MTD pre-paid gratuity policy change

I got an intra-company email this morning stating that effective today pre-paid gratuities will no longer be required for bookings with MTD. I do not have a link to a statement from RCCL and I have not tried to create a booking w/ MTD yet to test it out. I suspect this policy change will remain "unnanounced" and just a quiet shift in policy.

The email did not indicate if the change would apply to Celebrity cruises bookings as well.

I got an intra-company email this morning stating that effective today pre-paid gratuities will no longer be required for bookings with MTD. I do not have a link to a statement from RCCL and I have not tried to create a booking w/ MTD yet to test it out. I suspect this policy change will remain "unnanounced" and just a quiet shift in policy.

 

The email did not indicate if the change would apply to Celebrity cruises bookings as well.

This has been rumored about lately that this was going to be the case with MTD. Thanks

I can confirm. I got that notification Wednesday afternoon.

Makes all the sense in the world now that gratuities are billed automatically on a daily basis.

Yeah..since they started adding tips to your account daily, I didn't see the point of having to "pre-pay"!

I can confirm. I got that notification Wednesday afternoon.

Did it state that the new policy applied to Celebrity Select Dining as well? All I received was an internal email, not directly from RCCL

I haven't seen that email yet. And for those of us who have already paid for our MTD for future cruise?

I haven't seen that email yet. And for those of us who have already paid for our MTD for future cruise?

If it's before final payment date, you should be able to remove prepaid tips. If it's after final payment date, you may be stuck with prepaid tips.

If you have prepaid tips you may not want to remove them and have them be charged at the new higher rate onboard.

I confirmed this with the C&A desk earlier this week. The new policy went fleet wide on RCL this month. I had them remove the ppg on our cruises that had the new $12.95 daily rate on them, and left the ones alone that still had the old $12 rate on them.

If you have prepaid tips you may not want to remove them and have them be charged at the new higher rate onboard.

But if you have onboard credit, that can go to the tips. I assume that if you wished you could visit guest services and simply change the daily tip back to 12 or whatever number is appropriate.

Yeah..since they started adding tips to your account daily, I didn't see the point of having to "pre-pay"!

Totally the opposite. I like having my tips paid before we leave, then it is all done. We always do MTD and so do the prepaid tips. If they stop requiring it as part of MTD I will still prepay my tips. Just like everything paid before we go. Same with the bev pkgs. Unless I have a ton of OBC, I buy and pay for the pkg before we head off on the cruise.

Totally the opposite. I like having my tips paid before we leave, then it is all done. We always do MTD and so do the prepaid tips. If they stop requiring it as part of MTD I will still prepay my tips. Just like everything paid before we go. Same with the bev pkgs. Unless I have a ton of OBC, I buy and pay for the pkg before we head off on the cruise.

Me too, I like to have almost everything pre-paid before I board.

Totally the opposite. I like having my tips paid before we leave, then it is all done. We always do MTD and so do the prepaid tips. If they stop requiring it as part of MTD I will still prepay my tips. Just like everything paid before we go. Same with the bev pkgs. Unless I have a ton of OBC, I buy and pay for the pkg before we head off on the cruise.

Agree

The prepaid is already figured into the price of the cruises we have booked, not changing as we always prepay at FP.

On RCI are pre paid gratuitys ear mark just for that purpose

the reason I ask. On a previous cruise (I think princess) your pp gratuitys was just lump into your cash pool along with other obc and they debit your account daily. So even if you bought it as pp gratuitys it really wasn't.

All credits (prepaids) & charges are lumped together w/ any OBC as well. They are separated by RCLs internal coding. You'll be able to see line item descriptions of each charge etc.

All credits (prepaids) & charges are lumped together w/ any OBC as well. They are separated by RCLs internal coding. You'll be able to see line item descriptions of each charge etc.

So I could accidentally spend my pre paid gratuitys using a cash account. It's ok I just like to know ahead of Time.

So I could accidentally spend my pre paid gratuitys using a cash account. It's ok I just like to know ahead of Time.

I had pre-paid my gratuities on my cruise at the end of May. I never saw the daily charge or my OBC for the payment of the gratuities in any of the reports. (I checked my spending daily as I tend to be a bit loose when just swiping the card.)

It was not possible for me to spend my pre-paid gratuities. It was 100% separate from my on-board spending.

We booked our October Oasis on June 7th and were not charged gratuities for MTD so apparently the policy has been in effect for a coupe of weeks.

Did it state that the new policy applied to Celebrity Select Dining as well? All I received was an internal email, not directly from RCCL

No, Celebrity wasn't mentioned.

I had pre-paid my gratuities on my cruise at the end of May. I never saw the daily charge or my OBC for the payment of the gratuities in any of the reports. (I checked my spending daily as I tend to be a bit loose when just swiping the card.)

 

It was not possible for me to spend my pre-paid gratuities. It was 100% separate from my on-board spending.

Thanks That was why I was asking. I have a swiping issue also

We did MTD for the first time for our Oct cruise and figure, we either pay it now or at the end, and as others have stated I would prefer to have as much pre paid then get that huge bill at the end of the cruise. I have already paid our cruise off in full a month early. Our gratuities were shown in our cruise price so we paid the old rate of $12.