OBC denied because of “low fare”?

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

Hi.

we just let a friend who is a TA book our transatlantic for next December under the President’s Day sale. She was told that, if we used the $600 credit we bought in board last a December, we would lose our OBC because the fare was “so low.” This was certainly never discussed as a possibility or term, and it feels scam-ish to me.

 

Has anyone else here experienced this? Is it accurate generally? The result is that, if I had booked exactly the same cabin under the also-offered Three for One sale with its free gratuities, the fare minus OBC would have been identical. If so, then it’s a particularly unsavory kind of manipulation we should all be aware of.

[exlondoner]

It says on our FCD documentation that they cannot be used against promotional fares (among other things). It may be different in the US of course.

[bluemarble]

Thanks for the heads-up. I wasn't aware FCD's couldn't be used for the many limited-time promotions we get in the US such the "Presidents' Day Sale" currently underway. Here's a quote from the US FAQ about FCD's (which also refers to "promotional fares" as exlondoner has mentioned seeing in the FCD documentation).

 

"Future Cruise Deposits cannot be redeemed against Net Rate, Puncture Rate, Late Saver or any other promotional fare" - I have no idea what a "Puncture Rate" is. In the UK FAQ,  that's replaced by "Flat Rate". But more to the point, it's not clear to me exactly what constitutes a "promotional fare". I suppose Cunard is considering the "Presidents' Day Sale" to be a promotional fare. I would have thought the "Upgrades on US" promotion might also be considered a promotional fare, but apparently not since there is almost always one of those longer-term promotions of one kind or another going on in the US where FCD's can be used.

 

I guess once again, the devil is in the details when it comes to figuring out if these limited-time promotions in the US are a good deal or not in any given situation.

Edited February 21, 2020 by bluemarble

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

Given all this, there will not be any point to ever doing a FCD. My problem with this is that there was absolutely no mention of anything like this when they took our $600 FCD.

 

We won’t make this mistake again, and it changes how I feel about Cunard. As irritating as NCL can be, there was nothing like this in using future cruise credits with them. In fact, we received the OBC for use on the same cruise during which we bought the credit.

[candle in the wind]

3 hours ago, 2Oldpeopleinlove said:

Hi.

we just let a friend who is a TA book our transatlantic for next December under the President’s Day sale. She was told that, if we used the $600 credit we bought in board last a December, we would lose our OBC because the fare was “so low.” This was certainly never discussed as a possibility or term, and it feels scam-ish to me.

 

Has anyone else here experienced this? Is it accurate generally? The result is that, if I had booked exactly the same cabin under the also-offered Three for One sale with its free gratuities, the fare minus OBC would have been identical. If so, then it’s a particularly unsavory kind of manipulation we should all be aware of.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. It is the last day of the President's Day Sale and I was going to go ahead and book a Fall Voyage. I checked with Cunard North America who confirmed that the FCD does lose the onboard credit on promotional offers. I had stated which voyage I was going to book so there was no misunderstanding, this was a promotional voyage. Cunard have had our $600 US, since last Fall. I am no longer going on that NY-Quebec trip and have time to think over a reimbursement.

[MCC retired]

Presidents Day Sale
Fare Code: RGA Notice: ************** IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING THIS BOOKING ****************** THE DEPOSIT OF THE FARE YOU HAVE SELECTED IS 100% NON-REFUNDABLE AND NON-TRANSFERABLE. UPON PAYMENT, NO PORTION OF THE DEPOSIT IS REFUNDABLE FOR ANY REASON. Cunard Care Plan can be purchased with this fare. Payment for Cunard Care must be received with the booking deposit or full payment. *For any questions or further detail, please contact your Travel Agent or* call Cunard at (800)728-6273 THIS PROMOTION IS NOT COMBINABLE WITH CRUISE NIGHT SALES, GROUP AMENITIES, OR ANY OTHER PUBLIC, GROUP OR PAST PASSENGER OFFER. IT DOES "NOT" COMBINE WITH GRILLS ZED PROMO

[bluemarble]

I wonder if this is a new policy where what I'm calling limited-time promotions in the US are now considered "promotional fares" for the purposes of using FCD's. I'm asking because I don't think we've had this issue brought to our attention on this forum before.

 

Goodness knows we've had plenty of similar promotions in the US over the years. During 2019 we had Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, Presidents' Day, St. Patrick's Day, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Black Friday promotions. Most if not all of these promotions had terms and conditions similar to what MCC retired just posted.

 

I would have thought we'd have heard of this issue before now from others who tried to use FCD's on one of those similar promotions last year (or earlier) and were unsuccessful in getting the OBC.

[Canuker]

So the advantage of their FDC is.....?

Edited February 21, 2020 by Canuker

[candle in the wind]

21 minutes ago, Canuker said:

So the advantage of their FDC is.....?

The advantage goes to Cunard as some deposits are left in for longer than a year. Strange time to chose to do this as there is a distrust in cruising following the publicity given to Coronavirus onboard cruise vessels. 

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

52 minutes ago, Canuker said:

So the advantage of their FDC is.....?

Zero, as far as we can tell. We certainly will never be so foolish again. We do have a call in to the woman at Cunard who’s been sending two emails every week to sell a trip, but after four hours, no response. My estimation of Cunard falls hourly.

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

This gets better and better. After waiting hours for a callback, the woman tells us she is “prohibited to talk to us because we are clients of a travel agent.” I am VERY unhappy with Cunard.

[Bigmike911]

42 minutes ago, candle in the wind said:

The advantage goes to Cunard as some deposits are left in for longer than a year. Strange time to chose to do this as there is a distrust in cruising following the publicity given to Coronavirus onboard cruise vessels. 

 

5 hours ago, 2Oldpeopleinlove said:

Given all this, there will not be any point to ever doing a FCD. My problem with this is that there was absolutely no mention of anything like this when they took our $600 FCD.

 

We won’t make this mistake again, and it changes how I feel about Cunard. As irritating as NCL can be, there was nothing like this in using future cruise credits with them. In fact, we received the OBC for use on the same cruise during which we bought the credit.

I must be missing something here. If you got a promotional fare, I would presume you saved at least the amount of your on-board-credit, or it would not make sense to book the fare. To me the principle value of the Future Cruise Credit/Deposit is that it gives you the ability to book a cruise with a very low down payment $300 per, versus 25% of the total fare. On my next two voyages that is a savings of $5000 plus on each voyage. I book early, get the accommodation I want with out having to spend a huge amount of cash up front. If i didn't get any OBC it would still have value to me. 

[Pennbank]

16 minutes ago, 2Oldpeopleinlove said:

This gets better and better. After waiting hours for a callback, the woman tells us she is “prohibited to talk to us because we are clients of a travel agent.” I am VERY unhappy with Cunard.

That is the Norm. If you book via a TA then your TA  deals with your problem. Never known anything different.

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

I’ve always done all my own travel planning before this. So live and learn,I guess, about TA’s and Cunard.

 

Regarding lower deposits, the current promotion requires only $200 for two. Three for all required only a total of $300. I don’t see the advantage of FCD. (We booked with a three for all for our first roundtrip TA sixteen months out.)

Edited February 21, 2020 by 2Oldpeopleinlove
Added response

[candle in the wind]

28 minutes ago, Bigmike911 said:

 

I must be missing something here. If you got a promotional fare, I would presume you saved at least the amount of your on-board-credit, or it would not make sense to book the fare. To me the principle value of the Future Cruise Credit/Deposit is that it gives you the ability to book a cruise with a very low down payment $300 per, versus 25% of the total fare. On my next two voyages that is a savings of $5000 plus on each voyage. I book early, get the accommodation I want with out having to spend a huge amount of cash up front. If i didn't get any OBC it would still have value to me. 

The deposit was non-refundable and $100. How would anyone know what a promotional fare is? There are so many sales as already pointed out, and not all are equal. I am sure I am not alone in buying the FCD for the OBC. 

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

And we found the letter confirming the deposit and use. The ONLY limitation stated is that it cannot be used for bookings made after final payment dates. Why make this so difficult?

[Bigmike911]

1 hour ago, candle in the wind said:

The deposit was non-refundable and $100. How would anyone know what a promotional fare is? There are so many sales as already pointed out, and not all are equal. I am sure I am not alone in buying the FCD for the OBC. 

I would expect a well trained and knowledgeable Travel Agent would know the ins and outs of promotional fares. They work with them all the time. Mine does, and she is very good at having me understand the rules and regs for the booking before I spend the money.  If the promotional fare, was $100 as a non refundable deposit, why would I use a FCD in the first place? 

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

You wouldn’t. Our intent was to at least try to use the prepaid $600 as part of final payment, if that would allow us to also use the OBC. I would have been okay with using it that way even without OBC and then buying another $600 during the voyage for our next one. But now they seem to want to disallow our having any OBC on either voyage.

[57eric]

I am totally confused by this thread.  First, regardless of what the FAQs may say, the actual FCD certificate says no such thing.  Or, at least, they didn't when I bought mine.  "The Future Cruise Deposit is not combinable with Last Minute Deals, Sailing Soon Savings and other fares offered inside final payment."  Period.

 

Second, what ISN'T a promotional fare?

 

Finally, the OP states "Our intent was to at least try to use the prepaid $600 as part of final payment".  Could this be the root of the problem?  I thought they are called Future Cruise Deposits because they have to be used for the deposit.

[bluemarble]

1 hour ago, 57eric said:

I am totally confused by this thread.  First, regardless of what the FAQs may say, the actual FCD certificate says no such thing.  Or, at least, they didn't when I bought mine.  "The Future Cruise Deposit is not combinable with Last Minute Deals, Sailing Soon Savings and other fares offered inside final payment."  Period.

 

Second, what ISN'T a promotional fare?

 

Finally, the OP states "Our intent was to at least try to use the prepaid $600 as part of final payment".  Could this be the root of the problem?  I thought they are called Future Cruise Deposits because they have to be used for the deposit.

 

Based on that specific wording stated on the FCD certificate, I have to say I'm also confused as to why Cunard is claiming the FCD can't be used to get the OBC for the Presidents' Day Sale because the fare is "so low". The OP has stated in an earlier reply that their FCD confirmation letter contains similar wording.

 

The OP has also stated on another thread that Cunard is fine with them paying a deposit via a credit card and then applying FCD's to the remaining balance later, so the FCD deposit amount of $300 per person being greater then the $100 per person deposit amount on the promotion would not appear to be an issue.

Edited February 22, 2020 by bluemarble

[candle in the wind]

1 hour ago, 57eric said:

I am totally confused by this thread.  First, regardless of what the FAQs may say, the actual FCD certificate says no such thing.  Or, at least, they didn't when I bought mine.  "The Future Cruise Deposit is not combinable with Last Minute Deals, Sailing Soon Savings and other fares offered inside final payment."  Period.

 

Second, what ISN'T a promotional fare?

 

Finally, the OP states "Our intent was to at least try to use the prepaid $600 as part of final payment".  Could this be the root of the problem?  I thought they are called Future Cruise Deposits because they have to be used for the deposit.

I emailed the Cunard Representative who has been allocated to me to confirm what the original poster had said and here is the answer verbatim "Yes, the FCD does lose the OBC on promotional offers". 

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

31 minutes ago, candle in the wind said:

I emailed the Cunard Representative who has been allocated to me to confirm what the original poster had said and here is the answer verbatim "Yes, the FCD does lose the OBC on promotional offers". 

Yes, that is what we were told. The problem is that it isn’t what we were told initially, nor is it the rule we have in print on our confirmation of the two $300 prepaid amounts. We made our plans based on the information we were given and still have in the letters. It seems reasonable to expect Cunard to follow their own rules as given to us initially.

 

Our friend is on the phone with them trying to get them to honor the deal we were told would be in effect.
 

edit to add: The result of her (acting as our TA) call is a “good Will gesture” of $25 each OBC. As they are still refusing to honor the original terms, my husband will now get on the phone with them. I’ll add whatever the result is later, but this is an awful lot of work for something that should have been transparent and simple.

Edited February 22, 2020 by 2Oldpeopleinlove
Additional information

[2Oldpeopleinlove]

And the above was the end of the matter. We’re told that the cruise we booked ten months out is classified as last minute. The rep used an internal code we cannot see and that she refused to define to justify the sale as last minute. This is intentionally deceptive.

 

As we were explicitly told the $600 would be reimbursed without question, that is what we are now requesting. There is no reason we can see to allow Cunard to hold our money without any benefit to us.

[frankp01]

19 hours ago, 2Oldpeopleinlove said:

The ONLY limitation stated is that it cannot be used for bookings made after final payment dates.

 

Which is interesting, because our last two trips were booked within the "60-90 days out" window. We received our OBC with the certificates both times. Perhaps our travel agent knew the right strings to pull (or, as has been stated, perhaps this is a new policy). In any case, it does remove the primary incentive for purchasing the certificates.

[Radar boomer]

We have never had an issue with getting OBC with a future cruise certificate ...unless something has changed  since early December. We used our last one for the sale that had free grat, and upgrade from OV to BC. This was a cruise 2 years in advance 

Edited February 22, 2020 by Radar boomer