All Cruisers! Make sure you check your Onboard and Credit Card Statements!

[cheeseheads4ever]

We just got back from a Celebrity Cruise. Received an email with our onboard statement attached which were for purchases on board. It didn’t show any OBC. Celebrity charged $176 to our credit card. $72 was left over from our refundable OBC (which they gave us cash) and $104 Airport Tax Fee Credit which I have no idea what it is. Crazy thing is we drove to Ft Lauderdale from Daytona Beach. No plane involved.

It’s like an incomplete statement and makes no sense. We called today and spent 40 minutes on the phone with her. Adding 1 excursion 3 coffees, a night at Murano’s and a bingo card. Simple math add and subtraction. She added it 10 times. Now she is contacting the ship and will get back to us in 24 to 48 hours.

I know this topic has been covered before but please check all your credit card and onboard statements for charges and make sure it is correct.

We had minimal charges so it wasn’t complex. I wonder what they do when they have 5 pages with 50 charges on it?

[horseymike]

Always best to check your statement periodically when cruising, mistakes happen, the sooner resolved the better ( onboard if possible) .

I know it takes you out of vacation mode for a few minutes, but it is worth it.

 

[Rick&Jeannie]

This is common on MANY cruise lines...

[lv2cruisgrl]

We always check while we are on board. Last year we had both gone to the spa. We had paid prior to the cruise.  The spa charged us Again for the services. A fast walk down to customer service got it fixed but it took a day!  

[Mr. Click]

I check it all of the time while on board.  The last night I get a hard copy of the account, if that is right then I stop by on my way out and get one more hard copy......pain in the butt? Yep but when the "final" comes in my email with $36 and some change in mini bar charges I am ready to call and get it fixed.  It was a 10 minute call, including the wait time and the "we are so sorry"s.....I never ever even open the mini bar........

[twincheryl]

2 hours ago, Mr. Click said:

I check it all of the time while on board.  The last night I get a hard copy of the account, if that is right then I stop by on my way out and get one more hard copy......pain in the butt? Yep but when the "final" comes in my email with $36 and some change in mini bar charges I am ready to call and get it fixed.  It was a 10 minute call, including the wait time and the "we are so sorry"s.....I never ever even open the mini bar........

We also take a quick phone pic when boarding and again in the morning before debark… have had various mini bar charges several times.

[BeasleysMom66]

1 hour ago, twincheryl said:

We also take a quick phone pic when boarding and again in the morning before debark… have had various mini bar charges several times.

 

Same here.  I had the "mini-bar" charges and pointed out that the time was after I had disembarked the ship.  I made it clear that I was NOT paying for housekeeping or anyone else who might have ducked into the open door room enjoy a snack on my credit card.  After that first time I had the cabin steward empty the mini-bar so it couldn't happen again.

[the penguins]

4 hours ago, twincheryl said:

We also take a quick phone pic when boarding and again in the morning before debark… have had various mini bar charges several times.

We always have the fridge emptied as soon as we see our Cabin Steward on Boarding Day - if we don't see him/her we leave a note. We check our OBC every day (takes around a minute) usually whoever is ready for dinner first does it.

If you have a non $ Credit Card make sure it's one with no charges for Foreign Currency and it's that the card does the conversion not Celebrity.

 

 

 

 

 

[cheeseheads4ever]

Yes we will get it handled but I just wanted to remind fellow cruisers to check their accounts. 

[1Virgo]

I updated credit card info in portfolio and went to guest services who also inputted the new info. Yup. They used the old info.     

[helen haywood]

The minibar is often only checked after you have vacated the cabin…when it is being made up for the next occupant.  So sometimes charges from the minibar are added after you have taken a screenshot or gotten a hard copy at Guest Services.  I’ve had this happen a few times; a call to Celebrity has always quickly resolved the issue.

[cheeseheads4ever]

Resolved!

Celebrity quickly within 2 days resolved the issue with a thorough email explaining and clearing this up.

The issue was what looked to be a charge with code OBR-cruise air/port tax free credit of $104. They did not say anywhere that this was a refund for port and taxes because we couldn’t dock in Bimini. The $72 refundable OBC. Both dollar fiquires were in a gray highlighted box which was entitled Payments with our credit card # next to it.
 Who would not have thought that these were not charges.

I am getting better at deciphering Celebritys codes but why do they have to be so confusing.

[Rick&Jeannie]

Glad it worked out for you!

[cheeseheads4ever]

Thanks it was so difficult to describe cause it was so difficult to figure out.

Im not sure how cruisers do it with 50 items on their statement we only had 6.

Our last 5 Celebrity cruises billing was perfect…

 

[the penguins]

7 hours ago, cheeseheads4ever said:

Thanks it was so difficult to describe cause it was so difficult to figure out.

Im not sure how cruisers do it with 50 items on their statement we only had 6.

Our last 5 Celebrity cruises billing was perfect…

 

By checking once every day.

[Cdude]

On 4/3/2024 at 9:20 AM, cheeseheads4ever said:

Resolved!

Celebrity quickly within 2 days resolved the issue with a thorough email explaining and clearing this up.

The issue was what looked to be a charge with code OBR-cruise air/port tax free credit of $104. They did not say anywhere that this was a refund for port and taxes because we couldn’t dock in Bimini. The $72 refundable OBC. Both dollar fiquires were in a gray highlighted box which was entitled Payments with our credit card # next to it.
 Who would not have thought that these were not charges.

I am getting better at deciphering Celebritys codes but why do they have to be so confusing.

Congratulations! I’m dealing with a very similar issue with a recent Princess sailing and all I got back so far was a canned email stating they’re overworked and be patient.

 

I hope this doesn’t ruffle feathers, but common billing issues like this make me want to go back to all-inclusive on land. Very different experience, I know. But, much, much lower chance of stress and lots of beach time if that’s your itinerary. Isn’t competition from all-inclusive resorts why cruise lines started offering drink packages? Maybe they can get their billing up to speed. Hard to imagine these discrepancies are all inadvertent in 2024.

[cheeseheads4ever]

Just to say we got the email with that statement AFTER we were on our way home from the cruise. Wasn’t like that when we checked the last evening.

We had zero balance while on board the day before getting off the ship.

All good. Although we did spend 40 minutes on the phone with customer service to straighten out.

[horseymike]

13 hours ago, Cdude said:

Congratulations! I’m dealing with a very similar issue with a recent Princess sailing and all I got back so far was a canned email stating they’re overworked and be patient.

 

I hope this doesn’t ruffle feathers, but common billing issues like this make me want to go back to all-inclusive on land. Very different experience, I know. But, much, much lower chance of stress and lots of beach time if that’s your itinerary. Isn’t competition from all-inclusive resorts why cruise lines started offering drink packages? Maybe they can get their billing up to speed. Hard to imagine these discrepancies are all inadvertent in 2024.

I totally agree with you, they are in the cruise business and they are dealing with excessive numbers of passengers but the I T departments need to be brought up to speed.

[Folsomdoc]

We had several duplicate charges we needed to reverse while onboard Apex. One popped up a second time. A bit of a PIA to have to watch this daily then get someone to fix it but that’s the way it is I suppose.

[cheeseheads4ever]

New issue! 
We are cruising on Beyond in a couple weeks. Just got off Reflection a few weeks back had the issue with an over charge on our booking after we left the ship. 45 minutes on the phone and finally got it straightened out.

Fast forward to today.. Got an email from Celebrity on our upcoming Beyond cruise that there was a balance due. We paid it in full September of 2023.

There was no explanation of why the balance was due or what it was for.

Called Customer Service again on this issue. First customer service lady was super confusing of what the issue was. Asked for Supervisor.

She came on and turns out they said we owed $39 and threatened to cancel cruise if we didn’t pay. 
She explained our cruise care went down $30 they screwed up refunded $69 to our credit card. So difference was $39. So another 45 minutes with this issue.

Nothing was explained in their email.

We said these 2 issues none of which our fault has cost us almost 2 hours of our time not to mention 2 hours of Celebrity Cruises customer service time.

Seriously Celebrity.. 

Caught us totally out of the blue….

Who can you write to that someone will actually read it.

What would you do? I know we will pay $39.. but seriously she offers a bottle of Celebritys wine and chocolate covered strawberry’s. No thanks…

Our time is worth more than that…

 

[Itchy&Scratchy]

On 4/11/2024 at 2:51 PM, cheeseheads4ever said:

She explained our cruise care went down $30 they screwed up refunded $69 to our credit card.

did you actually see this refund?

[cheeseheads4ever]

We did after she said they refunded. We didn’t know anything about a refund. Caught us off guard and then said they didn’t want to cancel the cruise.

Threatening us with cancellation when none of this was our fault.

 

[bEwAbG]

I think they were just trying to be helpful.  You owed the money due to their mistake but better to handle it while on the phone than to risk your reservation getting cancelled because you now owe a balance you didn't pay.  Modern computer systems are great at automating a lot but sometimes it can be detrimental to the customer, especially once the people who set up the system initially have moved on and their replacements have no idea how it all works.

[cheeseheads4ever]

Again check your on board statements and a credit card invoices AFTER your cruise..

[TravelingCircusof5]

On 4/5/2024 at 6:51 AM, cheeseheads4ever said:

Just to say we got the email with that statement AFTER we were on our way home from the cruise. Wasn’t like that when we checked the last evening.

We had zero balance while on board the day before getting off the ship.

All good. Although we did spend 40 minutes on the phone with customer service to straighten out.

We also got emailed a statement after we had left the cruise- with errors from Day 2. I had checked daily every day but never saw them until after the cruise. This was for cheap draft beer on CocoCay even though we had a drink package. It is only $15, but definitely the principle of the matter after a less than great cruise.

Is there an email address to point out the error? 

Edited Sunday at 05:51 PM by TravelingCircusof5