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P&O sold Adonia but will not give us our deposits back on a Back to Back cruise.


Calpespain
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Seeking advice. P&O have sold Adonia which will be gone to Azamara from March 2018. We have booked a back to back Christmas and NewYear on Azura & Adonia for Dec 18 to Jan 19. P&O cancel our cruise and yet refuse to give me all of our deposits back as they, P&O booked each cruise separately on different booking references, although we were given a discount for booking aback to back albeit on two different ships. P&O say, you have two separate bookings,I say, yes but I booked them at the same time you at P&O accepted the booking as a back to back, so I should be entitled to all of my deposits back absolutely. To make it clear, they will refund Adonia deposit but not that of Azura, I think they are being unfair. What’s your opinions? Or advice of who to contact at P&O to get this sorted as the 08 number is not cheap with a 2 hours wait once answered.

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What do the booking T&Cs say?

 

There is no reason you can't do the first cruise as nothing has been cancelled.

 

P&O are therefore probably legally sound, you may have to argue the moral ground to get Azura cancelled and money refunded, or ask if there is an alternative for the second cruise.

 

For a number use saynoto0870, but complaints should always be in writing.

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I do sympathize with your problem. I would have thought that you deserve to get your money back on the Azura cruise, although it was separate bookings and you are aware of that, but to you it is classified as one holiday. Unfortunately they cover themselves in their terms and conditions, but would have thought as a gesture of goodwill to try and keep your custom they would offer you your deposit back. Their freephone number is 0800 0523840 also an email address which you could try is paul.ludlow@pocruises.com

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Since posting this P&O have now agreed to allow cancellation of both parts of my cruise. Doing the calculations of keeping the first cruise as booked and then doing a back to back on the same ship Azura the costs to me is an extra £800 but now they are offering a OBC of £700 and a £200 discount allowance by booking another cruise,so I guess it works out almost the same as my original booking by P&O now giving an OBC of £700 whereas previously my Adonia booking only generated an OBC of £85. But the stops on the second half on the B-B are almost identical to the first. At least now I have the options of cancelling both parts and either re-booking with P&O or going back to the drawing board. :confused:

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Good result for you in the end. Despite all the publicity re selling of Adonia, My T/A here still has not notified me of cancellation of my booked cruises D812/D813 due to sale of Adonia. Does that mean P&O has not yet notified overseas t/a's? The T/A is one of the largest cruise t/a's in Australia with a sister company in UK. :evilsmile:

 

This has been a debacle.:loudcry: The fact that P&O announced the sale on FB prior to notifying all agents and customers is unforgiveable.:evilsmile:

 

I wonder what will happen if I hit P&O for $12,000 which is the cost of two business class return airfares, SYD - LHR - SYD on Cathay Pacific which I have paid for, plus a few hotels and car hire in UK?

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Good result for you in the end. Despite all the publicity re selling of Adonia, My T/A here still has not notified me of cancellation of my booked cruises D812/D813 due to sale of Adonia. Does that mean P&O has not yet notified overseas t/a's? The T/A is one of the largest cruise t/a's in Australia with a sister company in UK. :evilsmile:

 

This has been a debacle.:loudcry: The fact that P&O announced the sale on FB prior to notifying all agents and customers is unforgiveable.:evilsmile:

 

I wonder what will happen if I hit P&O for $12,000 which is the cost of two business class return airfares, SYD - LHR - SYD on Cathay Pacific which I have paid for, plus a few hotels and car hire in UK?

 

Hi Les,

our TA , here in Australia, hasnt been notified either, he only knows because I told him. He has been trying to contact P&O in UK, but no response so far.

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Hi Les,

our TA , here in Australia, hasnt been notified either, he only knows because I told him. He has been trying to contact P&O in UK, but no response so far.

 

Thanks, one would have thought the smoke signals from Carnival UK at Southampton would have been noticed over here by now. Just shows P&O UK don't care too much about business from the likes of us. I have already fired off another E mail to my agent and P&O UK re not being officially advised.:evilsmile:

 

Good luck with your future plans. As you see I have slotted some cruises in to replace Adonia.:halo: On the real big ships though, not real keen on them from experience.

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Good result for you in the end. Despite all the publicity re selling of Adonia, My T/A here still has not notified me of cancellation of my booked cruises D812/D813 due to sale of Adonia. Does that mean P&O has not yet notified overseas t/a's? The T/A is one of the largest cruise t/a's in Australia with a sister company in UK. :evilsmile:

 

This has been a debacle.:loudcry: The fact that P&O announced the sale on FB prior to notifying all agents and customers is unforgivable.:evilsmile:

 

I wonder what will happen if I hit P&O for $12,000 which is the cost of two business class return airfares, SYD - LHR - SYD on Cathay Pacific which I have paid for, plus a few hotels and car hire in UK?

 

Having just recently left OZ after 12 years to live in Spain, being a retiree Australia would not allow us to become a PR although we are and were totally self funded (another story). I do see and sympathise with you not being informed. I think P&O Australia look after the Australian bookings of P&O international. I think they would have been informed as our and other UK agents were with a standard letter of the sale of Andonia. I also think that it could just be that handling agents of P&O UK in Oz are a little dilatory, I do now though my UK agent that the staff at P&O UK have been overwhelmed by customers phoning direct to re-book and agents calling to re-book or enquire and that the wait times were 2 hours.

 

I also think that whilst in my case I have been adequately sorted I did have to outline my own situation clearly to them before they would offer me a complete refund without penalty. As it went on, because I wanted to spend a longer time in the warmth this year after our first winter back in the northern hemisphere shook our bones we have been able to re-book on a different ship in the Caribbean and received the £200 extra credit for re-booking and a 10% overall deduction for booking back to back, so overall, plus because, we are now booking on present offers we received a much high OBC, substantially so. For us it has worked out well but I can imagine how you feel but to their credit P&O are generally fair.

 

Having been a cruiser for over 25 years I have travelledwith most and have had issues with most and again, to be fair, they have allalways sorted me out with either a great future credit deal or as in one case Iwalked of the ship carrying $7,000 Aussie dollars when my suite wasunsatisfactory, that was Holland & America. I also turned up for a cruiseon Princess in Singapore when the ship came out of refurb and the cruise was cancelled as passengers were booking in at the terminal. Again I used my own resourcesto fly straight back to Oz on a flight within hours and whilst most passengers were still stuck in Singapore waiting for Princess to help them travel backhome, we were already home. Again Princess which are part of Carnival as areP&O paid our claim in full and gave us a full cruise future credit to thevalue of that cruise and refunded the whole cruise money. What a deal!

 

 

RCI are the same we have had similar issues with them but they have always accommodated us to our benefit. So don’t give up be charming towards them in dealing and they will reward you, that’s what ships and their service agents do, look after their guest better than any other type of holiday company. Good luck but I’m sure you’re already in safe hands through your agent,unless it’s Flight Centre, sorry my experience with them is not a good one,ever.

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Thanks, one would have thought the smoke signals from Carnival UK at Southampton would have been noticed over here by now. Just shows P&O UK don't care too much about business from the likes of us. I have already fired off another E mail to my agent and P&O UK re not being officially advised.:evilsmile:

 

Good luck with your future plans. As you see I have slotted some cruises in to replace Adonia.:halo: On the real big ships though, not real keen on them from experience.

 

Don't take it personally that P&O don't care because you are Australian, P&O senior management and customer services don't care and treat all their customers with contempt whatever their nationality even those in the UK.

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I wonder what will happen if I hit P&O for $12,000 which is the cost of two business class return airfares, SYD - LHR - SYD on Cathay Pacific which I have paid for, plus a few hotels and car hire in UK?

That would depend on which country's law your contract with P&O is under. I suspect it would be Australian law, in which case I wouldn't have a clue; but if it's under UK law, you would have a clear breach of contract on their part and so you should be able to recover consequential losses which are reasonably foreseeable. And obviously if they knew you live in Australia, it's foreseeable that you would have to get here. In their mitigation of losses, they could point out that you are doing other things in the UK so your flight costs should be allocated between your various activities; if you decided to come anyway and did something else, then they wouldn't have to pay.

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As I've pointed out elsewhere, the (UK) contract allows actions such as P&O have taken and expressly excludes compensation for any consequential loss. So it's not a breach of contract and any claim would depend on proving the relevant clauses were invalid.

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P&O on Facebook have replied to people, to tell them to contact them, if they’ve incurred additional expenses which they wish to claim. It appears P&O realise they are going to need to refund some of these costs where reasonable. Even those in the UK have flights, hotels, parking, etc all prepaid for. Not sure £12,000 flights would be considered reasonable though, my flights to Oz didn’t cost anywhere near that!! If you’ve booked through your travel agent then it’ll be different, as your contract will be with your TA rather than P&O, I am unsure in that case how you’d proceed.

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To you nice people on CC..thanks to all for your comments and advice. Yes we were doing other things beside the Adonia cruises D812/D813, like a week in the Cotswolds including a niece's wedding at Stow in the Wold. So we were going anyway and the cruises now cancelled were all part of it.

 

Anyway, despite Adonia cancellation, we are still going and lucky to be able to afford to travel at the pointy end of the aircraft. As I have said, we have slotted in three cruises to replace the Adonia ones, Sapphire Princess - Scandinavia, B2B Sapphire Princess - Baltic Heritage, so 21 days B2B on that one, couple of nights in Southampton, then 12 nights - Royal Princess - British Isles.:halo: Done quite a few with Princess and always book direct with Princess for those.:D Nice but not the same as the Adonia ones.

 

No doubt next week we will hear from my agent.

 

Thanks again and happy cruising to all. :*

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If you’ve booked through your travel agent then it’ll be different, as your contract will be with your TA rather than P&O, I am unsure in that case how you’d proceed.

Almost certainly, the contract with the TA is only for them to act as a booking agent for you. They are not responsible for what P&O do after the booking is made.

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Almost certainly, the contract with the TA is only for them to act as a booking agent for you. They are not responsible for what P&O do after the booking is made.

 

Which applies to us Aussies, as we cannot book direct with P&O UK, have to go through an agent or through P&O Australia. :loudcry: My agent charges $300 fee for cancellations, better not in this case, not our fault.

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Just in case you need to call again, there is a free phone number sited in the stickies on the forum page x

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

In addition, P&O now publicise their local rate number as 0344 338 8003

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To you nice people on CC..thanks to all for your comments and advice. Yes we were doing other things beside the Adonia cruises D812/D813, like a week in the Cotswolds including a niece's wedding at Stow in the Wold. So we were going anyway and the cruises now cancelled were all part of it.

 

Anyway, despite Adonia cancellation, we are still going and lucky to be able to afford to travel at the pointy end of the aircraft. As I have said, we have slotted in three cruises to replace the Adonia ones, Sapphire Princess - Scandinavia, B2B Sapphire Princess - Baltic Heritage, so 21 days B2B on that one, couple of nights in Southampton, then 12 nights - Royal Princess - British Isles.:halo: Done quite a few with Princess and always book direct with Princess for those.:D Nice but not the same as the Adonia ones.

 

No doubt next week we will hear from my agent.

 

Thanks again and happy cruising to all. :*

I am pleased you have made a positive outcome out of the P&O fiasco and hope you have a great time.

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As I've pointed out elsewhere, the (UK) contract allows actions such as P&O have taken and expressly excludes compensation for any consequential loss. So it's not a breach of contract and any claim would depend on proving the relevant clauses were invalid.

 

Some sweeping statements here Teddy123.

The fact that P&O have a clause that excludes compensation for consequential loss does not legally 'allow actions' if it is unfair to the consumer, no matter if the consumer accepted the terms and conditions when booking. The consumer did not have the opportunity to negotiate the terms of the contract so the contract, to be valid, has to be equally fair to both sides. I refer you to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (formerly the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts 1999).

 

You state 'Any claim would depend on proving the relevant clause were invalid'. You certainly do not have to prove that. There is a procedure by which you claim recompense for loss.

1) You write to the company stating your claim with supporting evidence.

2) If the reply is unsatisfactory you write a 'formal letter of pre court action' outlining your case and the amount you are claiming, and also offering them mediation to settle the matter if they so wish.

3) It there is no resolution ( and in many cases the company will settle if the claim is fair ) then there is a simple application form for recompense which you send to the Claims Court. Details of that are available on line.

It is up to the Court to consider whether you have been treated unfairly and decide the outcome. If the company fails to defend the action then the applicant wins by default.

 

I have used the process (against P&O) and they settled after the formal letter. The cost of it is minimal, in my case 3 first class stamps.

 

It rather appears from recent posts that they are considering compensation for incurred losses because of their action, so they will know that they are on unsafe ground if they hide behind their Clause 42. The last thing they will want is a successful court judgement against them.

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Some sweeping statements here Teddy123.

The fact that P&O have a clause that excludes compensation for consequential loss does not legally 'allow actions' if it is unfair to the consumer, no matter if the consumer accepted the terms and conditions when booking. The consumer did not have the opportunity to negotiate the terms of the contract so the contract, to be valid, has to be equally fair to both sides. I refer you to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (formerly the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts 1999).

 

You state 'Any claim would depend on proving the relevant clause were invalid'. You certainly do not have to prove that. There is a procedure by which you claim recompense for loss.

1) You write to the company stating your claim with supporting evidence.

2) If the reply is unsatisfactory you write a 'formal letter of pre court action' outlining your case and the amount you are claiming, and also offering them mediation to settle the matter if they so wish.

3) It there is no resolution ( and in many cases the company will settle if the claim is fair ) then there is a simple application form for recompense which you send to the Claims Court. Details of that are available on line.

It is up to the Court to consider whether you have been treated unfairly and decide the outcome. If the company fails to defend the action then the applicant wins by default.

 

I have used the process (against P&O) and they settled after the formal letter. The cost of it is minimal, in my case 3 first class stamps.

 

It rather appears from recent posts that they are considering compensation for incurred losses because of their action, so they will know that they are on unsafe ground if they hide behind their Clause 42. The last thing they will want is a successful court judgement against them.

Fantastic informative post.

Lets hope everyone concerned reads this and acts accordingly.

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Good comments and great advice from Jake 26 and others. Thankyou.

 

Rang my T/A today which is probably the largest cruise T/A in Australia, is also in UK. As of Monday morning 2 October, they had not been formally notified by P&O re sale/cancellation, so will do nothing at this stage, despite me forwarding them the P&O FB age relevant to Adonia sale to Azamara. And so it goes on. The longer the cruise companies and T/A's have your deposits, the more interest money I suppose.:evilsmile:

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Good comments and great advice from Jake 26 and others. Thankyou.

 

Rang my T/A today which is probably the largest cruise T/A in Australia, is also in UK. As of Monday morning 2 October, they had not been formally notified by P&O re sale/cancellation, so will do nothing at this stage, despite me forwarding them the P&O FB age relevant to Adonia sale to Azamara. And so it goes on. The longer the cruise companies and T/A's have your deposits, the more interest money I suppose.:evilsmile:

 

I think that's quite shameful

Refunds should have been processed automatically.

I don't have the time to sit on the phone to P&O so I emailed them yesterday. Though I booked through an agent, when I spoke to my agent on Thursday night they had only a generic letter from P&O - nothing individual about any particular client. Nor have I had anything from P&O direct (though they have sent their automated emails to me about booking trips etc so they do have my details)

 

I have now booked a cruise with Fred Olsen to try them as I prefer smaller ships. Luckily I had enough funds to pay that deposit as P&O seem to want to hold on to my deposit with them for as long as possible

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I think that's quite shameful

Refunds should have been processed automatically.

I don't have the time to sit on the phone to P&O so I emailed them yesterday. Though I booked through an agent, when I spoke to my agent on Thursday night they had only a generic letter from P&O - nothing individual about any particular client. Nor have I had anything from P&O direct (though they have sent their automated emails to me about booking trips etc so they do have my details)

 

I have now booked a cruise with Fred Olsen to try them as I prefer smaller ships. Luckily I had enough funds to pay that deposit as P&O seem to want to hold on to my deposit with them for as long as possible

They are probably hoping people will transfer their deposits​ for another P&O cruise.

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Despite fear of retribution from CC administrators I am going to name and shame all of the cruise industry operators involved in this disgraceful mess, re my lost cruises D812/D813

 

Carnival Corp - owners of P&O UK and Adonia

P&O UK Operators of Adonia

P&O Australia With whom my agent did reservation with and P&O passed it on to P&O UK

Cruise 1st Australia (my booking agent) - parent company Cruise 1st UK - Sunshine holidays UK, who could be more proactive and are just sitting on their backsides.:evilsmile:

 

As has been said, automatic processing of refunds should be happening, not us customers doing all the work.

 

Hilarious email back from P&O with some spelling errors in it pointing out that as I used a cruise agent if I want to cancel my booking they have to cancel it not me. As far as I am concerned P&O are the ones cancelling the booking - not me.

 

(I do of course take the point about the agent)

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