Post-disembarkation stateroom account charges

[PacnGoNow]

8 hours ago, WineCountryCruiser said:

Ours was also a B2B and we did almost exactly what you did.  All seemed OK until it wasn't.  We've done 64 Princess cruises and also never experienced anything like this.  As a retired software engineer, it makes me wonder if there is a glitch in the software being used at Princess HQ for post-disembarkation processing. That's one of the reasons that decided to start this topic - to see who else might have had the same thing happen to them.

I bet you’re right, in addition to maybe new or outsourced accounting, is my guess.

 
Continual problems with IT and post cruise accounting.  

 

[nasa1974]

8 hours ago, leck57 said:

 

Why would you get a refund. Didn't you just pay the lower amount at final payment?

Not trying to hijack the thread. My math was off and it was getting late. 🙂  Early June the cost of the cruise dropped $300 from the price I originally booked. I contacted my TA and got re-fared. I had paid all but $115.00 on the cruise, this would be my final payment. So, the difference of getting re-fared made my final payment and Princess owed me the overpayment of $180. Does that make more sense? 

[WineCountryCruiser]

3 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

I bet you’re right, in addition to maybe new or outsourced accounting, is my guess.

 
Continual problems with IT and post cruise accounting.  

 

I know that Princess does read some of the threads on Cruise Critic.  If they happen to read this one, perhaps it will prompt someone to at least consider that there is a problem and initiate a review.

[Guest ldtr]

13 hours ago, WineCountryCruiser said:

Glad that you got some something back.  I agree - make sure that you always owe something.  That way if "$$COMPUTER" charges are applied post-disembarkation, you can dispute those charges via your credit card issuer.

Keep in mind that if you dispute via credit card and Princess disputes and wins you might end up being banned.  Neighbor of ours (very frequent cruiser) son filed a dispute, lost, and is now banned from Princess.  In his case it was for a much larger amount and Princess had the cruise contract on their side, but it does indicate that Princess does take disputes seriously.

 

A Princess final bill is like an accounting statement. It can get confusing because of how they credit and debit between accounts billed to the same credit card

 

I expect the computer charges could be  how they account for non refundable being subtracted or some other accounting debit, not an actual computer charge.

 

I would take a look and make sure of the totals of charges, non refundable obc and refundable obc, separate put accounting transfers between accounts paid by the same credit card and run the numbers separately from how they present it.  Then compare that to the final bill.

 

[Crystabel]

I had a problem with receiving promised FCC once and escalated my situation to Princess executives. My issue was finally resolved. Be sure to keep your explanation to the point and courteous without blaming anyone specifically. 

 

 

Collin Steinke
Director, Customer Relations
24305 Town Center Drive
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
csteinke@princesscruises.com
 
Mario Siebaldi
Senior Vice President Guest Experience
24305 Town Center Drive
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
msiebaldi@princesscruises.com

 

Jpadgett@Princesscruises.com

 

President, Holland America Group
JSwartz@Princesscruises.com

 

Billing office - 1-480-870-1580

[fannym123]

Just to let your guys know, we had $180 refundable OBC (prepaid by purchasing credit from CAD to USD online to spend on board) when we disembarked Island Princess cruise on June 28, 2023. Was told by customers service on board that it will be refunded by cheque in 4-8 weeks. Received a cheque in the mail on July 21, 2023. I was surprised to see how quickly it was processed and we live in Canada. So there's hope   🙂 Last time (before pandemic) we had refundable OBC, it took 2 months for the cheque to arrive. It is important to keep a copy of the on board statement as proof just in case the refund check not arrive. p.s. Customer service was able to refund cash if the refundable OBC is less than $50.

[WineCountryCruiser]

8 hours ago, ldtr said:

Keep in mind that if you dispute via credit card and Princess disputes and wins you might end up being banned.  Neighbor of ours (very frequent cruiser) son filed a dispute, lost, and is now banned from Princess.  In his case it was for a much larger amount and Princess had the cruise contract on their side, but it does indicate that Princess does take disputes seriously.

 

A Princess final bill is like an accounting statement. It can get confusing because of how they credit and debit between accounts billed to the same credit card

 

I expect the computer charges could be  how they account for non refundable being subtracted or some other accounting debit, not an actual computer charge.

 

I would take a look and make sure of the totals of charges, non refundable obc and refundable obc, separate put accounting transfers between accounts paid by the same credit card and run the numbers separately from how they present it.  Then compare that to the final bill.

 

I agree that the "$$COMPUTER" charges are not likely to be true charges but the reclassifying of charges from non-refundable to refundable or vice versa.  The problem is that the final non-refundable and refundable credit balances shown on the MedallionClass app were exactly as I expected.  As has occurred on previous cruises, Princess applied charges to non-refundable credits prior to applying them to refundable credits.  Given the specific credit amounts, the only way that they could have come up with the refund amount was to apply some charges to refundable credits and then some charges to  non-refundable credits - leaving a lot of non-refundable credits to be discarded and a smaller amount of refundable credits to be returned to me.  This just doesn't make sense to me.

 

I understand about the dispute issues.  But it seems that if post-disembarkation processing alters my final totals, Princess will always win.  If it results in refunding less money to me than I am due, they win.  If it results in producing or increasing a balance owed, they win again.  Unfortunately, we can't know the impact of post-disembarkation processing until we've left the ship and we have to live with whatever they claim to be the final amount owed or to be refunded.

 

 

[WineCountryCruiser]

9 hours ago, Crystabel said:

I had a problem with receiving promised FCC once and escalated my situation to Princess executives. My issue was finally resolved. Be sure to keep your explanation to the point and courteous without blaming anyone specifically. 

 

 

Collin Steinke
Director, Customer Relations
24305 Town Center Drive
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
csteinke@princesscruises.com
 
Mario Siebaldi
Senior Vice President Guest Experience
24305 Town Center Drive
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
msiebaldi@princesscruises.com

 

Jpadgett@Princesscruises.com

 

President, Holland America Group
JSwartz@Princesscruises.com

 

Billing office - 1-480-870-1580

Thanks for the contact information.  I do not blame any individual for what happened though I do find fault with the mechanism by which the final statement is derived.  Until you leave the ship, you can review your statement and speak with Guest Services about erroneous entries.  After that, you can review the final statement produced by post-disembarkation processing but have very limited ability to speak with anyone about seemingly erroneous entries.  Should you be fortunate enough to speak with someone at Customer Relations, they can, as happened to me, simply stand by their numbers without explaining why their numbers are right and yours are wrong.  And that's not right!

 

[phoenixxx]

On 8/10/2023 at 1:41 PM, GJCruiser said:

I would never leave a ship with credits held by the cruise line. Go to the casino that last day and be sure you sufficiently charge off the credits left and get the cash.

"Charge off the credits" how do you do that please?

[GJCruiser]

11 hours ago, phoenixxx said:

"Charge off the credits" how do you do that please?

You use the on machine system to transfer funds to your casino account. Then you play a bit and go to the cashier and cash out.

[nasa1974]

Now that there are issues with MOBC and SOBC as nonrefundable. It is what it is. But if you use a gift card and apply it to your account for OBC or a credit card then what you don't use should absolutely be refunded no question. The key is to keep good documentation. 

[CyberTag]

I do not understand how it’s ok for Princess to delay in getting money refunded back that is rightfully mine. If I owed them money after the cruise, they sure would collect immediately. Yet, I have to wait 6-8 weeks for a refund to be sent via check? This seems shady and unethical! We have cruised with Celebrity and Royal Caribbean and refundable OBC is deposited back to your credit card within a week! Shame on you Princess,

[mrrickyg]

On 8/9/2023 at 6:11 PM, WineCountryCruiser said:

Having cruised with Princess for almost 20 years, I have learned that errors in our stateroom account, though uncommon, do occur.  As a result, I check my stateroom account balance on the MedallionClass app each day to ensure that the day’s charges are correct, and that the refundable and non-refundable onboard credit balances are also correct.

 

On a recent cruise, I had onboard credits classified by Princess as non-refundable and others classified by Princess as refundable.  While sitting in the disembarkation lounge waiting to leave the ship at the conclusion of the cruise, I did a final check of my stateroom account using the MedallionClass app to verify that everything was what I expected.  As expected, the information in the app showed that I had a substantial credit balance – of which the vast majority was refundable.  After arriving home that day, I received the final statement of our stateroom account via email from Princess.  To my surprise, the amount to be refunded to me was well under half of the refundable credit balance shown on the app.  This was caused by the application of a series of unknown charges identified as having been applied on disembarkation day.

 

I emailed Princess Customer Relations the following day requesting resolution of the matter.  Two weeks later, having received no acknowledgment of receipt or response to my email, I re-sent the original email after updating it to include my detailed analysis showing what I believed was the correct amount to be refunded to me.  I did get an acknowledgement that the re-sent message had been received but there was still no reply.  The updated message was then re-sent two additional times, but Princess did not provide a response until almost seven weeks after we disembarked the ship.  Their response included an attachment containing a detailed list of all charges and credits to my stateroom account that I was asked to review.

 

My review of the details provided by Princess showed that every charge and credit was as expected up to the time that we disembarked the ship.  At the end of the list of charges and credits was a series of charges labeled as “$$COMPUTER” that were applied over two hours after we disembarked.

 

An exchange of emails resulted in Princess stating that all charges in the final statement of our stateroom account that I received on disembarkation day were correct – though no explanation was provided regarding the charges identified as “$$COMPUTER”.  I then emailed Princess Customer Relations requesting an explanation of those charges.  To date, I have yet to receive a response to that request.  I have another Princess cruise scheduled that includes a similar set of non-refundable and refundable credits.  Without an explanation of the post-disembarkation “$$COMPUTER” charges, I am concerned that I will be unable to avoid a recurrence of what happened on my recent cruise.

 

Has anyone else had a similar experience or is this unique to me?

Hey neighbor! I’m in American Canyon and getting ready to head up to the courthouse soon to take these jokers to small claims court. We were on a casino booking with included Princess Plus and paid to upgrade to Premier ahead of time to the casino department over the phone. We got hit with hundreds of dollars in charges and we’ve honestly put damned near 20 hours or more of hold times, emails, dropped calls, credit card disputes, and are so angry. Any call to an accountant would fix this but nobody has the understanding or power to do anything but create a ticket that never gets followed up on.

 

Im pretty sure I would win easily in small claims, but on behalf of the lord knows how many people that didnt notice or gave up I am very interested in taking this to a small claims attorney even if that means getting less than what I am owed. 

[PacnGoNow]

3 hours ago, mrrickyg said:

Hey neighbor! I’m in American Canyon and getting ready to head up to the courthouse soon to take these jokers to small claims court. We were on a casino booking with included Princess Plus and paid to upgrade to Premier ahead of time to the casino department over the phone. We got hit with hundreds of dollars in charges and we’ve honestly put damned near 20 hours or more of hold times, emails, dropped calls, credit card disputes, and are so angry. Any call to an accountant would fix this but nobody has the understanding or power to do anything but create a ticket that never gets followed up on.

 

Im pretty sure I would win easily in small claims, but on behalf of the lord knows how many people that didnt notice or gave up I am very interested in taking this to a small claims attorney even if that means getting less than what I am owed. 

What were the hundreds of dollars for on your folio?  Did you call the billing department to get an explanation?  If that would even help.  
Did you see these charges while on the ship?  Did you check your folio the last day?  Good luck to you.

[RLK33853]

On 8/9/2023 at 9:42 PM, RLK33853 said:

We had a similar issue in February.  We were on B2B cruises and had refundable $100 on each leg.  I checked with the front desk after the 1st leg, plus prior to leaving the ship on the second leg, and was assured that each $100 would be paid out = $200.

 

Fast forward 6 weeks and we received a cheque for $116???   Not sure how $200 ended up being $116 - I could see $100, but not a random number like $116.

 

Our travel agent has escalated this issue on 3 different occasions without any kind of reasonable explanation.  We are on our fourth back and forth with them at present.  This was our 46 Princess cruise and we have never experienced anything like this.

Positive Outcome/Resolution

 

Just providing an update regarding our missing refundable OBC.  Received a call last evening from a Princess Onboard Experience Support Specialist (Customer Service Representative) who informed me she wanted to clear my issue up.  Apologized for the six months it took for the issue to get to her, and then said she was looking at my February final account and confirmed that Princess had sent out a cheque in the wrong amount.  To resolve the discrepancy she asked if I wanted a new cheque or could she just give me the missing OBC for my next cruise.  This seemed to be the simpler method so I agreed and the matter was settled.  Of interest was that she also said that she would be giving both myself AND my wife the OBC.  I looked today and she was true to her word - she doubled the missing funds - with the missing amount in my name, as well as the missing amount in my wife's name.

 

Moral to the story - keep asking for your issues to be resolved; include your documentation; and be polite.  Although it took a long time, it was nice to see that Princess took the issue seriously and resolved it.

[PacnGoNow]

9 hours ago, RLK33853 said:

Positive Outcome/Resolution

 

Just providing an update regarding our missing refundable OBC.  Received a call last evening from a Princess Onboard Experience Support Specialist (Customer Service Representative) who informed me she wanted to clear my issue up.  Apologized for the six months it took for the issue to get to her, and then said she was looking at my February final account and confirmed that Princess had sent out a cheque in the wrong amount.  To resolve the discrepancy she asked if I wanted a new cheque or could she just give me the missing OBC for my next cruise.  This seemed to be the simpler method so I agreed and the matter was settled.  Of interest was that she also said that she would be giving both myself AND my wife the OBC.  I looked today and she was true to her word - she doubled the missing funds - with the missing amount in my name, as well as the missing amount in my wife's name.

 

Moral to the story - keep asking for your issues to be resolved; include your documentation; and be polite.  Although it took a long time, it was nice to see that Princess took the issue seriously and resolved it.

So, have you any idea through what source it was resolved? By your emails, billing, calls or your TA?

Thank you for the feedback on CC.

 

[RLK33853]

1 hour ago, PacnGoNow said:

So, have you any idea through what source it was resolved? By your emails, billing, calls or your TA?

Thank you for the feedback on CC.

 

 

Our Travel Agent pushed this on our behalf.  I have to say though that she is phenomenal - she is the owner of a boutique type Cruse Only agency that she took over from her parents.  Thus with over 50 years in the cruise business, they have personal connections to reps of various cruise lines - which I am sure helped/sped up the process.

[PacnGoNow]

11 minutes ago, RLK33853 said:

 

Our Travel Agent pushed this on our behalf.  I have to say though that she is phenomenal - she is the owner of a boutique type Cruse Only agency that she took over from her parents.  Thus with over 50 years in the cruise business, they have personal connections to reps of various cruise lines - which I am sure helped/sped up the process.

That’s awesome. Not everyone is as lucky as you.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[WineCountryCruiser]

12 hours ago, RLK33853 said:

Positive Outcome/Resolution

 

Just providing an update regarding our missing refundable OBC.  Received a call last evening from a Princess Onboard Experience Support Specialist (Customer Service Representative) who informed me she wanted to clear my issue up.  Apologized for the six months it took for the issue to get to her, and then said she was looking at my February final account and confirmed that Princess had sent out a cheque in the wrong amount.  To resolve the discrepancy she asked if I wanted a new cheque or could she just give me the missing OBC for my next cruise.  This seemed to be the simpler method so I agreed and the matter was settled.  Of interest was that she also said that she would be giving both myself AND my wife the OBC.  I looked today and she was true to her word - she doubled the missing funds - with the missing amount in my name, as well as the missing amount in my wife's name.

 

Moral to the story - keep asking for your issues to be resolved; include your documentation; and be polite.  Although it took a long time, it was nice to see that Princess took the issue seriously and resolved it.

Very happy to hear that Princess stepped up and resolved your issue in your favor.  You might want to confirm the status (refundable or non-refundable) of the OBCs that were provided for your next cruise.

 

We ended up emailing our documentation to senior staff in Customer Relations.  Our primary reason for doing so is to understand why the post-disembarkation changes to our stateroom account were made.  Our upcoming Island Princess cruise in October involves extremely similar circumstances and we do not want to go through this again.

 

Craig