically of our Crystal DSM. Again, the recovery from Moecker, if any, will be insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

[BWIVince]

43 minutes ago, Emdee said:

But taking the EI discount for amounts already made whole by credit card companies is definitely double dipping. We were fortunate to have received all our monies back because they were refunded by AMEX. We therefore didn’t apply to EI for a discount and didn’t put through our Moecker claim. The Moecker was close in timing but then AMEX approved our refunds in the nick of time so we didn’t put it through.

 

ABSOLUTELY, if you received a refund from AmEx, you were disqualified from either offer.  You suffered no net loss of the original charge, which disqualifies you from EI, and you’d have nothing to claim from the Assignee.

 

My point was that reimbursement is distinctly different from a sales incentive.

 

A reimbursement from AmEx is money that was involved in the original transaction ecosystem.  The refund came from one three sources, all connected with your original transaction:

-  The money came from a linked Crystal account at some point

-  The money came from AmEx’s reserve of Crystal’s merchant account after the shutdown (money Crystal supplied or guaranteed through bonds)

-  Money supplied by AmEx in their role as one of Crystal’s processors, for which they collected fee revenue for that service,

The reimbursement is not contingent on any new investment by the customer.

 

EI is a sales incentive giving someone a discount on a new purchase.

 - The discount has no cash value — you can’t get it back in cash no matter what you do.

- You get no value whatsoever if you don’t buy something new.

- The money being discounted was never involved in a transaction with GHK or it’s subsidiaries, and never changed hands with any of their banks, affiliates, or merchant. processors.

 

So basically EI can set whatever rules Crystal wants for qualification because it’s their promo, and can absolutely exclude someone that was reimbursed or disqualified from a claim from getting EI, but for the same reasons MM&A can’t consider EI as a reimbursement, because it’s not.

 

An insurance payout is a reimbursement against a loss.

A refund or chargeback from a credit card company is a reimbursement against a loss.

EI is a discount incentive for a new sale.

 

Vince