OBC/Daily gratuities

[wandb]

Can On Board Credit still be used on HAL for gratuities?

[CGinMTL]

Short answer. Yes

[ArizonaStorm]

Think of it like a bank account. My Statement for the first few days looked like this:

 

January 13:  Promo Credit (OBC)        ($ 300)

                     Crew Appreciation            $   16

                     Ocean Bar                        $   14

                     Ocean Bar Tip.                 $     3

January 14:   Crew Appreciation           $   16

                      Unlimited Laundry.           $ 144

                      Panorama Bar                  $   13

                      Panorama Bar Tip.           $     2

January 15:   Crew Appreciation            $   16

                      Crow’s Nest Bar               $   14

                      C. N. Bar Tip                    $     2

                      Shop                                $    75

 

   CURRENT BALANCE DUE:               $   15      

 

So, by the end of my third day, I had spent my Onboard Credit.  Had the cruise ended at this point, I would have owed $15.  But, I still have 14 more days remaining on my cruise.  So, my Statement will grow longer as each day passes.  Even if I vowed to stop spending for the rest of the crew, $16 per day would be charged for Crew Appreciation.  So my Ending Balance Due would be at least $224 ($16 x 14 days remaining) more.

You can check your Statement on your Navigator App as often as you want.  If you do this, you should not be surprised at your Final Balance Due.  I check mine every day.  One day a charge for an Excursion appeared on my Statement - I don’t do excursions, so I knew the charge was made erroneously. So, I went down to the Guest Services desk and contested the charge. 
After several questions, they agreed and said that the Excursions department would delete the item.  Within a few hours, the charge disappeared from my Statement.  If you never check your Statement until the last day, you could easily forget when and where you spent your money, and let erroneous charges go through.  But if you check every day, you will better remember what you spent the previous day. 

[albingirl]

I am just back from NCL Escape. I'll tell you later how it compared to Holland America, but I can report that our daily gratuity for a veranda stateroom was 20 dollars pp per day.

[CGinMTL]

On ncl, you can not use OBC for crew appreciation.

Only line I think 

[albingirl]

1 hour ago, CGinMTL said:

On ncl, you can not use OBC for crew appreciation.

Only line I think 

It's considered non refundable and cannot be applied.  You arecorrect. .

[wandb]

Thanks everyone. I knew that many if not most river cruises no longer allow using obc to pay gratuities. Also NCL. Just didn't know about HAL.