currency exchange rates on princess!!

[LORRAINE45]

hi,just filled in our cruise personalizer,and they are asking if we want our on board billing made out in our currrency [uk pound] as this may work out cheaper than our credit card company [mbna] would make it,converting from dollers to pounds-just like to know if anyone else has worked out which is a better deal or if anyone knows if princess exchange rate is on par with other banks/cards etc or more in line with travel agents or airport

charges-thankyou lorr

[Swabbie]

Our personal experience with the Canadian Dollar is the the bank rate was better than the Princess rate, so I just have them submit the charge in US dollars.

[Gibby]

As a Canadian we always leave our folio in US dollars, the Princess rate is very poor compared to the rate our Credit card gives.

 

Your Mileage may vary, so check it out.

[milamber]

hi,just filled in our cruise personalizer,and they are asking if we want our on board billing made out in our currrency [uk pound] as this may work out cheaper than our credit card company [mbna] would make it,converting from dollers to pounds-just like to know if anyone else has worked out which is a better deal or if anyone knows if princess exchange rate is on par with other banks/cards etc or more in line with travel agents or airport

charges-thankyou lorr

 

Hi Lorraine

 

I asked this a while back as we are due on our first Princess cruise shortly. The overwhelming opinion was that you should not get Princess to do the conversion and leave it to your card provider.

 

Since then I've done a bit more research and posted as below on our roll call board yesterday which might help save a few pounds and make your decision less important.

 

"Just spoken to Princess customer services about adding credit to your shipboard account before the cruise starts.

 

You can add a maximum of $500 per passenger, so a maximum of $1000 for a couple. The exchange rate is pretty good compared with anywhere else I have seen. For us it's $1.60 to the pound, but you might want to check your own figure as I believe it depends on when the cruise was booked.

 

Seeing as I can only get around $1.48 to the pound at Thomas Cook and through my credit card company, this represents a saving of around £50 for starters. In addition to that I won't pay the 3% fee from my credit card company for that $1000 spend on board, which is a saving of another £30. Some credit card companies charge interest on spends overseas from day one - ours doesn't, but if your does it will cost even more

 

I reckon that overall you would save at least £80 on a $1000 (around £625) spend by doing this. (Pays for 12 days auto tips/almost 5 coffee cards!) If like us you hope to get away with a spend of less than this any unused credit is returned to the card that you used to add it after the cruise ends.

 

Obviously these figures are only good if you use a debit card to add the credit to your account. Using a credit card will wipe out all of the savings & might even cost more."

Hope this helps

 

Chris

[shoreham01]

I have just spent ages talking to three different people at Princess UK. The first one was useless and did not seem to know how the OBC worked and then when he did find out he gave me incorrect information. He told me you could not pay for automatic tips with it, this was wrong, you can pay for automatic tips with it. He also told me that we could not buy 50$ obc for our room friend as the obc would be on our room and not the person, I did ask what if I wanted to give him 50$ for his birthday and I was told it was not possible. I became so frustrated with his nonsense that I thanked him and phoned again to Princess Circle. They could not help but put me through to someone else. I was then told that it was not worth buying the extra obc through Princess as our credit card company would charge us even more for buying the dollars. With that I just gave up. I was also told that they do not email confirmation of the extra credit and it does not show up on your cruise personaliser. The confirmation would be in our cabin. When I asked what if it was not, how could I prove we had purchased it I was just told 'it will be'. We are not risking it now and will just go and buy some dollars.

[caribill]

I have just spent ages talking to three different people at Princess UK. The first one was useless and did not seem to know how the OBC worked and then when he did find out he gave me incorrect information. He told me you could not pay for automatic tips with it, this was wrong, you can pay for automatic tips with it. He also told me that we could not buy 50$ obc for our room friend as the obc would be on our room and not the person, I did ask what if I wanted to give him 50$ for his birthday and I was told it was not possible. I became so frustrated with his nonsense that I thanked him and phoned again to Princess Circle. They could not help but put me through to someone else. I was then told that it was not worth buying the extra obc through Princess as our credit card company would charge us even more for buying the dollars. With that I just gave up. I was also told that they do not email confirmation of the extra credit and it does not show up on your cruise personaliser. The confirmation would be in our cabin. When I asked what if it was not, how could I prove we had purchased it I was just told 'it will be'. We are not risking it now and will just go and buy some dollars.

 

 

This is not an answer to the OP's question as this reply concerns buying US$ pre-cruise which is usually able to be done at the conversion rate in effect when the cruise was booked.

 

The OP is asking about the charges at the end of the cruise. Many, many posts have been on Cruise Critic about this. If Princess does the conversion at the end of the cruise, there will be a Princess 3% convenience fee accompanied by an extremely poor exchange rate. This is in addition to any fees your credit card company may change.

[caribill]

I was also told that they do not email confirmation of the extra credit and it does not show up on your cruise personaliser. The confirmation would be in our cabin. When I asked what if it was not, how could I prove we had purchased it I was just told 'it will be'.

 

When you make a gift of money to yourself or another on the cruise, there will be a card in the cabin of the recipient announcing the gift including the amount and the giver. The gift money will be on the stateroom account. For proof, the best suggestion I have is a copy of your credit card statement (or if the statement has not arrived yet, a printout of the charge from the credit card Internet site).

 

This does differ slightly if you gift yourself casino credit. In that case the card in the room needs to be taken to the vasino cashier who will give you cash for the value of the gift.

[mr green]

As a Canadian we always leave our folio in US dollars, the Princess rate is very poor compared to the rate our Credit card gives.

 

Too right!!!

 

john

[BARBYDOLL]

On the two previous cruises we have done on Princess, we have had the account calculated in dollars, as recommended on these boards, as the exchange rate was so poor.

 

However, for our last cruise we did buy some OBC through Princess in the UK. We had the some doubts about whether it would actually be credited to our account, so, as a previous poster said, we took our credit cards bill as proof. However, it was absolutely fine. We had a note in our cabin to say that we had the OBC and it was also shown on my husband's on-board account, so we made sure that we charged everything on his cruise card. Again, we did this on the recommendation of someone on these boards (from UK), as we actually got a superb exchange rate of $2 to the £1 (we got the exchange rate at the time we booked, which was early), which was considerably more than Princess were giving on board, or what we got from the Bank.

[shoreham01]

Barbydoll, that is exactly what I had read on the forums which was why I phoned them. The last girl I spoke to said that they had changed it now and this was the reason why it was not advantageous. I had been warned before regarding allowing Princess to do the conversion at the end of the cruise.

[newport dave]

Also, if you purchase OBC $ as a gift for yourself from Princess UK and you use your Credit Card it is treated as a purchase and not a cash advance. So you don't start paying interest straight away, only after the 56 days or however many your CC allows you.