Purchase of onboard credit - heads up for UK passengers

[excitedofharpenden]

Always USD regardless of region cruised.

 

Phil

[uktog]

We are on the Eclipse in October in the Med. What currency do they use on board - do they stick with the $ or is everything priced in £?

 

$ is the onboard currency of Celebrity regardless of where the ship is operating

[Gordoncruickshank]

Thanks for the quick responses. I thought it would be so but wanted to check. As our next cruise isn't until October I think I will wait and see how the exchange rate goes over the next few months. If the £ cost of these stays the same I can take my time over it.

[scotslass]

I bought on board credit today after reading this thread and received a confirmation e-mail almost immediately

[nijh]

I bought on board credit today after reading this thread and received a confirmation e-mail almost immediately

 

Still not got an email and I'm sat in Chile waiting to board on Sunday!

[Project_gal]

Thanks for the quick responses. I thought it would be so but wanted to check. As our next cruise isn't until October I think I will wait and see how the exchange rate goes over the next few months. If the £ cost of these stays the same I can take my time over it.

 

Just a warning but in the past, Celebrity have only maintained their exchange rate for OBC for around three months. As far as I can recall, the current rate has been in place for a least seven months and probably well over a year.

 

Sue

[ladylemondrop]

Still not got an email and I'm sat in Chile waiting to board on Sunday!

 

 

Me neither... :(

[sandancer]

Don't worry, we did not get an email either for the OBC we purchased for our Millie cruise in January. It appeared on the onboard account on the second day of the cruise.

[wendyam76]

Many thanks for the advice - with the rate dropping so much I have also bought for our cruise. No email yet either so fingers crossed it went through!

Wendy

[lydnsyd]

I have also jumped at the chance to book some OBC - just hope the rate is still favourable. How do you know that the rate is worked out at $1.62?

I got my email to confirm my purchases straight away.

[excitedofharpenden]

I have also jumped at the chance to book some OBC - just hope the rate is still favourable. How do you know that the rate is worked out at $1.62?

Divide the $25 on board credit unit by the unit cost in £££s (£15.40) which equates to just over 1.62.

 

Phil

[ladylemondrop]

I dont understand why some of us are getting enail straight away (and that includes me for one of my purchases) and others, no email. Thats fine if they process it and you get it onboard, but how about in my case, where it said it was confirmed, but then no money was taken from my payment card, no email received and nothing on my booking.... Its starting to frustrate me!

[nijh]

I dont understand why some of us are getting enail straight away (and that includes me for one of my purchases) and others, no email. Thats fine if they process it and you get it onboard, but how about in my case, where it said it was confirmed, but then no money was taken from my payment card, no email received and nothing on my booking.... Its starting to frustrate me!

 

Just print off your confirmation and argue the toss should it not appear when you board.

 

Frustrating, but it'll work out ... well I'll find out tomorrow if it doesn't.....

[Project_gal]

I can understand why people who have not purchased OBC before may be concerned about any lack of confirmation of their order but, all I can say, is that we have been doing this for some years and there has never been a problem. For our earlier cruises, there was virtually no confirmation. If you were lucky, you received an email but this did not specify what you had purchased or what the price was. If you forgot to take a screen print before you completed the transaction [not really proof at all because you may not have completed it], you had nothing. At least now there is a final, confirmation screen you can print and, if you are lucky, an email confirmation. Just make sure that you take the screen print and a copy of your credit card statement showing the payment has gone through but I doubt that you will need it. You should find a little card in your stateroom when you board - take care because it is small and easy to miss among all the other paper. It will then show up on your on board account [check on your TV] by day three of your cruise.

 

Sue

[withabix]

If you have OBC left at the end of your cruise, how do you get it back?

[ladylemondrop]

I would not mind if the money was debited from my card, I could print that off and take with me, but these transactions are saying confirmed, then simply not being processed at all - three transactions so far....if I am not paying for them I cannot show up expecting them to be there, thats a little too good a deal!! :D

Celebrity said I had experienced a glitch, and try again, which I have and so far, still no payment going through....

 

The first two transactions I did that did which were successful were different, they showed after one or two days, on my bank statement, one I got an email for, one I didnt.

 

Its a bit random is all I am saying...a great deal, if you can get it to work.

[upwarduk]

If you have OBC left at the end of your cruise, how do you get it back?

 

You get back the OBC that you have bought ( not booking incentives via TA/Celebrity)

 

As I have never had any, I am only assuming that it will be credited to the credit card that you have used for yor OBA.

[uktog]

Be careful if you have a combination of bought credit and free credit such as a promotion or shareholder credit

 

I am not sure what this situation is now, but certainly the line taken a few years ago was that you used your own credit first and the free credit second, so left over was lost. I did query the fairness of that at the time and as it was only about $20 so did not pursue it, so the position may be different now, I would be interested to hear if anyone had recent experience of this situation - left over credit when you had a combination of purchased obc and perk obc

[hopeless holiday booker]

About to ask thickest question ever but going to go ahead anyway. Is shipboard credit the same as onboard credit as when I click onboard credit it takes me to the spa option.

[bengaltiger1]

About to ask thickest question ever but going to go ahead anyway. Is shipboard credit the same as onboard credit as when I click onboard credit it takes me to the spa option.

 

This is the link for the UK

 

http://www.celebritycruises.com/bonvoyage/category/viewProductDetail.do?cat=ONBDCR&coll=ONBDCR&itemCode=C171

 

You need Shpboard credit iitem number C171

 

Don't click on Onboard Credit scroll down the page a little and select Shipboard credit.

HTH

 

It is not a thick question. I did exactly the same the first time around. Plus today I forget about the system timing out and didn't print off my order summary, but I do have the e-mail. Oh well it is Sunday and my brain was taking a holiday :)

 

Pamela

[hopeless holiday booker]

Thank you. Just had a little panic!

[hopeless holiday booker]

so good I said it twice!

[Project_gal]

Be careful if you have a combination of bought credit and free credit such as a promotion or shareholder credit

 

I am not sure what this situation is now, but certainly the line taken a few years ago was that you used your own credit first and the free credit second, so left over was lost. I did query the fairness of that at the time and as it was only about $20 so did not pursue it, so the position may be different now, I would be interested to hear if anyone had recent experience of this situation - left over credit when you had a combination of purchased obc and perk obc

 

Not true, in our experience. Advice, on Cruise Critic and on board, has been that non-refundable OBC is used first. Certainly was the case on the one ocassion we had OBC outstanding at the end of a cruise.

 

In that case it was refunded to our credit card in US$. I posted a question a while ago if you could have it refunded in cash [as our next cruise is B2B and it would be nice not to take the exchange rate hit twice if we have anything left over at the end of the cruise]. The advice was that it is always credited to your card. However, since on another thread, that someone had it returned in cash. I plan to ask on our next cruise but will not rely on being able to get cash. [if they refuse cash, will purchase wine for the next cruise ...]

 

Sue

[ladylemondrop]

So, my OBC purchases made last week have still not yet been processed, and now when I go into "my celebrity" the 5 dinner package we purchased has disappeared! i think they may have some website issues...?:confused:

[uktog]

Not true, in our experience. Advice, on Cruise Critic and on board, has been that non-refundable OBC is used first. Certainly was the case on the one ocassion we had OBC outstanding at the end of

Sue

 

That is useful to know - is that recent experience? We highlighted the folly of the previous rule so hopefully they have taken it on board and work in the basis we use the non refundable first