Premier Upgrade and SD Refunds

[J13C85]

We are sailing on a 14D B2B in a full suite on Sky in 3 weeks. We booked this very early (over 400 days out) and have Plus55. We are considering the upgrade to Premier ($25 pp per day and that should be $700). We have $800 in OBC and are thinking of using that.

 

My questions: 

Are we able to buy the upgrade in the Suite Concierge Lounge or do we need to find someone selling it?

 

We booked and prepaid for 3 specialty dining meals (embarkation night and two others). I would think Princess will refund all three (embarkation night is a suite perk and the other 2 would be covered by the package). Will we need to go to guest services for this or can it be handled in the Suite Concierge Lounge?

 

Can the refund be in the form of an obc?

 

Any insight is appreciated.

 

TIA

[Melnal2]

Hi @J13C85, we were on the Regal last January and I was SO impressed with the Concierge Lounge and their ability/goal to solve all of our issues.  We were a party of 12 with no pre-reserved dining table/time.  The lounge concierge, Georgia, took care of the booking, and less than an hour later we had a reserved table for 12 waiting for us in the dining room, booked at the same time every night.  We had a couple more requests that she seemed to resolve effortlessly, and she encouraged us to bring all of our questions/issues directly to her rather than guest services.  She was BRILLIANT!

 

Not sure about the upgrade to premier over plus...  Seems I read somewhere on the site - maybe check the chat feature? 

 

Best of luck and have a great cruise!!

[hammo]

We have had issues with the Premier Package Specialty Dining .

We are Platinum with Princess and expected being able to make reservations pre cruise for the 2 nights dining and were able to do so , except our CC was debited the full amount ( there are other threads confirming similar here ) 

No problem we thought , Guest Relations will sort it out and having brought on board the cc staements and the Premium Package details etc , we seemed to have that sorted after being told our CC will have the $200 returned to it asap , saying 7-14 days . Thanks for our patience .

The Cruise was October and still no refund .

We are booked again next March so dreading this happening again .

 

[Thrak]

31 minutes ago, hammo said:

We have had issues with the Premier Package Specialty Dining .

We are Platinum with Princess and expected being able to make reservations pre cruise for the 2 nights dining and were able to do so , except our CC was debited the full amount ( there are other threads confirming similar here ) 

No problem we thought , Guest Relations will sort it out and having brought on board the cc staements and the Premium Package details etc , we seemed to have that sorted after being told our CC will have the $200 returned to it asap , saying 7-14 days . Thanks for our patience .

The Cruise was October and still no refund .

We are booked again next March so dreading this happening again .

 

 

I would escalate this. There is no valid reason for you to have been charged in the first place and, having been charged, it should have been addressed onboard immediately.

[jagoffee]

13 hours ago, hammo said:

We have had issues with the Premier Package Specialty Dining .

We are Platinum with Princess and expected being able to make reservations pre cruise for the 2 nights dining and were able to do so , except our CC was debited the full amount ( there are other threads confirming similar here ) 

No problem we thought , Guest Relations will sort it out and having brought on board the cc staements and the Premium Package details etc , we seemed to have that sorted after being told our CC will have the $200 returned to it asap , saying 7-14 days . Thanks for our patience .

The Cruise was October and still no refund .

We are booked again next March so dreading this happening again .

 

Interesting.  Are you saying that there is no way to book a Specialty restaurant in advance using the Premier credits.  (Without paying?). 
 

Thanks

[Rick&Jeannie]

We and our traveling partners are just off the Sky on its transatlantic.  We all upgraded to Premier 3 or 4 weeks before sailing.  We had no trouble making our SD reservations, and we were not charged for them.

[Cruise Raider]

For a full suite, they will be saving some room in the specialty restaurants for you on the first or maybe even the second night.  If you make those reservations ahead of time, you will be charged.  
As for the premier package, you won’t have to have anybody upgrade it for you although, the crew does get credit for selling it or upgrading it, so I usually just try to find someone to do that.  
But, you can always just do the upgrade in the app under Payment Methods and Packages.  It won’t be hard either way (although they will be changing to a new app next month so not sure if that place on the app will look as it does in the current app).  
 

You shouldn’t be charged if you make a reservation ahead of time and you already have the premier package.  I say shouldn’t because I made 10 reservations successfully with the premier package for my upcoming cruises and yet, was charged for one of them.  So odd but I believe one was because I moved one of my reservations to a different date so it ended up charging me.  
 

Just of note, and I could be wrong, but I thought the packages were only sold as $50 and now $60, making the upgrade to the premier $30 per day pp.  if you booked the Princess insurance along with that cruise, you will also pay the increase in the insurance costs.  I recently upgraded from the older $50 plus to the premier for a 10 night cruise and it was $650 total with the insurance costs added.  

 

[hammo]

We were certainly charged  -- and cancelled and rebooked several times with the same result . We even tried to do this both on the app and then on the web after being advised that this worked - it did not . Several other cruisers onboard were lined up at guest relations with the same problem and while we were not really concerned as the main prioroty was getting the reservation at the time we wanted and assumed Guest relations would refund after our dealings with them onboard . They assured us all was in order and the refund would be forethcoming --- that was October and nothing to date .

I have contacted Princess last week regarding the refund and their reply was they will expect to deal with this in 4 - 6 weeks . As I said previously , we have another cruise booked with Premier package in March , if it happens again , we wont bother booking any more. 

[Hlitner]

On 12/4/2023 at 1:27 PM, jagoffee said:

Interesting.  Are you saying that there is no way to book a Specialty restaurant in advance using the Premier credits.  (Without paying?). 
 

Thanks

Yep, we will say it and have said it in another post.  Am on the Sky now (for 2 weeks) and we could not book our 2 included specialty meals until aboard.  Prior to the cruise the app would only allow us to book if we made full payment via CC.  Called Princess (twice) 

mans they had no solution other than to pay and beg for a refund once aboard.

 

Hank

[Rick&Jeannie]

We recently did a transatlantic with another couple.  We all had Premier.  We booked our 4 SD meals prior to sailing...did NOT get charged.  After those dinners, we paid very close attention to our folios...nobody was ever charged.  The system *can* work...obviously just not all the time.  I don't know what made the difference. (We are all Platinum.)

[Hlitner]

2 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

We recently did a transatlantic with another couple.  We all had Premier.  We booked our 4 SD meals prior to sailing...did NOT get charged.  After those dinners, we paid very close attention to our folios...nobody was ever charged.  The system *can* work...obviously just not all the time.  I don't know what made the difference. (We are all Platinum.)

Appears to be no good answer why or why not things work.  Even the two Princess reps, with whom we talked. had no answers other than to “elevate the issue” to IT.  With Princess that is the kiss of death and inaction.

[jagoffee]

6 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Appears to be no good answer why or why not things work.  Even the two Princess reps, with whom we talked. had no answers other than to “elevate the issue” to IT.  With Princess that is the kiss of death and inaction.

Since you are already on the cruise, it does not matter.  After reading your comment and other conflicting comments, i decided to try it.  
I was able to log and make my Speciality Dining reservation with no charge.  When I clicked to make a reservation, there was a notice  starting that I had dining credits available to use. I selected my location and time.  There was a summary with a charge, a credit applied to the charge, and it showed a balance of zero.  If I recall correctly the system did ask for my charge card information, but after entering the information, the next step showed the  summary that I stated.

 

I did notice once when I cancelled a reservations, I had to wait awhile until my credit showed up again.

 

i hope you are enjoying your cruise and you were able to reserve the days and times that you wanted.

[Hlitner]

3 hours ago, jagoffee said:

Since you are already on the cruise, it does not matter.  After reading your comment and other conflicting comments, i decided to try it.  
I was able to log and make my Speciality Dining reservation with no charge.  When I clicked to make a reservation, there was a notice  starting that I had dining credits available to use. I selected my location and time.  There was a summary with a charge, a credit applied to the charge, and it showed a balance of zero.  If I recall correctly the system did ask for my charge card information, but after entering the information, the next step showed the  summary that I stated.

 

I did notice once when I cancelled a reservations, I had to wait awhile until my credit showed up again.

 

i hope you are enjoying your cruise and you were able to reserve the days and times that you wanted.

We were able to get 2 reservations in each of the 3 specialties so all is fine.  But it only worked for us because we prefer to dine late. 
 

Hank

 

[hammo]

I'll reignite this post when we go ahead and book our Specialty dining for the next cruise for March and if Princess ever return our money for the last cruise " included 2 Specialty Restaurant  Premium Dining "..........which we were charged for . I dont think us being Platinum matters a tinkers cuss.

[hammo]

Contacted Princess again and they acknowledged saying they will look into this and get back in 4 to 6 weeks .. Like I said Platinum Level means nothing and assume Princess are like insurance companies who just wait for you to give up .Its just $200 but really ..........

[Cruise Raider]

7 hours ago, hammo said:

Contacted Princess again and they acknowledged saying they will look into this and get back in 4 to 6 weeks .. Like I said Platinum Level means nothing and assume Princess are like insurance companies who just wait for you to give up .Its just $200 but really ..........

$200 is worth keeping up the fight.