Customer service

[jdavies1948]

I am posting this in the hope that somebody out there can throw some light on my problem. My wife and I are celebrating our 50th anniversary this August, we booked on Cunard but Cunard informed us that New Zealand was not letting thier ships dock there, so the facte that New Zealand was one of our main countries to visit we transferred to Celebrity, we ar Diamond Plus members with RCCL, so Elite Plus with Celebrity. We booked up three crusies on Solstice, B2B2B, we sail from Vancouver to Hawaii, then to Synday then on to Singapore, a trip of a life time befitting a 50th anniversary, we at to book separate cruises, but were not that worried about it. The first cruise final payment was June 3rd, we live in the USA but were travelling to the UK to celebrate my mothers 95th Birthday, so on May 27th I decided to pay the balance therefore not have any worries while we were out of the country, or so I thought. I received the confirmation from Celebrity that I was paid in full and ready to go. On Monday June 3rd I recieved an email from celebrity saying that I owe $498 and if I did not pay by the due date (june 3rd) my cruise could be cancelled, I of course panicked and paid the $498, but then I did a bit of research and found that the $498 was for a vacation protection plan that I had declined when I first booked, and it had been added from May 27th to June 3rd. So I phoned Celebrity in the UK, you cannot phone toll free numbers in the US from the UK, and calls can be pretty expensive on cell phones. It turns out that the office over here cannot access my reservation because it was made in the US, but the guy said phone back at 2.00 PM UK Time,and they would transfer me to the Miami office, which they did. I was on the phone with them for an hour expailing all of this and in the end they said they would refund me the $498, the ususal 7 to 10 days, well I have already got it, he sent me another confirmation saying I was paid in full, and he did ask me if I had called to add the Vacation Plan I said no I was in the UK now. So once again I thought everything is fine, then the emails started again, I have received the same email 5 times since June 3rd, it says payment due 00.00 but then you look at the attached PDF it says I owe $498 and my cruise might be automatically cancelled. When I visit the web site under my reservation it says I owe $498, but when you look at the PDF it clearly states I declind the vacarion plan, mind you my web page still said I am Elite and my wife and I have have both received the email to welcome us to Elite plus, so it seems they are pretty clow with their web site. I am sorry this is so long but I am totally frustrated by this, and insight would be a plus.

[TGfromTX]

In another thread someone had good success by emailing  lhodges@rccl.com  and executiveoffice@celebrity.com.  I've gotten direction how to best deal with some issues by contacting them via messenger on their Facebook page also.  

[jdavies1948]

Thanks for your reply, I managed to sort it out after several calls to the Miami office. It seems that celebrity gave me to two refunds on two different Credit Cards, I knew they had made the one I had paid with, but had no idea they had given me another refund on a Credit Card I had used with them a few months ago. They told me I needed to call them and pay them $498 because even though their emails were saying I did not owe anything the system was saying I owed $498 because they had refunded me twice. When I called them and tried to pay they did the transaction their system would not accept the payment because it was saying I owed nothing. Are you confused because I sure was, the lady said she would have to escalate it to a higher department and call me back, I waited 30 minutes went onto the web site and managed to pay the $498, I am keeping my fingers crossed that that is that. Thanks again

[TGfromTX]

Wow - that's crazy.  I hate when that sort of stuff happens.  I feel like I have to monitor my cc's very closely for a couple of months afterward.  Best of luck.

[Mike981]

Reminds me when I worked in an office, when they said I had to change my password and I could not use one from the past six months. I would change the password and it would say, "used in the past six months." It had not and it would continue to say the same thing over and over. Finally I would just try my current password  and it would be fine.

[jdavies1948]

This is a reply to one of my emails, I received this, this am.

 

Thank you for calling us.

I saw all of the notes and that IT has to be involved. I have also escalated this with my supervisor so we have all the help we can for this issue which is very strange, to be honest. This is the first time I have seen something like this.

Thank you for your patience while we sort this out.
 

[upwarduk]

On 6/12/2024 at 7:36 PM, TGfromTX said:

I've gotten direction how to best deal with some issues by contacting them via messenger on their Facebook page also.  

I often use FB with success, when. Power Up points are not awarded to me.

[ScottC4746]

The Sydny Harold explains it well here:

Cruisers angry as fourth luxury ship banned from New Zealand's waters (smh.com.au)

 

It comes down to biofouling issues.  New Zealand is heavily dependent on their agriculture and are very strict on what comes in or near their boarders.  The article mentions it is four lines so far and one is Princess that had snails on the hull.  A definite no-no when it comes to New Zealand.  While it is a bummer for those looking forward to going to Fiordland or Dunedin, they are just trying to protect their economy.   As far as the bulk of your comment, I am sorry you are having to go through this.  I love my TA as I had a similar issue on my last cruise where I had upgraded to the premium drinks, yet it kept trying to get me to pay for the premium drinks.  I called her and it was straightened out.  A lot of people feel that TA's cost more than going directly with the cruise line and this is not the case.  Sometimes they offer so called group booking rates that reduce the price because of the volume of cruises they sell.

On 6/12/2024 at 2:28 AM, jdavies1948 said:

I am posting this in the hope that somebody out there can throw some light on my problem. My wife and I are celebrating our 50th anniversary this August, we booked on Cunard but Cunard informed us that New Zealand was not letting thier ships dock there, so the facte that New Zealand was one of our main countries to visit we transferred to Celebrity, we ar Diamond Plus members with RCCL, so Elite Plus with Celebrity. We booked up three crusies on Solstice, B2B2B, we sail from Vancouver to Hawaii, then to Synday then on to Singapore, a trip of a life time befitting a 50th anniversary, we at to book separate cruises, but were not that worried about it. The first cruise final payment was June 3rd, we live in the USA but were travelling to the UK to celebrate my mothers 95th Birthday, so on May 27th I decided to pay the balance therefore not have any worries while we were out of the country, or so I thought. I received the confirmation from Celebrity that I was paid in full and ready to go. On Monday June 3rd I recieved an email from celebrity saying that I owe $498 and if I did not pay by the due date (june 3rd) my cruise could be cancelled, I of course panicked and paid the $498, but then I did a bit of research and found that the $498 was for a vacation protection plan that I had declined when I first booked, and it had been added from May 27th to June 3rd. So I phoned Celebrity in the UK, you cannot phone toll free numbers in the US from the UK, and calls can be pretty expensive on cell phones. It turns out that the office over here cannot access my reservation because it was made in the US, but the guy said phone back at 2.00 PM UK Time,and they would transfer me to the Miami office, which they did. I was on the phone with them for an hour expailing all of this and in the end they said they would refund me the $498, the ususal 7 to 10 days, well I have already got it, he sent me another confirmation saying I was paid in full, and he did ask me if I had called to add the Vacation Plan I said no I was in the UK now. So once again I thought everything is fine, then the emails started again, I have received the same email 5 times since June 3rd, it says payment due 00.00 but then you look at the attached PDF it says I owe $498 and my cruise might be automatically cancelled. When I visit the web site under my reservation it says I owe $498, but when you look at the PDF it clearly states I declind the vacarion plan, mind you my web page still said I am Elite and my wife and I have have both received the email to welcome us to Elite plus, so it seems they are pretty clow with their web site. I am sorry this is so long but I am totally frustrated by this, and insight would be a plus.

 

[jdavies1948]

Just wanted to update the people who replied to me, last Friday I got another email from Celebrity, for three days on the web site my balance was 0, then on Friday it went back to being 498, but this time it was accompanied by a email which said that they had been unable to process my payment again, so they refunded me the money again, and I would have to once again pay the 498, which I did. It is now Tuesday and keeping my fingers crossed it as a balance of 0, but even though I am getting emails from them saying I am elite plus, on my web page I am still Elite. Phew

[gold1953]

1 hour ago, jdavies1948 said:

Just wanted to update the people who replied to me, last Friday I got another email from Celebrity, for three days on the web site my balance was 0, then on Friday it went back to being 498, but this time it was accompanied by a email which said that they had been unable to process my payment again, so they refunded me the money again, and I would have to once again pay the 498, which I did. It is now Tuesday and keeping my fingers crossed it as a balance of 0, but even though I am getting emails from them saying I am elite plus, on my web page I am still Elite. Phew

I hope this all works out and part of my brain says scam on the repeated $498. I hope I am wrong but I assume that you have actually seen this on your CC

[jdavies1948]

Well when it first showed up on June 3rd that was my first comment to them, I said is this a scam because from May 27th to June 3rd, suddenly I had the vacation protection plan that I had declined, of course they assured me no way, but on one of the calls they asked me if I had called them on Friday 31st, i said no I am in the UK right now and to call you guys in the US cost me a fortune, the toll free numbers you publish for customer service cannot be dialed from the UK. All of my cruises have been on RCCL, and I always thought their web site, was what I called clunky, it was not very user friendly, I thinking that celebrity being in the same family as the same problems with its IT department. So at this point I am ok, and I gained $200 in OBC, on any cruise I take with celebrity.

[TGfromTX]

5 hours ago, jdavies1948 said:

...So at this point I am ok, and I gained $200 in OBC, on any cruise I take with celebrity.

I would still email one of the addresses with the facts & note each incident of the price payment/nonpayment - it'll come in handy if you have to get your CC involved later.  If it keeps happening, I think it's time to ask for manager engagement to get someone specifically assigned to work the issue so you aren't in a queue.

[ColoradoExceptInWinter]

I hope this is the end of your issue! Reading through this difficult problem and having had a poor experience with Celebrity's billing just yesterday, I wonder if Celebrity is just not paying enough attention to operation of their web page and billing in general.

 

Yesterday we selected a cruise, flights, cabin, entered all personal info, and our credit card. All set to book! Clicked to pay and commit to the non-refundable deposit. Waited. The web page replied that it couldn't process the flights, but that we could book them later. That was all. No email. No confirmation number. No receipt. Wait, did it charge the deposit? We don't think so, so far at least. Nothing to the credit card yet. Called and the agent said "probably not". I asked if this happened very often, she said "yeah". We're certainly not about to try again any time soon after reading here that some double deposits which were Celebrity's fault took 6-8 weeks to refund. 

 

We really liked Celebrity, but these billing issues have us considering other cruise lines now.