No - I don't think booking directly with Celebrity then moving to TA really had anything to do with it. It is possible but we have been doing it this way since 2005 and we USUALLY get notified by both our TA and Celebrity (via email). My TA said that Celebrity told them that they tried to contact us. Celebrity has our phone numbers and emails and have always been able to contact us in the past so I don't think they even tried. I do think they (Celebrity) work on their direct bookings first then move on to the TA's but this time there were SOOO many sailings and double bookings and a short notification time. Not excusing Celebrity for this mess and TERRIBLE communication problem.
Over the years we have had so many changes happen to us. We booked then the ship was chartered; booked on 1 ship then they moved the ship elsewhere and we had to move to a different ship and slightly different itinerary, cruise just flat out cancelled for unknown reason, start date of cruise changed, ports changed, etc. Other cruise lines have similar issues and we have had it happen with non-cruise related land tours. We will take the FCC of $450 pp as a consolation for the trouble; no $500 for us since we didn't have air booked - we will just move on.
The bottom line is that people have been treated poorly all around for a problem that Celebrity knew about months and months and months ago. That's the thing we REALLY do not like.