Refunds - lesson learned

[gilboman]

On 2/6/2024 at 8:15 PM, jwattle said:

My customers do; a lot of people care if you're an online business...

 

BBB is like yelp for boomers and yelp itself is/has become BBB for gen x and younger 

[startedwithamouse]

Reddit. Start a topic there. 

[jwattle]

2 hours ago, gilboman said:

BBB is like yelp for boomers and yelp itself is/has become BBB for gen x and younger 

Well biscuits, you've got me backwards my friend 😄

 

[Outerdog]

If my customers paid me cash for listings and A+ ratings, I wouldn't bad mouth them either... just sayin'.

[MacMadame]

On 2/8/2024 at 4:20 PM, startedwithamouse said:

Reddit. Start a topic there. 

I've just started checking there. (I tend to forget Reddit exists except for r/AITA. 🤣) It's surprisingly helpful! Yelp is okay but I mostly use it for local businesses and sometimes there just aren't enough reviews.

[roomba920]

I wish the cruise lines would give more control to their passengers by allowing us to make cancellations online rather than having to call a call center. Having said that, the Zaandam is a nice ship, though smaller than the Grand. I sailed her last year from Montreal to Boston and loved her. My only complaint is that the food portions were tiny and the afternoon tea was a joke.

[Pangea59]

Touching on the discussion about BBB complaints, they indeed still work. You just have to properly file the complaint under the correct location for Princess, there are three in total. I filed under the California location, which is their Corp HQ. Then write a detailed email to customer relations, once customer relations calls you back on your complaint, if it doesn’t go well or you don’t see results. Then tell the agent, “I filled a BBB complaint, do you want the case number?”, then explain, “It’s ok, I know you can’t help me, but now that I made my complaint public, your Director Collin has no choice but to respond to my BBB complaint”   Once you get the Customer Relations to call you, that means they are taking your complaint seriously, if only to give you $100 future onboard credit to have you quickly go away. However, don’t accept that if you have a legitimate complaint, just tell them “I outlined what I want for a resolution in my BBB complaint, would you like the case number?”. What generally happens at this point is, the agent will say, let me do some more research on your case. What that truly means is, wholly crap, I better go read the public review on BBB to see how serious this is. 
 

I did EXACTLY this after an amazingly bad trip and I received a 100% refund for my 14 day Alaska cruise. I won’t go into specifics but it was horrendously bad, on two issues, illegally bad. The key here is, document the issues, be nice in your tone, show pictures if you have them, open a BBB complaint and in my case, it helped to have a video. A video and or picture is worth a 1000 words.  
 

I was surprised I was able to get 100% refund on a 14 day Alaska cruise but I knew if I thought my way through my approach, intelligently articulated my point of view and the legal severity of the issue, then couple that with publicly letting BBB and the world know, I stood a good chance of getting more than $100 future OBC. 

 

I will end with this, BBB can still be a powerful tool, even though Princess isn’t accredited with them. If you go in and look, they like to respond with a positive outcome to your complaint to BBB. 

[Rick&Jeannie]

@Pangea59...thanks for that in-depth posting about using the BBB.

Also...welcome to Cruise Critic!

[greenie082756]

I keep seeing CVP. What is that? 

I know that with Princess I have a PVP. Princess Vacation Planner

What's the difference? 

[SCX22]

1 minute ago, greenie082756 said:

I keep seeing CVP. What is that? 

I know that with Princess I have a PVP. Princess Vacation Planner

What's the difference? 

 

Potato (American English), Potato (British English).

 

They're the same thing.  Everyone is used to calling them a Cruise Vacation Planner, CVP.  I guess some where along the line they got their titles changed to Princess Vacation Planner, PVP.  Don't like PVP to refer to them because PVP has always meant, to me,  Princess Vacation Protection, which is Princess' cruise insurance.

[AZaTaz]

1 hour ago, SCX22 said:

 

Potato (American English), Potato (British English).

 

They're the same thing.  Everyone is used to calling them a Cruise Vacation Planner, CVP.  I guess some where along the line they got their titles changed to Princess Vacation Planner, PVP.  Don't like PVP to refer to them because PVP has always meant, to me,  Princess Vacation Protection, which is Princess' cruise insurance.

I actually ask my CVP if he was a PVP or a CVP, he said CVP. Said they had not been called PVP for years. 

[donaldsc]

I did not wade my way through your complicated explanations.  However any good TA would not have let all that happen.  They would take care of it quickly without making you do the work.

 

Yet another reason to use a good TA.

 

DON

Edited Sunday at 04:10 PM by donaldsc