Unused Onboard Credit, what happens?

[theadams]

My mother purchased $1000 onboard credit for my husband and I as a gift for our upcoming cruise. She has contacted HAL by phone and used her credit card to put it on our account.

 

If we don't use up the $1000 by the end of the cruise, what happens to it? Does it get refunded to the card we registered for our account? Do we get a cheque, cash?

[jtl513]

You should get it back in cash. Nice! :)

[J & G]

Do you also get a refund for onboard credit from a price reduction or from something you got from a TA?

[tulsacubfan]

I have no idea if they will put it back on your card or your parent's card or what, but just wanted to say how nice of your parents!

[3rdGenCunarder]

I think the extra may go back to your mother's card, since it's sort of "her" money.

 

We were given an OBC as a gift, and Cunard "lost" it. The credit was on an interim statement, but it fell off at the end. DH checked the preliminary statement we got a day before the cruise ended, and he only looked to see if there were any odd charges. On the last morning, I checked the one that came under the door at night, and discovered the missing credit. When we went to the purser's desk, it was too late to change the account, so my husband called Cunard when we got home. They refunded the money to our friends' card, not to ours. (Our friends kindly replaced the Christmas gift with a gift cert to a very nice restaurant.)

 

What a nice mother you have! be sure to sse some of the OBC to buy her a very nice present.

 

I may just mention this thread to my dad... ;)

[jtl513]

They refunded the money to our friends' card, not to ours.

That could have been due to not being able to give it to you in cash on board.

[3rdGenCunarder]

That could have been due to not being able to give it to you in cash on board.

 

True, but they had our credit card number and wouldn't credit that account. When DH called Cunard, they said he had to provide info about the friends' card.

 

I do know that if the OBC is from the cruise line, you don't get the money back. We once had a large OBC for booking early. Everyone at our table had the same credit, so we played "russian roulette" with the wine list. One person would choose the wine and another would pay. (We didn't go crazy with $100 bottles of wine). We checked our accounts every few days to see how we were doing. At the end of the cruise, we eached owed something like 10 or 20 dollars. I overheard one man at the pursers' desk arguing about not getting the money back. He had NO onboard charges!!!! (This was before autotipping) The person at the desk explained that the OBC was the cruise line's money for him to spend on the ship but not take home.

[bcd2010]

I bought OBCs for my sons and me in January (before the cruise) - what wasn't used was refunded to each of us in cash at the end of the cruise.

[HeatherInFlorida]

Somewhere on here I read, and hopefully someone will come on and explain it if it's true, that you can cash out onboard credits in the Casino in some way.

 

On our last cruise we had an onboard credit for the casino. When we went to cash it in for chips he just handed us the cash and that was that!

 

So I"m guessing you can do that with anything left over?

[jtl513]

Somewhere on here I read, and hopefully someone will come on and explain it if it's true, that you can cash out onboard credits in the Casino in some way.

Well, you can take a cash advance from the front desk or the casino for a 3% fee, so in essence you could get back 97% of an unused OBC from any source that way. It wouldn't be a good way to get back your own money (OBCs you paid for) though.

[GmaPajama]

Somewhere on here I read, and hopefully someone will come on and explain it if it's true, that you can cash out onboard credits in the Casino in some way.

 

On our last cruise we had an onboard credit for the casino. When we went to cash it in for chips he just handed us the cash and that was that!

 

So I"m guessing you can do that with anything left over?

If you know how much your remaining OBC is, you simply use your room card to draw that amount into a slot machine. Then, choose "cash out". Once the casino credit is on your room card, the casino cashier will hand it to you in cash. There is no 3% fee because it was not a cash advance - and it's now been turned into casino money. I was surprised it works that way, but it definitely does.

[Kay240]

Once in a while, we receive OBC for booking while on a previous cruise, TA OBC, and Stockholder's OBC. If the total OBC is more than our gratuities, we have to do something with it!:D We rarely "drink", and we cruise enough not to need T shirts etc. each time, so our expenses are very low. I usually book (and pay for) our shore excursions months in advance, and often we even get a soda card and/ or dinner in the Pinnacle from our TA. I really want to buy something for DH, but unfortunately the selection for men is very limited, so we find ourselves adding to the remaining OBC and buying jewelry for me.;)

[Krazy Kruizers]

My mother purchased $1000 onboard credit for my husband and I as a gift for our upcoming cruise. She has contacted HAL by phone and used her credit card to put it on our account.

 

If we don't use up the $1000 by the end of the cruise, what happens to it? Does it get refunded to the card we registered for our account? Do we get a cheque, cash?

 

It really depends on how much you will have left at the end of the cruise.

Keep in mind that you will have an $11 per day per person Hotel Service Charge added to your shipboard account. Then if you buy anything on the ship -- drinks -- specialty restaurants -- even shore excursions booked once on the ship -- will quickly eat into that credit.

NOW

One time we had such bad weather on our Hawaiian cruise that the mojority of our excursions were cancelled and we had so much ship board credit at the end of the cruise -- the ship would not give us back the extra monies in cash -- it was credited back to our credit card. SO -- if you do have a large sum left over -- like $300 or more -- it MAY be credited back to the origianl credit card.

OR -- AND this will surely happen:

You will probably be called down to the Front Office the last day of the cruise to straighten this out being as the Shipboard Credit has now been placed in your name and they may not even have a record of the original credit card.

[RuthC]

I really want to buy something for DH, but unfortunately the selection for men is very limited, so we find ourselves adding to the remaining OBC and buying jewelry for me.;)

Suffering builds character. Remember that. ;)

[db777]

On our last cruise, I thought they would put left over on our card (less than 300)...so as we were getting off the ship they stopped me and would not let me disembark...told me to report back to the main desk...had no clue why...and I was sure other people leaving were wondering what I had done....well it was so they could give me the cash... next time, if there is anything left I will go and get my cash... don't want to have to go back and wade through the crowd... DB777

[ajcruiser]

In July we had an OBC greater than our expenses and the only option was to get it in cash when we closed our account on the last day.