Balance due email for purchases with OBC

[IslaSarah]

For my next cruise in March 2024, I had cruise line OBC in my planner that I used to buy specialty dining and a shore excursion when there was a recent sale. I just got an email from Celebrity that says "Balance due for cruise purchases. Due to a recent change to your cruise reservation, some purchases made with onboard credit are no longer paid in full. Please pay by the due date to avoid cancellation of balance-due purchases. Pay by phone by October 22, 2023." 
 

It totally smells of phishing scam, but the phone number is the Celebrity reservations line, and the price listed in the email matches one of the purchases, so it seems legit in that it is actually from Celebrity. They can't just change prices on me after I've purchased, can they? I hate the phone but will suck it up and call them, but want to be prepared to argue my case. 

Anybody else had this happen? 

[Cruise Gopher]

Did you make any changes to your booking such as re-pricing a reservation?

[SusieAV8R]

Good question, Cruise Gopher!

[keesar]

36 minutes ago, IslaSarah said:

For my next cruise in March 2024, I had cruise line OBC in my planner that I used to buy specialty dining and a shore excursion when there was a recent sale. I just got an email from Celebrity that says "Balance due for cruise purchases. Due to a recent change to your cruise reservation, some purchases made with onboard credit are no longer paid in full. Please pay by the due date to avoid cancellation of balance-due purchases. Pay by phone by October 22, 2023." 
 

It totally smells of phishing scam, but the phone number is the Celebrity reservations line, and the price listed in the email matches one of the purchases, so it seems legit in that it is actually from Celebrity. They can't just change prices on me after I've purchased, can they? I hate the phone but will suck it up and call them, but want to be prepared to argue my case. 

Anybody else had this happen? 

This happened to us.   I had received a confirmation of my purchases and had plenty of OBC left in the account.  So I just ignored that email.  One of us then had our Specialty Dining  reservation cancelled!  You should give Celebrity a call asap as it was quite a mess trying to restore the cancelled reservation.  Celebrity did not know why I received the email in the first place.

[IslaSarah]

42 minutes ago, Cruise Gopher said:

Did you make any changes to your booking such as re-pricing a reservation?

Nope, no changes at all! 

[sheeng]

I received the exact same message!  I had plenty of OBC remaining. The purchase was right there in my account under ‘Orders’. Turns out I had neglected to press the Purchase Now button when making my reservation 😜. After I completed my purchase all was well🤗

[prmssk]

I remember awhile back, too much OBC was credited based on the deal at the time of reservation and when Celebrity clawed back some of that OBC, people received e-mails like you mention.  (It could also happen if you re-priced your cruise with a deal that had less OBC which is why someone else asked that question.)  I would review your original invoice and log into the cruise planner to see what it shows for OBC and your orders and then call.  

[jelayne]

We repriced a cruise which resulted in losing $200 of OBC We had made a number of purchases but still had $476 of OBC remaining.  I got emails for 2 different purchases saying there was a balance owed.  In reducing the OBC the system reduced the remaining OBC  by $100 and then reduced the amount of OBC used for 2 purchases $55 and $45 to equal the $200.  I fortunately got a rep who could see and understood the problem and knew what needed to be done to correct it but it was outside the limits of what he could do.  He reached out to a supervisor which entailed a long wait but eventually it was corrected.

[Jim_Iain]

I had that happen to me last year when I won a Move Up.   All of my dinner reservations and excursions were cancelled and I received an e-mail that I had an unpaid balance.   A call to the Zenith fixed most of it but later found my dinner reservations were missing when I boarded the ship.  The Retreat Concierge fixed it quickly.    She also did a reconciliation showing that everything balanced