Crafty_Yearnings

Another Aussie here with a refund for 15/3 QE cruise. Booked and paid direct with c/c. Emailed for refund 18/3. Submitted online form 6/4. C/C refund shown today from 12/6 (no emails or anything from them). 

So we now have excursion, cruise and interstate travel expenses all refunded. I feel like I can finally exhale and leave this saga behind me. Good luck all.

11 hours ago, Trevor33 said:

When a cruise has been cancelled how do they return the money for the excursions that have been booked prior to proposed departure date? 

In our case (Aus) we received an automated email not long after cancellation was announced that advised the money would be automatically refunded to however we paid (in our case travel card).  Ours turned up 9 weeks from that email (and 6 weeks from completing the online excursion refund form which we did on call centre advice).

Aus refund update: interstate travel expenses for QE cruise 15/3 cancelled by Cunard 14/3.

After some original to-ing and fro-ing, we were advised our expenses were approved around 24/4, and received refund to c/c today (looks like it took 5 days to show up so probably refunded last week), so between 5 and 6 weeks. Interestingly we were originally advised the generic 60 days, and that it would be cheque.

Our cruise refund count will reach 60 calendar days next week (from form submission - we originally emailed as our cruise predated the form). 

I note some others here from same cruise have had some refunds recently, so maybe the Aus Cunard team is working on that cruise at the moment?

Small refund update from Aus. We had prepurchased an excursion for cruise departing 15 March, which Cunard cancelled on 14th. We received an email from them on 16th advising the excursion would be refunded automatically. We later also completed the online form on advice from their call centre, submitted 6 April. We have now been advised the excursion refund was processed as at 19 May, which is 9 weeks from their email, 6 weeks from our form. I assume the key date is their original email as the cruise was cancelled before the general shutdown. I will be interested to see if our cruise refund will also be soon, i.e. dated from our prompt email asking for a refund (the form was not available then and actually sets date parameters that do not include our cruise), or from our later use of the form (again per call centre advice). Interstate travel expenses were "approved" and submitted upline some 4 weeks ago. Hope this helps.

Its so amazing when a real person gets back in touch with you. It made such a difference to my personal stress levels. And yes, this was after a few unsatisfactory back and forths with the requisite delay while my emails each hit the bottom of the inbox.

After jumping up and down a bit, we received confirmation our refund is in the "queue" with the standard 60 days quoted, plus the proviso of possible further delays. We are just pleased to have received a personal email from an individual (not automated) that confirms that. Another helpful lady has confirmed our expenses refund is now in progress. I am happy (-ish) to wait now that I have heard from them directly. Never underestimate the impact of real, personalised communication.

30 minutes ago, beaveh said:

It was the end of March before Cunard extended their cancellation from mid April till mid May. So some of those passengers were only a couple of weeks from sailing.

i should think they are still dealing with  those passengers. 
maybe the next slug of cancellations will be announced at the end of April? Maybe may 15th to June 15th? Then they will have another months worth of passengers to sort out.

I wouldn't be surprised if they rolled it forward like that.

Depends what you mean by "dealing with". Our cruise was cancelled less than 24 hours before boarding and all I ever got was the initial cancellation email. No further advice, instructions, calls, nothing. Everything we've done since then has been from our own research and initiative. Not happy.

1 hour ago, resordanis said:

No sign of mine either for 15th March cancellation!

Hi resordanis. We were booked on the same cruise. I'll save you the saga so far, and you have a TA, but still.... if you haven't done so yet there's a cruise cancellation/refund form online that we were told to fill out (even though the dates listed don't cover our cruise), a prepaid shore excursion refund form that we were told to complete even though we'd already been advised that refund was coming, and we went ahead and sent all copies of receipts etc for interstate travel to the UK guest relations email (as there seems to be some doubt about whether the Australian email address accepts refund requests) and now they're faffing on about insurance.  A distinct lack of clear and targeted communication so far. And the two people who have sent any sort of email reply have both managed to get my name or my husband's name wrong. I'm really not feeling the love!