kwb101

2 hours ago, bennybear said:

Sadly not free in Canada 🤷‍♀️

The Ship Dwellers, public domain (no copyright), free, multiple formats incl Kindle

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34096

Gutenberg has 60,000+ free books. Enjoy! 

Also, if you have a Roku device, search the channels for "cruise". You don't need cable TV to see them, just Internet. 

Our June 20 voyage was cancelled April 15, we received our shore excursion refunds (to the credit card used to pay for them) 30 days later, and another refund to the credit card for the airfare and port fees and taxes at the 90-day mark. No fuss, no muss, but patience is required.

1 hour ago, Nodakboiler said:

We haven't  received our email from HAL yet for the 7/26/21 Veendam British Isles cruise. I first saw it here on Cruise Critic and then we emailed our PCC. We will wait and see if the new itinerary  and ship pique our interest.

We were on the July 3 '21 B2B voyage to Spitsbergen and the polar icecap, then on to the UK on July 26. There was nothing in the email canceling the cruise last Thursday about any alternative to either or both portions. I hope HAL manages to find something similar for you, but check your reservation: there's a thread on the main HAL firm here that some folks have been summarily moved to other, similar voyages with no notice. Good luck!

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2755852-for-those-booked-on-sold-ships-check-your-bookings/

For those having browser problems or privacy concerns, you may want to check this article about browser privacy. It shows that, for privacy, Edge is the worst, Brave the best. Since knowing who you are can affect a site's pricing, privacy may save you money.

Also, as far as I know, Edge is an unremovable barnacle on Windows 10.

Good luck! 

I was under the same understanding, which is why we took (part of) this year's South American Grand Voyage to see the Antarctic, based on this thread:

New Ice Class in Force

Not sure what's gong on here, but definitely, 100% worth it. Happy travels! 

4 hours ago, dobiemom said:

 

Have you checked your account? I completed my GE application online last month, and the NEXT DAY I got the email saying I needed to schedule an interview. 

I check every couple of weeks, and the Conditional Approval gurus still shows that it's  being processed. 

Is there any way to contact them to see what's going on? My wife signed up a few days after I did, and she's in the same boat (ahem).

2 hours ago, dobiemom said:

I'm trying to get my Global Entry interview. First, there were no offices near me conducting interviews. An office finally opened and I made my appt. Then I was notified that because of increases in covid-19 cases, the office is closed again. 

The good news is I have a several months to get this completed. 

We applied for Global Entry in early October, and are still waiting for something - anything - to happen. I'm beginning to think it's all just a government scam to get another $100 out of taxpayers. 

Just order it: your wine steward will take your card and charge the wine to it. Quick and easy. 

Although it didn't have any bearing on my getting the shop card vs. OBC, I called and applied the FCC on Friday, and the nice lady said she'd check with her supervisor and get back to me re: the $25 card. I didn't expect anything to happen.

The phone rang late morning Monday, and it was her, reporting that her sup had called HAL and had gotten back the full (?) amount of the card. I told her how much I appreciated her effort and quick resolution. This isn't the first time I've had this experience with them. 

We live about 2 miles from the BB store, so it's 'way too easy to get there and buy lots of good stuff 😜

1 hour ago, Alberta Quilter said:

IIRC correctly, the change occurred earlier than that.  I think it was late November of 2019.  There was a thread about it here then.  I"ll try to find the thread and link it here.

That was my recollection, too, and was surprised that the TA said it was January.

1 hour ago, Bethcb said:

My understanding is that the shop cards or OBC from Big Box TA is in set increments. As of February this year, we got OBC for Princess cruises. Always got it from HAL, but maybe that has changed. For Celebrity Cruise, it has always been shopping card. 

For the big-box TA, the agent I spoke to said they went to shop cards in January.

Please forgive me if I've missed it, but I would think that, at a time like this, the Legal department is the controlling entity for any communication - period. This explains the delays, prevarication, silence, and just about everything else being complained about. It may well be that management agrees (and may well have suggested a course of action (or non-action)), but Legal almost certainly has the final say in just about anything, and likely has initiated many things as well. I think management may not have the free hand to say or act that everyone thinks it has.

1 hour ago, yunksr said:

We had a FCC with RCL and used it to rebook our cancelled cruise. With the incentive, we were able to upgrade and still had a $$ left. Our travel agent said that the balance would be reissued as a NEW FCC. Might be the same set up.

I was told that our ~$800 balance would stay in our Mariner accounts.

On 5/9/2020 at 3:54 PM, Caribbean Chris said:

No, but this is a very interesting and disturbing piece of news. The big box store is not working for free. They WILL get a commission from HAL at some point.  Out of that commission, they owe you the same terms in the booked offer for 2021. Let us know what happens.

On 5/9/2020 at 3:58 PM, oaktreerb said:

I’ve been wondering how the big box would handle this.  Supposedly the BB TA got to keep the full commission from HAL from which you were to have been rewarded with a $1260 cash card.  BB TA kept the full the commission and didn’t pay the $1260 cash card rebate to you for giving them the booking.   If the BB TA is not honoring the original cash card then I see no reason to give them the replacement booking.

HAL posted a webinar to TAs today that explains about compensation options. I don't have a link to the webinar itself.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2749272-hal-webinar/

I want to clarify a bit about the shop card amount: at the moment, we're getting $1070. Before the FCC was applied to our booking, the shop card was $1260.

I think that the shop card amount is based on the fare from the cancelled trip. If this is true, they're not including the 25% bonus taking the FCC instead of a cash refund.

The TA is still swamped, and there's no rush, so I will call them in early June to see if this is the case, or that there's been a mistake.

I will keep you posted.

15 hours ago, oaktreerb said:

As far as I know this BB TA only offers the shop cards now.  When I booked my cruise I mentioned to a supervisor that I didn’t like the change to the shop cards.  It’s a lot of money and I’d rather spend it as OBC to enhance my cruise experience and get a refund of the balance at the end of the cruise. 

The lady I spoke to said some other cruise lines were now letting the TA offer OBC, so it all must've switched at the beginning of the year. it used to be that HAL was one of the few to offer OBC, and the others offered shop cards.

2 minutes ago, oaktreerb said:

Good news.  I’ll keep this in mind when I rebook my HAL cancelled cruise with my BB TA.  I prefer refundable OBC but as part of my original booking I was offered the cash card so I know now that I need to ask for it when I rebook. Thanks for reporting back!

I thought you got the shop card no matter what. The nice lady (sadly, I can't remember her name) said that they went to those and stopped giving OBC at the beginning of this year, when a contract expired. (I remember seeing that other cruise lines the TA represented already had the shop card as a bonus...although I've seen mention here very recently that they're now giving OBC; I can't keep up.)

It may take a little longer to do the booking, but it should be worth it: the kind of money you get for many trips will buy you a lot of TP and water there 😉

Good luck!

14 minutes ago, AtlantaCruiser72 said:

 

Sounds like they determined that the value of the FCC is commissionable so they have manually overridden their accounting software to give you the bonus offer.  Glad things worked out 🙂 

Yes, that's the word she used (although I think it referred to the cancelled voyage). (It turns out they got the amount wrong (pulled from the voyage they cancelled, not the one I booked in April): it should be $1260, but no rush to correct this.) I hope others can get their cards fixed.

A sea change! Just got a call from Big-Box TA, and the nice lady I talked to last week told me that she'd talked to her supervisor, who called HAL, and through various machinations, reinstated our original shop card ($1070).

She suggested that if anyone has a similar problem to call them (no rush, as long as it's before the voyage starts), and explain that you had a shop card for a certain amount. They may be able to reinstate it.

Good luck!

3 minutes ago, Bethcb said:

My Big Box still giving me OBC for Princess and HAL. Gift card for Celebrity. I am on phone with them now and confirmed it hasn’t changed. 

The big-box TA ending in "o" went to Shop cards about six months ago. Fortunately, we had everything booked earlier, and got real OBC. Not only has this change happened, but the amount of the shop card is lower than the OBC previously given (at least 1% of the regular fare ("cruise package").

18 hours ago, AtlantaCruiser72 said:

The issue here is since HAL, and other cruise lines, systems apply FCC as a discount to the fare when the agency imports the booking to their internal reservation software from the cruise line the agency systems have no way no auto-add the fare that was being covered by the FCC. Some agencies have crafted a manual workaround to account for the FCC, especially when they are getting paid a commission on the value of them.

 

This whole situation is a giant nightmare and processes and policies from the cruise lines are changing daily, with each cruise line being radically different in their processes, and it’s very hard for agencies to keep up and adapt for every convolution out there. The agency IT department may create a new workaround for the agency reservation system that launches on Monday afternoon and by Tuesday morning it’s obsolete because the cruise lines has changed their process.  Some agencies use a licensed 3rd party software application that cannot be customized by the agency to deal with these kinds of issues, and the developers may not be willing (or able) to make the modifications to the software.

We've had other FCCs for missed ports, and they did indeed reduce the amount of the OBC/shop card. However, in this most-recent case, the $1260 shop card shown on my booking confirmation in mid-April dropped to $25.

Had the FCC not been applied to the "cruise package" (the term on their booking confirmation) but shown as a payment, we'd still have our shop card. I know they can apply to whichever one they want: it's their decision.

28 minutes ago, TiogaCruiser said:

The BigBox doesn’t give funds through OBC any more. It’s now a shopping card mailed out after you return. It has to be spent at their locations.

Thanks, see my posts 4 and 5, above.

5 hours ago, strickerj said:

If I'm understanding correctly, the TA won't get a commission on the original cruise since it was canceled, but also won't get a commission on the rebooked cruise because the FCC was processed as a discount (making the fare effectively zero) instead of a form of payment? If so, then not only is the cruise line benefitting from effectively interest free loans (by providing refunds in the form of credits rather than cash), but they're also stiffing TAs out of commissions. Hopefully this is all just an unintended consequence of the FCC processing rather than intentional.

I think you've put it well. There must be some benefit to HAL, but those of us who use this TA get zero out of this booking, as does the TA. I don't know why HAL doesn't show it as a payment, which would make everyone whole. 

52 minutes ago, wyobean said:

I just visited with the BB TA. The rep told me that as of 2 weeks ago they were told they would not be receiving those original commissions. On a new booking using FCC they will not receive a commission if the amount due is $00, so as a customer we would only receive their minimum $25 gift card. I know it was posted somewhere that the TAs would receive their commissions.

Much as I like working with the folks at this TA, it seems pretty crummy to handle the FCC this way, and remove not only the commission for them, but the discount to us. In addition, the price of the trip I booked increased about 25% from the same one this year, so the FCC barely covered the increased price. Looks like no one will come out even, let alone ahead.

I understood that the Shop card disappeared because I used the future cruise credit. It's the same money I paid with my big-box credit card, when they were quite happy to include the Shop card. Why this has changed because it was returned from HAL is a mystery. However, as far as their system goes, I expect that the Shop card went almost to $0 because the FCC was applied to the fare, and not shown as a payment. Odd, but I've had this happen before: we had a credit for three missed ports about 18 months ago, and suddenly the fare declined with no notice or explanation. It took a call to figure out HAL had applied it on their own. They're not very good at telling you what's going on, but the big-box TA people have been unfailingly polite, courteous, and friendly, even durng 90 minute calls.