CRUISE REFUND RECEIVED

[jeanlyon]

19 minutes ago, peteukmcr said:

Bit difficult to take your own formal portrait with special backdrops which is what we use the free photos for.

Err, sorry Pete, but wouldn't know what to do with it.  Never had any interest in photo portraits.  What for?

[EM35]

P&O have just put out an announcement addressing refunds. 

Edited May 13, 2020 by EM35
typing error

[grapau27]

25 minutes ago, peteukmcr said:

Bit difficult to take your own formal portrait with special backdrops which is what we use the free photos for.

Us too.

Free photo each.

[PandNo Refund]

So refunding capacity is now increasing, we should all receive email communications regarding refunds, and their people are telling folk when calling that refunds will be sorted within 2 weeks (all of them)

Actions > words.

We’ll see.

[jeanlyon]

7 minutes ago, EM35 said:

P&O have just put out an announcement addressing refunds. 

Where is the announcement?

[EM35]

Also changes to FCC, which now they have extended, I personally would have taken. Waiting on refunds for 2 cruises one of which hits the 60 day 'deadline' tomorrow so we will wait and see. 

[grapau27]

56 minutes ago, Gettingwarmer said:

I dislike the long street aspect of RC ships. They are always so crowded and noisy. 

The long street or Royal Promenade is only on the bigger Voyager class and above.

Central Park is an additional concept on the largest Oasis class ships only.

We are booked on Iona next year so will be interesting to see.

Nice to hear P&O are starting to move on Refunds.

I'm hoping ours turn up in the next 2 days, Currently day 61

 

Edited May 13, 2020 by grapau27

[EM35]

T social media has a link to the FB page. 

[PandNo Refund]

Obviously the customer attack on their websites, social media and call centre seems to have gotten through to them.

[PandNo Refund]

Where is the announcement?

**IMPORTANT UPDATE REGARDING REFUNDS**

From P&O Cruises president, Paul Ludlow

I wanted to take this opportunity to address the issue of refunds as I am very aware of how imperative it is that those of you who opted for a refund, instead of an enhanced Future Cruise Credit, receive your money back as swiftly as possible.

The first thing for me to stress is that the refund process is underway. We are proud to be a travel company which is able to offer refunds but the impact of Covid-19 upon our business, your businesses, and all of our lives has been devastating, and therefore the complexity and scale of this task has been unprecedented for us.

At P&O Cruises, we have had to adapt our ways of working very quickly as we set up new systems and all our colleagues began working from home.

I understand that some of you see us as a big business “holding on to your money” as some of our guests have been commenting publicly, but I assure you I am very aware of the financial constraints everyone is under at the moment and we are not delaying this intentionally.

The first cruises were cancelled due to Covid-19 in the middle of March and whilst we expected to process the first refunds sooner, we revised that to ‘up to 60 days’ when we realised the impact the pandemic was having on our wider business and teams.

I know that “up to 60 days” is not ideal and it is certainly not the service you would normally expect from us but sadly “normal” has taken on a new meaning. In the past few weeks, despite the challenges, we have been able to put new technology and systems and also additional resource in place which will result in more refunds being processed more quickly and I hope this will improve the situation daily. We will also be contacting all of you who have requested a refund.

For those of you who opted for an enhanced 125% Future Cruise Credit I want to highlight that we are amending our systems so that the FCCs will soon be able to be redeemed online without the need to call us. More details on that coming at the end of the month.

To give you maximum flexibility, I’m also pleased to announce that you now have until the end of December 2021 to put your FCC against a booking for any holiday on sale during that period, which should help with your planning if you already have future holidays booked with us.

Also do remember that FCCs may now be used to upgrade or for a second cabin for any booking in 2021 or 2022 (holiday departure period currently on sale) and also may be gifted or transferred to someone else. This option too will apply to further out departures as and when they go on sale, until as stated above, the end of December 2021.

I never underestimate the feeling and affection that many of you have for our ships and for our business as a whole. It is a huge privilege to have so many very loyal guests who holiday with us time and time again.

Thank you so much for your understanding and forbearance as we work our way through these difficult circumstances, it really is very much appreciated. I’d also like to thank once again the many of you who have sent messages of support, whether it be to myself, or to the thousands of our team members, ship and shore, during these difficult times. We look forward to sailing again soon and welcoming you back on board.

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, AndyMichelle said:

Its good to see and hear of other people's experiences. 

I suppose the only reasons we have not tried RCCL is Indy just looks like a complete monster and the theme park element does not appeal. 

Plus the cost of course, but I do understand you get what you pay for. 

Andy 

Andy,

Monster or not  we find that the Voyager and Freedom class ships flow far better than any of the P&O ships we have been on, which is all except Oceana. Whilst many still do get lost on them, we found their design was so superior that we find it hard to understand  how Princess ever designed their ridiculous Grand class.

Prices now are far higher than P&O, but when we booked our only 2 cruises with Royal Caribbean they were comparable, as were all our Celebrity cruises we did up to 2016. 

Finally Celebrities Soltice class is a similar design platform to the above Royal ships, and if you ever see a competitive cruise offer for any of these ships, you ought to give it a try to see just what you're missing.

[jeanlyon]

Sigh, so what about all of us who are already over 60 days?  It is wishy washy, but never mind, sounds like it has hit the spot.

 

Thanks for the info.  Now seen on FB, strange it's not on the P&O website.

Edited May 13, 2020 by jeanlyon

[majortom10]

In general Paul Ludlow's announcement on FB seems to have gone down well.

[grapau27]

5 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Sigh, so what about all of us who are already over 60 days?  It is wishy washy, but never mind, sounds like it has hit the spot.

Jean.

We only started to get somewhere when we decided to ring P&O directly and pressed 1 booked direct instead of 2 and asked to be escalated as at the time we were in the 55+ days wait.

I gave my bank current account (Debit card)number for Bacs.

[jeanlyon]

I wasn't allowed to do that today, but she did say she would escalate it to the Team.  Here's hoping.

[grapau27]

7 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

I wasn't allowed to do that today, but she did say she would escalate it to the Team.  Here's hoping.

Once escalated on Friday we got an email on Monday from the team leader asking for bank details.

Good luck.

[PRINCESSTHE BEST]

5 hours ago, Adawn47 said:

My SIL, also an accountant says the same.

Avril 

My wife says the same and she’s not even an accountant!

[jeanlyon]

7 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Once escalated on Friday we got an email on Monday from the team leader asking for bank details.

Good luck.

and now that I have escalated it, Helen Lamb replies to me.  But she didn't say anything different from the usual waffle, so will wait for the team to contact me.

[No pager thank you]

51 minutes ago, PandNo Refund said:

Obviously the customer attack on their websites, social media and call centre seems to have gotten through to them.

 

Whether or not Paul Ludlow either wrote, approved, or indeed saw that FB post, who knows.  It was probably the quiz master in their marketing function realising the error of their ways.

 

I agree, P&O are not used to so roundly being held to account for their shoddy customer service from such a high proportion of their loyal customer base.

 

This does make it more difficult for them to change the rules again.  When they fail 60 days anyone can screenshot that now.

 

It may be that behind the scenes they have finally had confirmation that the Government is not about to fall in line and cancel the right to a refund. We'll see.

[No pager thank you]

55 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Sigh, so what about all of us who are already over 60 days?  It is wishy washy, but never mind, sounds like it has hit the spot.

 

Thanks for the info.  Now seen on FB, strange it's not on the P&O website.

Smart move by P&O to keep it off the website - just in case any new customer thinking of brightening up their day/looking forward to Summer just books of the TV or the website without doing their research.

[jh1809]

7 hours ago, PandNo Refund said:

I wonder if Iona is paid for yet.... they might not be able to afford it any longer

I do wonder if an aftermath of this will be that P&O will look to sell one or more of their ships to balance the books - always assuming they can find anyone to buy them in the post-Covid-19 world of course.

[Eglesbrech]

49 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

In general Paul Ludlow's announcement on FB seems to have gone down well.

Really. Read below the sycophantic posts they have boosted by replying to them. I think you will find it has not been well received at all, particularly by those who are already over the 60 days.

[No pager thank you]

Just now, Eglesbrech said:

Really. Read below the sycophantic posts they have boosted by replying to them. I think you will find it has not been well received at all, particularly by those who are already over the 60 days.

Glad you spotted that too - so obvious. 

 

It's quite amusing the couple of occasions when Carnival employees have been picked out as being the authors of the friendly posts by the FB crowd.

 

I can't understand why P&O does not instead just block the posters it doesn't like?

[No pager thank you]

4 minutes ago, jh1809 said:

I do wonder if an aftermath of this will be that P&O will look to sell one or more of their ships to balance the books - always assuming they can find anyone to buy them in the post-Covid-19 world of course.

Good point.  More likely that the sister ship for Iona won't be in the 2022 catalogue in the first instance I would say.

 

 

[No pager thank you]

1 hour ago, PandNo Refund said:

Rylans latest statement:

 

That made me laugh, didn't realize that someone else had picked up the resemblance.

 

Perhaps if the current refund announcement doesn't work out then there is a future for him on Supermarket Sweep too.