Celebrity's actual deceit on Move Up - bid for upgrade

[Arizona Wildcat]

2 hours ago, george_sf said:

Yeah. We just make this ***** up. And we get Celebrity charges of $5440 on our AMEX for your kicks. 

Understand.   Read my long post.   After speaking to my contact at the executive offices I asked them what a STAR manager is and does at Celebrity. 

They book talent and coordinate transportation to and from the ship.  Entertainers on Celebrity are housed in cabins generally only used by them.  If an entertainer brings their family arrangements are made for veranda cabins.  VIPs?  Certain political persons and others who are highly visible are assigned cabins by Celebrity.   They are rare.

[Arizona Wildcat]

3 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

I am asking myself the same 😄  I don't have a cruise booked with them to date.  I was considering Celebrity for a Japan cruise as they have a better itinerary,  but with the weekly Celebrity snafus,  I may just have to go with another line...

 

It is not that the other lines don't make mistakes.  It is how you deal with the mistakes...

The horror stories on other lines are similar.  Suggest cruising or travel probably not for you any longer.  As a TA that organized large (50-200) groups traveling across the US; I have watched the hotel and motel service decline steadily along with group members often unable to "go with the flow" on even very small things.  Where we dealt with maybe one issue a day 20 years ago it rose to more it 2019 and to constantly dealing with stuff in 2022.  Thus said no more.  Now am asked when will you do another group tour.

[abbydancer2003]

While this sucks, and I do think you deserver more than 100.00 each OBC (either more OBC or some specialty dinners), I think the term deceit may be an overstatement.  Remember, sometimes the effects of malice are indistinguishable from those of incompetence.

 

Maybe push the retreat concierges for more OBC or specialty?  They have some ability to do stuff.

[NMTraveller]

12 minutes ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

The horror stories on other lines are similar.  Suggest cruising or travel probably not for you any longer.  As a TA that organized large (50-200) groups traveling across the US; I have watched the hotel and motel service decline steadily along with group members often unable to "go with the flow" on even very small things.  Where we dealt with maybe one issue a day 20 years ago it rose to more it 2019 and to constantly dealing with stuff in 2022.  Thus said no more.  Now am asked when will you do another group tour.

The 5 star resorts that I stayed in several months back had impeccable service.  I will be going back.  My next planned vacation is a resort vacation.  I did not book while on board last time with Celebrity ...

 

I see no reason to settle for oops.  I will just change the places that I stay at and cruise with lines that have better customer service and better service in general...

 

There are hotel/resort brands that I have had to cross off of the list and new ones that were added.

Edited March 16 by NMTraveller

[hcat]

3 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

I see the Celebrity class system on display all of the time.

 

My bet would be that the room was given up to some VIP.  Otherwise why?  why?

yup.. here's a similar though less  serious story,  but it does show how staff can ruin things. 

 

We booked Fine Cut on our first EDGE cruise. It was. pre paid on our cred card months before the res date. We selected  our usual  6 p.m.early time.. to fit my dietary req  and to avoid noise coming up from the Martini Bar area 

 

We stopped in a day ahead just before dinner time to re- confirm..A nasty, pompous maitre d said.. We have switched you to 8 p.m. to give you a better experience..total bs.. No notice no nothing..

 

We said if he could not restore our res time, just cancel our res. He actually refused.  As guests were now lining up, I  was quite  mortified but decided to match  his attitude.. and  refused to budge from the front of his podium.

 

..Eventually he relented and cancelled our res but made my husb  go back to our room to get the paperwork...We have .no idea who got our res or why this was such a big deal to cancel.

 

.  We went to Guest Rel  next day and cancelled ALL our specialty dining and told them why..

 

This also  happened to others at EDEN...overbooked....split up  families to diff times etc 

 

All I can say abt OPs situation is that  IT REALLY stinks ...

[brockmom]

54 minutes ago, hcat said:

yup.. here's a similar though less  serious story,  but it does show how staff can ruin things. 

 

We booked Fine Cut on our first EDGE cruise. It was. pre paid on our cred card months before the res date. We selected  our usual  6 p.m.early time.. to fit my dietary req  and to avoid noise coming up from the Martini Bar area 

 

We stopped in a day ahead just before dinner time to re- confirm..A nasty, pompous maitre d said.. We have switched you to 8 p.m. to give you a better experience..total bs.. No notice no nothing..

 

We said if he could not restore our res time, just cancel our res. He actually refused.  As guests were now lining up, I  was quite  mortified but decided to match  his attitude.. and  refused to budge from the front of his podium.

 

..Eventually he relented and cancelled our res but made my husb  go back to our room to get the paperwork...We have .no idea who got our res or why this was such a big deal to cancel.

 

.  We went to Guest Rel  next day and cancelled ALL our specialty dining and told them why..

 

This also  happened to others at EDEN...overbooked....split up  families to diff times etc 

 

All I can say abt OPs situation is that  IT REALLY stinks ...

Great example.

The few times I have had an issue on board or with a booking, the bad experience ones were always where there was no empathy shown. And this one I agree with the OP, when delivering a message like he received about not getting his PH, it should have come from someone who is going to offer assistance and compensation for this for whatever reason, mess up.

I sure hope someone posts who is in that room !

I’m dying to know !

sorry to the OP for their behaviour…go and enjoy 

Brockmom

[phoenix_dream]

5 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

It is stories like this that make me wonder why I sail Celebrity?  Why?

 

At a whim they could move me to whatever cabin they want...

No different than any cruise line. I do think it's very wrong that they have that privilege. 

[Shadow9612]

8 hours ago, wrk2cruise said:

So in my opinion a better response from Celebrity would be to provide some of the PH amenities for the OP in their CS, like unlimited specialty dining, laundry etc.  Maybe if the onboard staff is aware of what happened there might be some accommodation

I feel for the OP and think Celebrity should have handled this better. 

 

This is a wonderful idea from @wrk2cruise.

 

[NMTraveller]

1 hour ago, phoenix_dream said:

No different than any cruise line. I do think it's very wrong that they have that privilege. 

It is not the privilege.  It is Celebrity's misuse of the privilege and their handling afterwards.

 

I can see how a room might need to be down for a sailing for maintenance.  Perfectly acceptable.  However one would hope that they would make it up in other ways.

 

Giving it to someone else because they are more important?  Not acceptable.

 

Celebrity's handling of the situation after mistake #1 also unacceptable...

Edited March 16 by NMTraveller

[Oceangoer2]

6 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

Sorry, you cannot go back and edit old posts. You have *maybe* 2 minutes to edit one before it is locked.

 

 

 

After the time limit, you can 'quote' your original note and add EDIT before the new statement.

[vjmatty]

6 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

True,  but that is a bad business practice...

 

Giving your booked room to someone else...

A lot of people on CC don’t understand the difference between what’s allowed in the contract and good customer service. 

[At Sea At Peace]

8 hours ago, At Sea At Peace said:

 

Yeah, that's a tough one.  After getting all excited to win the best on the ship it makes it harder to take losing it. 

 

I don't know why such happened.  

 

Laura Hodges Bethge CEO is really tough to get for a matter like this; she's about a year into running the entire line and that's a lot on her plate to take on individual matters.

 

I would recommend Andrea Shey, I believe VP of the Loyalty Program for about the same amount of time.  I watched many cruise videos and read many online commentaries from her and, after having an issue of our own, she actually immediately communicated with us, commented and forwarded to the correct department head for resolution.  We got a phone call in minutes and our issue was resolved satisfactorily.  We believe the person was from an "Executive Office" type response team.

 

Anyway, CC has many different thread post with various emails for her.  The one we used originally and successfully was below.

 

ashey@celebrity.com

 

I will recommend, as I do to all in such conditions, to conduct yourself in a balanced, passionate (about Celebrity cruise history) and non-adversarial manner (even though you could have every right to feel so) as, in these corporate level access situations, we find that a touch of sugar coating works more often than vinegar.

 

Just wondering if the OP tried to make contact with the suggested person and email provided.

 

Thank you.

 

Again, a tough one.

 

[prmssk]

I've been following this thread and although I would be disappointed to get an upgrade that was then taken away from me, I wouldn't walk away thinking I was entitled to anything besides the refund of the Move Up bid.  If they gave me a couple hundred dollars of OBC in addition, I would actually consider myself ahead.  

 

I'm not sure OP is entitled to know all that went on in the background that led to this mistake so I don't know why it needed to be someone well-informed who made that call.  I also think it is really disrespectful to call the initial caller a "flunky" just because she wasn't someone high enough up to know all the details.  She was just doing her job.

 

Sure, it would be nice to throw in something extra for the disappointment, but I'm still not sure OP is entitled to it.

 

When something goes wrong, I just want to be made whole.  I do not need to come out ahead because of someone else's mistake.

[NMTraveller]

27 minutes ago, prmssk said:

When something goes wrong, I just want to be made whole.  I do not need to come out ahead because of someone else's mistake.

So you would be perfectly fine with them giving your room to someone else whom they deemed more important after you had been paid for it and assigned a room?

 

LOL

 

I know what my DW would say ... 🤣

Edited March 16 by NMTraveller

[prmssk]

Just now, NMTraveller said:

So you would be perfectly fine with them giving your room to someone more important after you had been paid for it and assigned a room?

 

LOL

But in this scenario they didn't give away the room the OP had hand-picked and was happy to initially book.  It was the chance upgrade they lost out on, a room they weren't expecting to get in the first place.  (And we don't actually know the circumstances of why that upgraded room no longer was available.)

 

I would feel disappointed, sure.  But I wouldn't feel Celebrity owed me anything besides a refund of the MoveUp bid.

[gizmodog]

we have in fact just been told it was also offered to a VIP"  v  "The VIP is an educated guess by us and our travel agent" 

 

Both these are quotes from you, so which is it, you were told or justa guess...

 

WHO CARES?. This guest was treated badly, I too would be very upset after the excitement you both must have felt when being informed you won this bid and were charged and your room was changed on all the boarding paperwork. What a great day that must have been! Then BOOM the rug is pulled out from under you with no real explanation and no real attempt to make things right. 
I am so sorry this happened to you. I do not know what is going on with Celebrity these days. I do hope you enjoy your cruise, although you will have a bad taste in your mouth after this.

[george_sf]

5 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

So you would be perfectly fine with them giving your room to someone else whom they deemed more important after you had been paid for it and assigned a room?

 

LOL

 

I know what my DW would say ... 🤣

 

Yup. And don't forget that Move Up is a chain of events. Someone was probably assigned our old room... The "disappointment" isn't just mine/husband's. 

 

And, why am I know entitled to know what happened? The Move Up Terms and Conditions are clear... Changes can't be undone. Celebrity doesn't have to honor it going forward ONLY if the cruise is cancelled or we move to another cruise. That's it. If they are going to disregard their own T&C, we should know why they feel it's appropriate. 

 

 

 

 

 

[NMTraveller]

8 minutes ago, prmssk said:

But in this scenario they didn't give away the room the OP had hand-picked and was happy to initially book.  It was the chance upgrade they lost out on, a room they weren't expecting to get in the first place.  (And we don't actually know the circumstances of why that upgraded room no longer was available.)

 

I would feel disappointed, sure.  But I wouldn't feel Celebrity owed me anything besides a refund of the MoveUp bid.

Wait a second.

 

They bid on the room and apparently were the highest bidder.  I would bet my money on 50 State Attorney Generals concluding that this is a sleazy business practice.

 

They are were awarded the room in an auction.  They were then charged for the room and given boarding passes and luggage tags.  They then reneged on the auction. 

 

Sleazy, sleazy, and sleazy business practices.  My apologies that you cannot understand...

 

 

 

 

Edited March 16 by NMTraveller

[bEwAbG]

Flunky is the right term for the first-level person that was assigned to break the news.  Someone with more finesse, and more importantly, knowledge to explain what happened, should have been the one to deal with the situation.  I don't see how it's a pejorative to say someone who is basically given limited information and zero ability to adequately address the situation is anything but a flunky.  It's poor customer service all around, especially when you know more about the company's operations than the person charged with kicking you out of a room.

[bEwAbG]

Re: the timing of refunds, taking money is always a lot faster than giving it back but what the customer never sees is that it actually takes a few days for the money to get to the business.  The authorization is instantaneous, and that's what you see on your card, but the settlement where cash goes into the bank happens a few days after that. 

 

When it's going back out the door, you have to have various approvals to even send the money, then the accounts payable office would do the actual refund transactions, and then there are banks involved in those transactions that each need time to settle up with the other.  Add in that any given company is likely not doing check runs every day and it does add up.  One company I worked for (as a flunky) had a lot of this automated, but if I processed your refund today, it wouldn't go to the next step immediately but in a batch overnight.  And if I was processing it after a certain time, it would go in a batch two days later.  And then those batches all got slotted into various check runs so it could take four or five business days even with everything working exactly right and assuming that the necessary approvals are done immediately.  And that's been my experience at places that are run much better than Celebrity. 

[vjmatty]

4 hours ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

 

As for solving the issue, are you aware that Celebrity does not actually run the MoveUp program?  Celebrity provides the inventory and X and the company have agreed on the computer parameters for accepting bids. 
 

Which makes what happened to the OP even more sketchy. Celebrity doesn’t run Move Up but they sure seem capable of unraveling it when they want to.  Isn’t that part of “running it?”  This appears to be happening even though the regulations are pretty clear that once a Move Up bid is accepted it can’t be revoked. There are no provisions saying that Celebrity can back out of the deal. 

[NMTraveller]

7 hours ago, C4HCG said:

But some people never fail to pass on the opportunity to continue with their negativity about all things Celebrity as if they are unique in things like this. 

Just curious how the UK views reneging on auctions?  Are cruise lines given a free pass on the laws because they are flagged in another country?

[hcat]

2 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

Wait a second.

 

They bid on the room and apparently were the highest bidder.  I would bet my money on 50 State Attorney Generals concluding that this is a sleazy business practice.

 

They are were awarded the room in an auction.  They were then charged for the room and given boarding passes and luggage tags.  They then reneged on the auction. 

 

Sleazy, sleazy, and sleazy business practices.  My apologies that you cannot understand...

 

 

 

 

I put a deposit on a car yesterday....signed the  purchase contract, and filled out all forms for the regis, financing etc And started the ins process. 

 

If I received a call saying "sorry..no can do"  I would go nuts!

[ChutChut]

2 hours ago, bEwAbG said:

Flunky is the right term for the first-level person that was assigned to break the news.  Someone with more finesse, and more importantly, knowledge to explain what happened, should have been the one to deal with the situation.  I don't see how it's a pejorative to say someone who is basically given limited information and zero ability to adequately address the situation is anything but a flunky.  It's poor customer service all around, especially when you know more about the company's operations than the person charged with kicking you out of a room.

Nah - that's a pejorative term and really shouldn't be used to describe someone. You should say the person didn't seem to understand, etc. but to label someone as a "flunky" just isn't acceptable anymore. Sorry - it just isn't. 

[Liao]

8 minutes ago, hcat said:

I put a deposit on a car yesterday....signed the  purchase contract, and filled out all forms for the regis, financing etc And started the ins process. 

 

If I received a call saying "sorry..no can do"  I would go nuts!

apples and oranges