AARP Gift CARD Problems

[mcrcruiser]

We used all 5  & each being $500 face value on a cruise which we had to cancel . Then ,the other day we booked a 14 day cruise with HAL & come to find our that 2 of the 5  had no money in them & one had  $300 in it . However ,when we used the 5   AARP gift cards on the cruise we cancelled all 5 had $500 each on them /

 

 I do not know if any one else ever had this difficuty .We are out right now of $1200 . & how could that be3 when we under stood that HAL send back all the money to the gift cards .There were no penalties invloved . 

 

 We are asking the Travel Agent of record to research this before we phone HAL . We have fiven the TA all the AARP gift card numbers & pin numbers 

 

 This whole saga is very strange 

 

 any one have any useful info we would appreciate fery much to hear 

 

  Thanks for your replies 

 

 Cliff

 

 PS we wanted to just move all 5 gift cards to the new 14 day booking we just made 

Edited January 24 by mcrcruiser

[ShipWalker]

I had a similar situation with a AARP gift card I tried to use 10 minutes after purchasing. (0 balance)

 

Have your TA contact HAL. Have the HAL rep move the problem up the line. It was at HAL's end where the problem was for me.

[mcrcruiser]

39 minutes ago, ShipWalker said:

I had a similar situation with a AARP gift card I tried to use 10 minutes after purchasing. (0 balance)

 

Have your TA contact HAL. Have the HAL rep move the problem up the line. It was at HAL's end where the problem was for me.

thanks for your reply. I am waiting now for acctg to come back to me 

[mcrcruiser]

It seems apparent that these gift cards are not ful proof . There is a lacking of security  .My Travel Agent is going to follow up . I also hold them responsible .We will take step by Step until resolved .

 

We thank the person above for their info 

 

 Cliff

[mcrcruiser]

so any one having problems holland America has a Gift card dept . Phone number 855 -501- 4161

 

 Cliff

[ChinaShrek]

1 hour ago, mcrcruiser said:

It seems apparent that these gift cards are not ful proof . There is a lacking of security  .My Travel Agent is going to follow up . I also hold them responsible .We will take step by Step until resolved .

 

We thank the person above for their info 

 

 Cliff

Gift cards are great if you don't cancel the cruise. When you cancel it is difficult to figure out if the gift card amount goes back to the original gift card or if HAL issues a new one. If a new one, it may take you months to get it. 

[Real NHDOC]

38 minutes ago, mcrcruiser said:

so any one having problems holland America has a Gift card dept . Phone number 855 -501- 4161

 

 Cliff

I was also going to post this. Call that department. They deal only with gift card issues. My suspicion is they either did impose a penalty or they loaded up a card with more than $500. 
 

My own personal experience has been they don’t always credit back the correct amount to the correct card but if you check the balances on all of the cards they do add up to the correct total. I have not been shortchanged using gift cards, ever. 

[Brewgirl1]

I worked retail and sometimes it took weeks for funds to go back to the cards, cc or gift cards. 

[mcrcruiser]

2 hours ago, Real NHDOC said:

I was also going to post this. Call that department. They deal only with gift card issues. My suspicion is they either did impose a penalty or they loaded up a card with more than $500. 
 

My own personal experience has been they don’t always credit back the correct amount to the correct card but if you check the balances on all of the cards they do add up to the correct total. I have not been shortchanged using gift cards, ever. 

not in our case 5 cards at $500 each . They gave us 2 cards at  500  & one at 300 .Thus $`1200 short

[POA1]

59 minutes ago, mcrcruiser said:

not in our case 5 cards at $500 each . They gave us 2 cards at  500  & one at 300 .Thus $`1200 short

Take it up with AARP or whomever sold you the gift cards.

 

It's all about the party that issued charged you initially.

 

We've used AARP gift cards and they're pretty clear on the rules. You keep your records until value is used.

 

You were offering up your gift cards a while ago, and that could cause a problem for you.

[Real NHDOC]

12 hours ago, mcrcruiser said:

not in our case 5 cards at $500 each . They gave us 2 cards at  500  & one at 300 .Thus $`1200 short

Well, $600 pp happens to be the cancellation penalty of some “nonrefundable” fares. So, right or wrong it seems you were charged that penalty. I would call HAL back and ask specifically if you were charged a cancellation penalty when you canceled the first booking. My money is on that being the explanation. 

Edited January 25 by Real NHDOC

[Gallivanter'sGal]

We don't have gift cards with AARP, but we were told that we have to register every year for the AARP OBC to continue to receive it.  We have been trying to do that since 1/1/24 and each time we have gotten an error message saying we exceeded the limit????  Has anyone had success re-registering for the OBC?

[Ready2go11]

Just speculating but since the program did not start til late in July 2023 likely it is not yet time to reregister. Not clear if it is annual from when you first were validated or calendar year but unlikely it is time yet. 
 

I booked a new cruise for 2025 two weeks ago and there was no mention of having to reregister yet because the calendar flipped to 2024. 

[crystalspin]

1 minute ago, Gallivanter'sGal said:

We don't have gift cards with AARP, but we were told that we have to register every year for the AARP OBC to continue to receive it.  We have been trying to do that since 1/1/24 and each time we have gotten an error message saying we exceeded the limit????  Has anyone had success re-registering for the OBC?

Well, the program has only been around since last summer. Some have had problems even getting the OBC on a second cruise (with similar error). The trick is it has to be "manually applied" by a supervisor. My PCC transferred me to a Pricing Specialist who applied my AARP OBC out to next October! 

[mcrcruiser]

On 1/25/2024 at 5:01 AM, Real NHDOC said:

Well, $600 pp happens to be the cancellation penalty of some “nonrefundable” fares. So, right or wrong it seems you were charged that penalty. I would call HAL back and ask specifically if you were charged a cancellation penalty when you canceled the first booking. My money is on that being the explanation. 

My dares are aways refundable . This dies not apply to us

[mcrcruiser]

17 hours ago, crystalspin said:

Well, the program has only been around since last summer. Some have had problems even getting the OBC on a second cruise (with similar error). The trick is it has to be "manually applied" by a supervisor. My PCC transferred me to a Pricing Specialist who applied my AARP OBC out to next October! 

Crystal you can not answer this but ,we the buyers have these difficulties .you have a ne of a king good PCC with HAL .My personal experience dealing with many people trying to get to the truth is they are very poorly trained. We have asked several ties to sspeak with a supervisor .Either the people do not know who is a supervisor or there is no answer for their behavior . when there are serious problems they fumble & fumble & fumble. We have benn on the phone for days .Tight now I am on hold for over 40 minutes waiting for HALs acctg dept to tell me what they find out . 

 

 Cliff

[mcrcruiser]

finally got to the right person in HAL's Accounting dept . what happened & we verified it together is that instead of putting the $1200 back on the AARP Holland america gift Cards ,they place the $1200 on one of our credit cards . This ends the matter .

[Roz]

Glad to see you got a successful resolution to your problem.  You didn't notice you had a $1,200 credit on your card?

[Real NHDOC]

14 hours ago, Roz said:

You didn't notice you had a $1,200 credit on your card?

Just what I was thinking. If they indeed refunded the money to a credit card the OP was pretty lucky, especially if he bought the gift cards at the 10% discount. 

[mcrcruiser]

19 hours ago, Roz said:

Glad to see you got a successful resolution to your problem.  You didn't notice you had a $1,200 credit on your card?

We missed that credit because we have a lot of activity on our Chase Sapphire credit card . As we get older seems that things that would have been easier years ago are harder at 85 years ofage ,LOL

[Haljo1935]

I could see not noticing a CC credit for a little bit unless one checks the account every day. Especially since OP wasn't expecting it to go to his CC he didn't necessarily have reason to check daily. But if we're talking beyond a billing cycle...