Foreigners Beware!!!!

[cdnguy]

Our plan is to visit the purser's desk a day or two before we disembark to make sure that it is on our file that we want our credit card charged in US dollars - it is a US Funds MasterCard.

That's all you have to do. We've been on 12 Princess cruises, always ticked off the box, and never had a problem.

[phillipahain]

I have repeatedly warned on Cruise Critic about this sharp practice and scandal on Princess Cruises

 

I have both a USA Bank Account and a USA Dollar account in the UK

yet no matter which CC I use Princess convert a $ charge to Sterling which then has to be converted back to dollars

 

Princess stump you 4% for this "priveledge" plus a lousy exchange rate and then of course you will be stung by a 2nd conversion rate and a penalty

 

NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO OR WHAT YOU TICK .........even WRITING CHARGE IN US DOLLARS on the slip it makes no difference

 

Princess will charge your CC in the currency of your PASSPORT

 

You can avoid all the hassle by simply insisting on a manual CC swipe the evening before disembarkation then the charge will be in US Dollars

[TCF]

I thought your ship account had to be backed with a credit card number or cash when you board the ship. Is that correct? If it is then how to you stop them from charging your room charges to the card...other than to pay the bill every couple of days????:confused:

Tom:)

[Kelsoby]

I just copied and pasted this from another thread that I posted in earlier regarding this exact problem:

 

We are sailing on the Sea in one week, and my sister just got off the Sun today. She said that even though they ticked the box that said "do not convert our account" and went down to the purser's desk and personally requested that they not convert the account, and were assured by a supervisor that their account would not be converted; guess what? You'll never guess! They converted their account anyway. And then said there was nothing they could do as the account was now closed.

 

As a result, we have now decided to take traveller's cheques with us. We will use our credit card on board as our shipboard account, but we will go down the night before disembarkation and pay off the account with our traveller's cheques (or pay it down throughout the cruise). I have read that this problem happens mostly with Visa and MasterCard, and we are using Amex; but as a previous poster said, why take the chance of wasting any money when it is not necessary. There will be three of us on a 14 day cruise, I can imagine that the difference in the exchange rates would amount to at least a couple hundred dollars and, to me, that is significant enough to warrant using a different method of payment.

I have been thinking about it, and other posters on this thread have mentioned the exact same wording in their cruise documents on RC, and I believe I have heard the same from people that have cruised with Celebrity. Carnival owns all of these cruise lines, do they not? I wonder if this is a blanket policy across all lines owned by Carnival?

 

I also like TCCF's idea of not purchasing their "extras" if they are going to use the unfair practice of what really amounts to reverse marketing.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love Princess, but this practice makes me very angry.

[robtulipe]

Royal Caribbean and Celebrity are part of Royal Caribbean International and are not owned by Carnival. In fact RCI were going to buy Princess when Carnival came in with a last minute offer to take them over.

I also like Princess cruises for their ships and itineraries but this unethical practise makes me very angry.

I agree, don't buy their products and services onboard since that's where most of their profit is made and then Princess might get the message re the above. This is why cruise lines discount prices so much for unsold cruises since they know typically they will make more money by having an occupied carbin than save by having an empty one.

[Cruisin Kay D]

I had no idea "our good friends & neighbors" from Canada & UK were being "scr-----" by this practice.......Sorry to hear about this.....Paying it off with travelers checks every few days sounds like a good approach....

 

Two additional points:

1. Embarkation/Check-in people are neither regular Princess employees nor on-board employees -- just part-timers hired at Ft. L or whatever port to work on check-in days -- some of them know about as much as the Prin repr at 1-800-princess, and we all know how much they know......next to nothing!!!

 

2. ALWAYS get print-out of your bill several times during the cruise & check it over completely!!!

[JLC@SD]

Just asking for clarification on this. When you print out your eticket the little check box is on them rather than something you get handed at the pier? That's good to know. However, if you are highlighting I would suggest using yellow highlighter because if anything needs to be photocopied the pink will darken the photocopy and it will become illegible and then they will charge you :rolleyes:

Yellow does not show up on a photo copy.......another suggestion would be to circle the check box to draw attention to it, even on the photocopy.

[canadiansnowbird]

This practise does not happen on RCI ships...specifically Brilliance of the Seas.

 

After our Med cruise, as per our ship folio, all of our charges were in U.S. funds and put on our Canadian Amex card in U.S. funds and only then converted into Canadian by our CC at 14.4%.

 

There was no little box to check. Up until I read about this practise recently, any on board charges all were in the nationality of the ship. On our cruise in the Med previously on the Sunbird, those ship charges were in British pounds. :eek: For some strange reason, Princess has got it backwards and is charging as per the cruisers home country. A lot more paperwork and headaches, if you ask me.

 

Snowbird

[anng]

Thank you for the warnings about this. We sail with Princess for the first time in January. We took our first cruise last year with Celebrity and thanks to these boards I knew to make sure that I ticked the box before printing out our tickets. We had no problem, Celebrity charged us in dollars. We have a credit card which does not charge a currency weighting which we only use for holidays and the benefits of that and the excellent exchange rates they always give us would be lost if Princess converts our charges to sterling.

 

I will ensure that I tick the box, circle it and highlight it. I will also go along to the pursers desk 2 days prior to the end of the cruise armed with my printouts of this discussion!

 

If the box is ticked and they still convert it aren't they then in breach of contract?

 

Ann

[senior lady]

We've cruised with NCL, RCL, Celebrity and they all charge extra to convert your credit cards. In fact Celebrity charged us 22% on our dollar last yr in Nov.

 

Tom, when we were on the Coral last May, I filled in all the forms and checked the "little box". Rather than taking a chance, I went to the purser at 10pm the night before disembarking and paid the whole bill with travelers checks. As you saw my bill:p, you can tell it took quite a while. Charge card came with NO charges!!! I've discovered that taking advantage of our "$" when it's high, by getting travelers checks, and then never have to worry about the extra charges. I even book our cruises through an american agency so i'm at the "mercy of our Canadian $"

 

Great convention!!!!

[phillipahain]

I REPEAT ...........theres no need to check your account and settle it every few days

 

JUST GO TO PURSERS DESK the evening before disembarkation and settle the account in cash or travellers cheques or by A MANUAL SWIPE of your Credit Card

 

You will then only be charged in US Dollars

 

Its the Nationality of your passport that controls Princess computers and NOTHING you do about ticking boxes , highlighting, circling etc makes any impact on them at all