Careful CDN OBC Purchasers

[patricia613]

I have called each time I purchased OBC to get the amenity invoice. I was at $1200.00 2 days ago and noticed the 1 cent owing issue. Called NCL and believe it or not they actually charged my credit card 1 cent. Then today I added the final 300.00 called again - got my Amenity Invoice showing everything confirmed and paid. My Husband received a call from NCL advising we were over the 1000.00 max (think they could have noticed it when they charged my card 1 cent 2 days ago?) and that they were refunding 500.00 period - no discussion. I called into NCL and asked to be passed on to a Supervisor and there is no going over 1000.00 according to NCL.

 

I am annoyed at the lack of advance notice. Also, according to the Supervisor instead of refunding last 2 purchases they just randomly picked amounts to add up to 500.00 which turned out to be all of my Husband's who now has no OBC, what a headache to sort out.

[triptastic]

I wonder why they are waiting to so close to departure to inform people of this? I like many of you, will not be home to receive the call if it comes. Do they send an email too. I will not be very please if I get on the boat only to be informed because I missed the call!

I will still be greatful for $1000 at a favourable rate, however, not pleased if I too get canceled. Especially since NCL has had the benefit of my $ for months that they are making money off of!

[hhfarmer]

They are waiting so close as it will not give anyone time to complain. They have no policy in writing on their website so what they are doing is very poor business.

[mexico8]

They are waiting so close as it will not give anyone time to complain. They have no policy in writing on their website so what they are doing is very poor business.

 

My dh and I had a cruise last fall on the NCL Spirit and we purchased OBC ahead of time and prepaid our DSC because our exchange rate was at 1.19. I read a lot of posts about people who were buying thousands of dollars at a good exchange rate and bragging that they were going to cash it out at the casino and pay the 3%. I figured it was just a matter of time until NCL made some changes and sure enough, now they have.

[hhfarmer]

I am OK with closing a loophole. They need to publish it however so at least there own staff no how to answer questions.

[Meekomist]

@missguy - yes still charged 3% fee when transferring obc to slot machine.

 

We also purchased extra with plans to cash out and take home .. but NCL got a bunch of it in the Casino lol

[Blazen]

Are they only limiting us Canadians to $1000 OBC max or is this for all guests?

 

Greg

[casofilia]

Are they only limiting us Canadians to $1000 OBC max or is this for all guests?Greg

 

I am sure that you could buy OBC in USD; what they are doing is stopping people (Canadians) buying OBC in CAD at a really advantageous rate.

 

The other question is: "Is the $1000 limit applied to Staterooms AND Suites no matter how many people are in the S/S and how long the cruise is?"

 

Mike

[RobTheGob]

The other question is: "Is the $1000 limit applied to Staterooms AND Suites no matter how many people are in the S/S and how long the cruise is?"

 

And at what rates? The only ones I recall seeing refunded have been at $1.11 rate...

[CanadianMommyof2]

We just returned from our cruise on the Escape and my brother ran into an issue with his OBC. My SIL originally purchased $800.00 worth of OBC in her name when she booked the cruise. My brother then went and purchased $500.00 worth of OBC in his name two weeks before we were to set sail. We printed out all our documents and all purchased items and all OBC were on the printout. We boarded the ship and my brother noticed that he was missing his OBC so he went and spoke with the OBC desk and they said they would send an email. He showed them his NCL account and bank transactions showing everything should be in order. They told him to stop back on Monday if they didn't show up on his account...he spent the rest of the week going back and forth with NCL only to have them tell him that there is a limit of $1000.00 and his $500.00 wouldn't be applied because he would be over $1000.00 for the stateroom and he would have to get things straightened out when he returned home. My husband and I only purchased $1000.00 and had no issues.

[triptastic]

I woner if there is one particulare ship that is enforcing this $1000 max or if it is all ships? It still seems that there should be more reports of cancelations if this is an actual change in policy.

[Frenchsnowhite]

Spend the last 45 minutes on the phone with NCL.

 

And they confirmed that even if I bought the OBC before January 21st 2016 the maximum amount is 1000$ per reservation

 

So they are refunding it today to my cc. Should be on my account by 5-7 business days.

 

My advice? Don't wait until they call you, call them and get YOUR money back!!

[hamrag]

Absolutely, and the more people discuss it on these boards the more likely NCL will step in and end this "perk"!;)

 

Others, apart from me were warning not to discuss this subject matter!!

 

There are a couple of recent threads confirming for sure that the perk has ended. Guess the discussion in this particular thread elaborated too much about the true intention of purchasing large amounts of OBC.

 

For me, NCL have acted fairly. You can still purchase $1000 OBC, unlimited spa credits, gifts including the dining packages, and also excursions all at your booked CAD rate. OK, many would have banked (no pun intended) on cashing out OBC on casino to fund non-NCL excursions so that is a "loss". The NCL excursions are better value with the CAD rate although many, ourselves included, do not like the "sheep herding" of large bus tours which the cruiselines typically do!

Edited February 6, 2016 by hamrag

[MerDub]

I just recently booked my first cruise with NCL and then ended up having to call my PCC to make some changes to my reservation, and when I went back in to my booking online to add a few things to my sailing, it looks like the rate they're giving me has jumped significantly and is now $1.46 CAD to USD which I think is worse than the going rate right now. When I booked originally the rate they were giving me was $1.35. I guess making changes to the reservation also meant giving up the better exchange rate. It doesn't make a HUGE difference as the changes to our booking meant us saving more than 10 points on the exchange would have, but if I had known I would have prepaid my service charges and maybe booked a SDP or something while I still had the old rate.

 

I'm not going to do anything until I board next week because the midmarket rate at the end of the day Friday was $1.39. I'm better off letting the on board charges ride on my credit card, I get a decent exchange rate from them, considering, and no extra fees for foreign currency.

 

But just as a note, when I go in to look at purchasing OBC it clearly states that you cannot purchase more than $1000 USD OBC per stateroom, and for the record I'm sailing on a 7 night Caribbean on the Getaway.

[RobTheGob]

Others, apart from me were warning not to discuss this subject matter!!

 

 

You can't honestly believe that a discussion on a web forum is the root cause for this being changed - can you?!? I'm pretty sure at some point, a report(s) generated from their accounting system is to blame...

 

On top of that - it it *hadn't* been discussed here or elsewhere, 95% of the people affected by the locking in of the rate at the time of booking, likely wouldn't have even realized it.

[RobTheGob]

But just as a note, when I go in to look at purchasing OBC it clearly states that you cannot purchase more than $1000 USD OBC per stateroom, and for the record I'm sailing on a 7 night Caribbean on the Getaway.

 

 

Yes - that disclaimer was added this week. I'd be pretty pissed if I had purchased OBC a year ago for a long cruise for many people that is leaving soon.

 

But lets face it - NCL is not known for their customer service (at least not to me). So - I'm relatively sure, this is what it is at this point.

[xcell]

Though the exchange was good... I doubt the majority of people who purchased the obc was to defraud the system. My preference was not to have to carry a lot of cash... play at the casino and yes with a better exchange rate, my losses (which usually happens) are 30% less painful... I have also used the obc to buy my fcc.

 

My US friends buy the OBC so that they don't have to take out cash advances on their CC to play at the casino. They tell me it is something like every $500/day they take out cost them $35. So if they buy obc, then they are only dinged $15... not much but they gamble a lot so it adds up...

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk

Edited February 6, 2016 by xcell

[RobTheGob]

Though the exchange was good... I doubt the majority of people who purchased the obc was to defraud the system. My preference was not to have to carry a lot of cash... play at the casino and yes with a better exchange rate, my losses (which usually happens) are 30% less painful... I have also used the obc to buy my fcc.

 

My US friends buy the OBC so that they don't have to take out cash advances on their CC to play at the casino. So thing like every $500/day they take out cost them $35. So if they by obc, then they are only dinged $15... not much but they gamble a lot so it adds up...

 

 

Yes - I went an exchanged the $2k at the bank this week, that is supposedly being refunded to me. I'm not wild about carrying that much cash - but our cruise is too long to make $1K last for both of us...

[hamrag]

You can't honestly believe that a discussion on a web forum is the root cause for this being changed - can you?!? I'm pretty sure at some point, a report(s) generated from their accounting system is to blame...

 

The truth is we will never know, but I have seen nothing to convince me that NCL's Corporate function will be any better with accounting reports than they are at customer service! ;)

Edited February 6, 2016 by hamrag

[fshagan]

The truth is we will never know, but I have seen nothing to convince me that NCL's Corporate function will be any better with accounting reports than they are at customer service! ;)

 

Oh, I'm sure the bean counter department is better than customer service. They are regulated by the SEC now, and with laws like Sarbanes-Oxley, the executives go to jail for mistakes instead of the accounting clerk scapegoats. And I suspect they have quarterly SOX audits like I experienced at the public companies I worked for.

 

So it probably did show up on some metric, like ATM OBC Cashout / Cash Spent in Casino on the last night of the cruise.

[cjcruises]

Oh, I'm sure the bean counter department is better than customer service. They are regulated by the SEC now, and with laws like Sarbanes-Oxley, the executives go to jail for mistakes instead of the accounting clerk scapegoats. And I suspect they have quarterly SOX audits like I experienced at the public companies I worked for.

 

So it probably did show up on some metric, like ATM OBC Cashout / Cash Spent in Casino on the last night of the cruise.

 

From what DH was told by the unfortunately named "executive problem resolution" folks, it was report analysis that caused them to change the policy. It would seem that someone in accounting realized that NCL stood to lose a lot of money and so they changed the policy. I think there may have been a better solution, which wouldn't have upset so many - perhaps crediting unused OBC back to credit cards at the same rate at which it was purchased. Regardless, that ship has sailed and here we all are. I know we won't be spending anything over the $1000 onboard now. I'll make up for my lessened onboard spending in ports. Maybe a nice rug from Tangier!

[NLH Arizona]

From what DH was told by the unfortunately named "executive problem resolution" folks, it was report analysis that caused them to change the policy. It would seem that someone in accounting realized that NCL stood to lose a lot of money and so they changed the policy. I think there may have been a better solution, which wouldn't have upset so many - perhaps crediting unused OBC back to credit cards at the same rate at which it was purchased. Regardless, that ship has sailed and here we all are. I know we won't be spending anything over the $1000 onboard now. I'll make up for my lessened onboard spending in ports. Maybe a nice rug from Tangier!

That would help, but what about those that cashed it out in the casinos, with no intention of using it in the casino? They would have to close every opportunity for those to make a profit off it, wouldn't they? Edited February 6, 2016 by NLH Arizona

[cjcruises]

That would help, but what about those that cashed it out in the casinos, with no intention of using it in the casino? They would have to close every opportunity for those to make a profit off it, wouldn't they?

 

That's true. I wasn't planning to can out in the casino, so I forgot about that. I see people on several threads talking about fraud, but isn't it fraudulent on NCL's part to continue taking people's money for OBC, knowing they have no intention of providing the certificates?!

[NLH Arizona]

That's true. I wasn't planning to can out in the casino, so I forgot about that. I see people on several threads talking about fraud, but isn't it fraudulent on NCL's part to continue taking people's money for OBC, knowing they have no intention of providing the certificates?!

I never called it fraud, as I just think some took advantage of a loophole in the policy. I think it would be wrong if NCL took the money knowing that they were going to change the policy, but I believe that they just figured out what some were doing and needed to change the policy, so they would not garner any more losses from it. I truly feel sorry for those who intended to use the money onboard the ship, especially those of you with longer cruises, but I don't feel sorry for those that intended to either use the money off the ship or profit off the policy.

[cjcruises]

I never called it fraud, as I just think some took advantage of a loophole in the policy. I think it would be wrong if NCL took the money knowing that they were going to change the policy, but I believe that they just figured out what some were doing and needed to change the policy, so they would not garner any more losses from it. I truly feel sorry for those who intended to use the money onboard the ship, especially those of you with longer cruises, but I don't feel sorry for those that intended to either use the money off the ship or profit off the policy.

 

Please don't think I was implying you were calling it fraud. There have been several who have though. What I believe to be fraudulent is NCL continuing to take people's money for the OBC. There are reports of them taking funds for OBC beyond $1000 within the last couple of days. We even tested them, as we were in the midst of elevating our complaint (since we kept getting different as swears as to OBC limits, policy changes and "technical glitches" and were able to purchase more. We allowed them to sell us an additional thousand, just to see if it wojod go through, it did. That was 3 days ago. The policy change supposedly took effect Jan 21 (if one is to believe one of the many stories we have been told by NCL :rolleyes:).