NCL lost our trust forever

[BirdTravels]

On 4/14/2020 at 12:55 AM, cruiser4801 said:

NCL's 90 day delay to issue refunds is ridiculous.  The payments are all stored electronically and can be refunded swiftly with 10 days at most.  They are doing this for cash flow purposes and that makes us angry.  I for one will never cruise on NCL again if they survive, which I truly doubt they will.  The way NCL has handled the Covid-19 crises and processing of refunds for cruises they had to cancel and did as a result of the pandemic shows what little regard they have for their customers.  

 

I was Platinum level at NCL and am done with them.  Why would anyone ever subject themselves to having NCL hold your money for 3 months after a cruise they canceled.

Goodbye NCL-- you lost our trust..  

Good Bye.

 

90 days for non-routine cancellations has pretty much been the refund cycle for a long time and not unique to COVID-19. As a platinum member, I would have assumed that you knew that. While it is long, it is not unexpected. 

[AL3XCruise]

3 hours ago, CaribbeanJen said:

However, if the cruiseline goes bankrupt I don't know what happens.  Hopefully the insurance will cover us?  

No one knows for sure.  In chapter 11, it is possible that commitments to customers will still be honored as failing to do so would severely impact the company's reputation as it emerged from bankruptcy.  In the past some bankruptcies have protected customers, others have not.  My guess is company leadership, as well as others involved in the bankruptcy who would be getting equity stakes, would try to honor deposits and FCCs.

 

Sadly, Chapter 7 would likely leave customers with nothing.

 

I can't speak to insurance, I would suggest referring to your policy to see what protections you have or asking at CC's insurance board.

7 hours ago, KateQ22003 said:

I am talking about the money that should be in a accrual account for these cruises, I'm not talking about cash on hand.

So my question is what do you mean by "money".  I've never heard anyone refer to a liability as money.

 

Like @buckeyefrank, I'm not trying to argue or be disrespectful, and in fact think we are all agreed that there is a cash crunch.  However, the terminology you are using may detract from the point you are trying to make.  The way I, and evidently others, read your post is that the "money" is sitting in an account.  That suggests the cruise line has cash to cover refunds.

 

I'm also not trying to dig into semantics or technicalities, but as people make decisions with their money I think its important to be as clear as possible when making comments on the financial situation of the company.

[mnventure]

On 4/14/2020 at 9:04 AM, NLH Arizona said:

I knew that and am eligible.  The posters information was incorrect, not all the checks went out this week, they are being sent out in batches based on income of the person receiving the check, so I'll have to wait some weeks.

All of the direct deposits are going out now, and not in order of income. When they start issuing paper check, they will process the lower income ones first. 

[julig22]

On 4/14/2020 at 4:46 PM, njhorseman said:

It's not even a remotely similar process. There's no choice involved. You just get your stimulus rebate ...it's not as if the IRS has to be told whether you want the money or a future credit and then manually input that decision into their system. Everyone gets the money . Writing a program to do it should have been relatively simply.

And according to the fb posts in my area, quite a few of the stimulus payments aren't landing where they belong.  Hope they get it worked out - it might have been prudent to verify accounts before just assuming....

[pokerpro5]

On 4/14/2020 at 8:13 AM, njhorseman said:

Only a madman or an incompetent would set this up to make to make refunds the default option. If you had any knowledge about the cruise lines' balance sheets you would know that doing it that way would put the cruise lines out of business in the blink of an eye. They don't have the cash on hand to do it. Further, from another side of their business perspective they want people booked and ready to cruise when the go ahead is given to resume. Otherwise they'll be sailing with near empty ships for months...another sure road to bankruptcy.

 

On another Cruise Critic board I saw an article from a major business publication that cited a survey by a major bank showing 76% of passengers who were offered the choice of an FCC or cash refund chose the refund. Making FCC the default option is a valid and smart business decision by the cruise lines.

 

It's the smart decision for the cruise line (since they can't cover the refunds), but not a valid or ethical one!

Edited April 16, 2020 by pokerpro5

[pokerpro5]

On 4/14/2020 at 12:37 PM, julig22 said:

No, they wouldn't.  The rules are different for services not received.  You were told you would get a refund in 90 days.  If you do not, the time-line would start at that point because the dispute is that you didn't get the promised refund.  More than one person who contacted their bank has already been told to wait the 90 days.

 

 

The bank can't "tell you to wait the 90 days".  They can advise it, but they can't force you to.

 

You have the right to dispute any charge.  While there is a chance of losing, it's a freeroll where there is no downside to such a dispute.

 

The only possible downside at all is the merchant (in this case NCL) refusing to do business with you again, but there's ZERO chance NCL will do this to anyone given the circumstances.  They would only ban someone who attempted to dispute a charge for services actually rendered, or for violating a pre-agreed-upon refund policy.

[pokerpro5]

I am a former systems programmer.

 

I can tell you that the refunds could all be completed in days, rather than weeks or months, if NCL wanted them to be.  It is extremely trivial to modify the system to do this (if the capability isn't already there, which it likely is!)

 

As has already been stated by others here, this is all done electronically, and does not require any form of paperwork.  I would be shocked the the system didn't already have the capability to do full ship refunds, such as in the case when a cruise is canceled due to weather or other issues.  If that's the case (which is very likely is), it would only be a matter of enabling full ship refunds for every ship which is cancelled, which honestly isn't that many.

 

Even modifying the system to account for the choice of FCC and refunds would not be particularly difficult or burdensome, and in fact a separate program could be written to access the billing/booking databases and automatically issue refunds for those who choose.

 

It seems obvious that NCL simply doesn't have the cash-on-hand to refund everyone, and that they also have far higher expenses than income at the moment (meaning that more money is not coming in).

 

The 90 day thing is a stall tactic, and is also a way to browbeat people into taking the FCC they may not otherwise want.

 

I've seen this occur before in a different industry.  As you can see from my screen name, I am a professional poker player.  Many online poker sites engage in similar tactics -- keeping only a fraction of deposited money on hand, assuming that it will never occur that everyone wants to cash out at once.  When they spend too much of the deposited money (which they shouldn't be spending in the first place), they start to have trouble processing the cashouts which come in, which then leads to bad word-of-mouth, which then causes more people to cash out, and all of a sudden there's a big problem.  At that point, we start hearing the same nonsense stories that we need to "wait 3 months for processing", as they scramble to come up with the money.  In most cases, they don't, and they simply disappear.

 

Be very wary of struggling businesses giving you cheery-sounding "check is in the mail" or "we're too busy, but we will get to your refund soon", stories.  It's usually much more of a dire situation than they're letting on.

 

If we trust NCL here, then we haven't learned a thing.

Edited April 16, 2020 by pokerpro5

[njhorseman]

6 hours ago, julig22 said:

And according to the fb posts in my area, quite a few of the stimulus payments aren't landing where they belong.  Hope they get it worked out - it might have been prudent to verify accounts before just assuming....

I don't know what you mean by "aren't landing where they belong" and the last place I would be looking for accurate information about anything is Facebook...not that I totally discount the possibility of some screw ups in the roll out.

Edited April 16, 2020 by njhorseman

[njhorseman]

1 hour ago, pokerpro5 said:

 

It's the smart decision for the cruise line (since they can't cover the refunds), but not a valid or ethical one!

In the long run knowingly putting themselves into bankruptcy is not going to benefit anyone. It wasn't just a smart decision, it was the only decision they could make.

Edited April 16, 2020 by njhorseman

[pokerpro5]

1 minute ago, njhorseman said:

In the long run knowingly putting themselves into bankruptcy is not going to benefit anyone. It was the only decision they could make.

 

Incorrect.  They could sell off assets to raise cash, or do one of many other things to raise money.  Even a bankruptcy is an option, if it's Chapter 11.  Corporations do that all the time and come out okay on the other end.

 

The customer does not need to concern himself with these details.  The customer paid for a cruise, the cruise was not delivered, and the ethical thing to do is to provide a timely refund.  If NCL overextended themselves and cannot provide this, it is their fault.

 

I never liked the line of reasoning, "Forcefully borrowing/withholding your money is the only way we could stay in business, so we had to do it."

 

No, you didn't.  You got yourself into this mess, and you're using our money to try to get yourself out.

 

The money is no longer NCL's once they cancel the cruise.  They need to refund it immediately.  Any other action is unethical.

[njhorseman]

5 minutes ago, pokerpro5 said:

 

Incorrect.  They could sell off assets to raise cash, or do one of many other things to raise money.  Even a bankruptcy is an option, if it's Chapter 11.  Corporations do that all the time and come out okay on the other end.

 

The customer does not need to concern himself with these details.  The customer paid for a cruise, the cruise was not delivered, and the ethical thing to do is to provide a timely refund.  If NCL overextended themselves and cannot provide this, it is their fault.

 

I never liked the line of reasoning, "Forcefully borrowing/withholding your money is the only way we could stay in business, so we had to do it."

 

No, you didn't.  You got yourself into this mess, and you're using our money to try to get yourself out.

 

The money is no longer NCL's once they cancel the cruise.  They need to refund it immediately.  Any other action is unethical.

Sell off what assets? Their only assets are cruise ships that if sold in today's environment would bring next to nothing. They've already borrowed money in order to bolster their cash on hand.

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by njhorseman

[pokerpro5]

9 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

Sell off what assets? Their only assets are cruise ships that if sold in today's environment would bring next to nothing.

 

 

The cruise ships would bring in plenty of money.  These are real, functional ships, and presumably the cruise industry will rebound at some point.

 

Even if you want to claim that the cruise ships couldn't sell right now except at bargain prices, that's what Chapter 11 is for.  They could reorganize to raise the capital to give the refunds.  They don't want to.  It's easier to hold on to the suckers' money.

 

No matter what their situation, it is never ethical to hold onto customers' money when you have cancelled the service you sold them.  You cannot make a case where this is "better for everyone".  It is up to the customers to decide what they want done with their money.  NCL cannot appropriate it for their own bailout fund or short-term loan.

 

If they were really interested in acting ethically, but needed to hold onto some of the cash, they would make truly good future offers to existing customers who allow their money to not be refunded.  Instead of a laughable 125-150% FCC with an expiration date, and a slate of future cruise prices which wouldn't be competitive even in a normal market, they could give people non-expiring FCCs for 200% or more, or something like that.

 

Here they're trying to have their cake and eat it too, off the backs of ignorant consumers.  "Hey, we're not going to refund you.  We're going to keep your money and give you a lousy FCC at a small premium WITH an expiration date.... and we've MARKED UP our future cruises way above expected future prices, so you won't actually get a good deal.   But hey, here's 20% off those big time marked up prices just in case you want to book now!  Oh... and if you don't respond, we're making the decision for you!  LOL!!"

 

This is not the behavior of an ethical company.

 

An ethical company would be trading some loss of profits later for some much-needed short term cash right now.  The fact that these FCCs have expiration dates just shows the level of care NCL really has for its customer base.  They're actually hoping that some of this expires and never gets used.  Dreadful.

Edited April 16, 2020 by pokerpro5

[njhorseman]

9 minutes ago, pokerpro5 said:

 

The cruise ships would bring in plenty of money.  These are real, functional ships, and presumably the cruise industry will rebound at some point.

 

Even if you want to claim that the cruise ships couldn't sell right now except at bargain prices, that's what Chapter 11 is for.  They could reorganize to raise the capital to give the refunds.  They don't want to.  It's easier to hold on to the suckers' money.

 

No matter what their situation, it is never ethical to hold onto customers' money when you have cancelled the service you sold them.  You cannot make a case where this is "better for everyone".  It is up to the customers to decide what they want done with their money.  NCL cannot appropriate it for their own bailout fund or short-term loan.

 

If they were really interested in acting ethically, but needed to hold onto some of the cash, they would make truly good future offers to existing customers who allow their money to not be refunded.  Instead of a laughable 125-150% FCC with an expiration date, and a slate of future cruise prices which wouldn't be competitive even in a normal market, they could give people non-expiring FCCs for 200% or more, or something like that.

 

Here they're trying to have their cake and eat it too, off the backs of ignorant consumers.  "Hey, we're not going to refund you.  We're going to keep your money and give you a lousy FCC at a small premium WITH an expiration date.... and we've MARKED UP our future cruises way above expected future prices, so you won't actually get a good deal.   But hey, here's 20% off those big time marked up prices just in case you want to book now!  Oh... and if you don't respond, we're making the decision for you!  LOL!!"

 

This is not the behavior of an ethical company.

 

An ethical company would be trading some loss of profits later for some much-needed short term cash right now.  The fact that these FCCs have expiration dates just shows the level of care NCL really has for its customer base.  They're actually hoping that some of this expires and never gets used.  Dreadful.

The cruise lines have never said that they're not going to refund your money if that's what you want,  they've only said that it will take longer than normal to do it, and these are not normal times. And NCL is not alone in doing this, all the major cruise lines have done the same.

It's really easy for you to sit at your computer and say they can do this or that but all it does is expose your lack of business management experience. I hope you don't have that blatant a tell when you play poker because if you do you're in big trouble.

[pokerpro5]

5 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

The cruise lines have never said that they're not going to refund your money if that's what you want,  they've only said that it will take longer than normal to do it, and these are not normal times. And NCL is not alone in doing this, all the major cruise lines have done the same.

It's really easy for you to sit at your computer and say they can do this or that but all it does is expose your lack of business management experience. I hope you don't have that blatant a tell when you play poker because if you do you're in big trouble.

 

It's not up to NCL to hold my money for a short term loan.  It's MY money, and them holding it for 90 days is unethical, regardless of the reason.

 

The fact that you can't see that is mind-boggling.

 

Let's see if I can make it simpler for you.

 

What if NCL said you'll get the refund, but it will be in 5 years.  Would that be acceptable?  After all, they're still refunding, right?

 

What about 2 years?  What about 1 year?  At what point does it go from unacceptable to acceptable in your mind?

 

When a company cannot deliver a service they sold to you, they are legally required to return your money.  They cannot hold onto it because they need the cash to stay afloat.  That's not how this works.  The only delay should be a reasonable processing time, which 90 days clearly is not.

 

In addition to playing poker, I also co-own two businesses.  Never once have I decided to co-opt other people's money as my own short term loan for 3 months.  Even if I could get away with it, I would never do it, because that's unethical.

 

NCL knows it is in danger of failing, so they are doing all they can to appropriate customer money for a free short term loan.  That's what is happening here.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is very naive.

[hallux]

Is it unethical?  Maybe.  But it needs to be stated again - the company can't refund money that it doesn't have!  I'm sure they're working to secure loans or funding but that takes time, especially when banks are busy processing the SBA loans.

[Waquoit]

On 4/14/2020 at 4:51 PM, julig22 said:

They have to accept your dispute and follow through.  Just repeating what was posted on another discussion.  Doesn't mean that they won't close the dispute after contacting NCL.

 

Just received my refund in full from Amex. You owe it to the rest of the board here to stop spreading misinformation.

[buckeyefrank]

3 hours ago, pokerpro5 said:

I am a former systems programmer.

 

I can tell you that the refunds could all be completed in days, rather than weeks or months, if NCL wanted them to be.  It is extremely trivial to modify the system to do this (if the capability isn't already there, which it likely is!)

 

As has already been stated by others here, this is all done electronically, and does not require any form of paperwork.  I would be shocked the the system didn't already have the capability to do full ship refunds, such as in the case when a cruise is canceled due to weather or other issues.  If that's the case (which is very likely is), it would only be a matter of enabling full ship refunds for every ship which is cancelled, which honestly isn't that many.

 

Even modifying the system to account for the choice of FCC and refunds would not be particularly difficult or burdensome, and in fact a separate program could be written to access the billing/booking databases and automatically issue refunds for those who choose.

 

It seems obvious that NCL simply doesn't have the cash-on-hand to refund everyone, and that they also have far higher expenses than income at the moment (meaning that more money is not coming in).

 

The 90 day thing is a stall tactic, and is also a way to browbeat people into taking the FCC they may not otherwise want.

 

I've seen this occur before in a different industry.  As you can see from my screen name, I am a professional poker player.  Many online poker sites engage in similar tactics -- keeping only a fraction of deposited money on hand, assuming that it will never occur that everyone wants to cash out at once.  When they spend too much of the deposited money (which they shouldn't be spending in the first place), they start to have trouble processing the cashouts which come in, which then leads to bad word-of-mouth, which then causes more people to cash out, and all of a sudden there's a big problem.  At that point, we start hearing the same nonsense stories that we need to "wait 3 months for processing", as they scramble to come up with the money.  In most cases, they don't, and they simply disappear.

 

Be very wary of struggling businesses giving you cheery-sounding "check is in the mail" or "we're too busy, but we will get to your refund soon", stories.  It's usually much more of a dire situation than they're letting on.

 

If we trust NCL here, then we haven't learned a thing.

A couple things....    There ABSOLUTELY is paperwork to complete.  Whether that paperwork is electronic or physical paper doesn't matter.  There will be a lot of human intervention and any programming changes would need extensive testing before management would approve the use to make sure things like an $8m payment doesn't go out instead of a $1200 payment.  Paperwork is absolutely required and is going to be scrutinized intensely by their financial auditors.

 

You talk about the poker industry, but it is every industry and almost every business that doesn't have enough cash on hand to deal with something like this.  Do you realize that Banks in the US only have about 5% of the cash on hand that was deposited by customers?  When people lose confidence in the banks and they go withdraw their cash en mass, the banks are screwed.... actually this is what happened in the savings and loan crisis in the 80s and in 2008 in the financial meltdown.

 

 

[pokerpro5]

When I said "no paperwork to compete", I didn't mean that absolutely zero papers would change hands.

 

This would not need "extensive testing" because there's no way $8 million could go out instead of $1200 if it's simply refund back what was paid.  Also, sanity checks could be put into the programming to not allow more than $X per ship or $Y per person to be refunded (something which wouldn't be exceeded in normal refunding).

 

I'm not saying this could be done in one day.  I'm saying it would be weeks at most, not months.

 

Are you trying to claim that NCL simply can't handle doing the refunds in less than 90 days, while every other travel industry can?  Come on, you can't be that gullible.

 

I don't understand the rest of the point you're making.  Yes, other industries also don't have enough cash on hand to do mass refunds or cashouts at times.  Banks are a different story because those are FDIC insured, and people are made aware that money over the insurance amount could be lost.

 

Regardless, it is unethical for NCL to keep customer money to give themselves a short-term loan.  It is not their money to keep.  It needs to be refunded, and if they can't, then the ethical thing to do would be to give customers something OF VALUE for down the road, so they agree not to.  Here they are giving something worth very little -- 125-150% FCC with an expiration date, and are marking up prices on future cruises to further screw these people nice enough not to take refunds.  They're also trying to keep the money by requiring people to request the refund by a certain date a few weeks away, and then keeping the money for anyone who doesn't respond.

 

Again, highly highly unethical.

Edited April 16, 2020 by pokerpro5

[buckeyefrank]

8 minutes ago, pokerpro5 said:

When I said "no paperwork to compete", I didn't mean that absolutely zero papers would change hands.

 

This would not need "extensive testing" because there's no way $8 million could go out instead of $1200 if it's simply refund back what was paid.  Also, sanity checks could be put into the programming to not allow more than $X per ship or $Y per person to be refunded (something which wouldn't be exceeded in normal refunding).

 

I'm not saying this could be done in one day.  I'm saying it would be weeks at most, not months.

 

Are you trying to claim that NCL simply can't handle doing the refunds in less than 90 days, while every other travel industry can?  Come on, you can't be that gullible.

 

I don't understand the rest of the point you're making.  Yes, other industries also don't have enough cash on hand to do refunds.  Banks are a different story because those are FDIC insured, and people are made aware that money over the insurance amount could be lost.

 

Regardless, it is unethical for NCL to keep customer money to give themselves a short-term loan.  It is not their money to keep.  It needs to be refunded, and if they can't, then the ethical thing to do would be to give customers something OF VALUE for down the road, so they agree not to.  Here they are giving something worth very little -- 125-150% FCC with an expiration date, and are marking up prices on future cruises to further screw these people nice enough not to take refunds.  They're also trying to keep the money by requiring people to request the refund by a certain date a few weeks away, and then keeping the money for anyone who doesn't respond.

 

Again, highly highly unethical.

The $8 million in place of $1200 actually happened yesterday with the IRS payouts.  If it can happen with the IRS, something similar can happen with NCL.

 

My point with the banks is that even they do not have unlimited cash to payout.  If a customer comes in asking for a refund (withdrawal) and the bank is out of cash, they won't get it until the bank figures out how to get additional cash.  They could solicit other depositors, secure a loan against future income or apply for insurance proceeds.  Very similar to the options that NCL has.   

 

I am not saying that it should take 90 days normally to process a refund.  My point is simply that it's not EASY process for them to handle the huge amount of requests with limited staff.  Not to mention, they have to be prioritizing who to give refunds to with the limited cash they have, while the management tries to figure out how to secure additional cash to process the refunds.

 

I am going to be in the same boat when they cancel my June 5th cruise to Bermuda.  I am expecting that to happen any day now.  Again, I"m not being argumentative or disrespectful at all.  Just trying to point out that there is a lot more than right now to processing refunds than what generally would need to take place.

[pokerpro5]

19 minutes ago, buckeyefrank said:

The $8 million in place of $1200 actually happened yesterday with the IRS payouts.  If it can happen with the IRS, something similar can happen with NCL.

 

My point with the banks is that even they do not have unlimited cash to payout.  If a customer comes in asking for a refund (withdrawal) and the bank is out of cash, they won't get it until the bank figures out how to get additional cash.  They could solicit other depositors, secure a loan against future income or apply for insurance proceeds.  Very similar to the options that NCL has.   

 

I am not saying that it should take 90 days normally to process a refund.  My point is simply that it's not EASY process for them to handle the huge amount of requests with limited staff.  Not to mention, they have to be prioritizing who to give refunds to with the limited cash they have, while the management tries to figure out how to secure additional cash to process the refunds.

 

I am going to be in the same boat when they cancel my June 5th cruise to Bermuda.  I am expecting that to happen any day now.  Again, I"m not being argumentative or disrespectful at all.  Just trying to point out that there is a lot more than right now to processing refunds than what generally would need to take place.

 

These are needless details which are pointless to debate, because there's no way for either of us to prove anything, without visibility into NCL's process.

 

Since we agree that the 90 day window is excessive, that's all that matters.  It is unethical for them to hold onto the money.  And again, if they simply can't refund the money, they should be giving huge incentives to those who agree not to take the refunds.

 

Instead, they are pulling dirty tricks to default the refunds into FCCs if people don't respond quickly enough, and they're marking cruise prices way up, so as to eat away the extra value people think they're getting with the 125-150% credits.  Oh, and the FCCs have an expiration date, which is absolutely horrendous.  They should be kissing people's feet for taking an FCC at this point, not trying to slap expiration dates on them.

 

Just absolutely entitled, dreadful handling of the loyal customer base.  And yes, I do realize it's industry-wide.  Still doesn't make it right.

[buckeyefrank]

21 minutes ago, pokerpro5 said:

 

These are needless details which are pointless to debate, because there's no way for either of us to prove anything, without visibility into NCL's process.

 

Since we agree that the 90 day window is excessive, that's all that matters.  It is unethical for them to hold onto the money.  And again, if they simply can't refund the money, they should be giving huge incentives to those who agree not to take the refunds.

 

Instead, they are pulling dirty tricks to default the refunds into FCCs if people don't respond quickly enough, and they're marking cruise prices way up, so as to eat away the extra value people think they're getting with the 125-150% credits.  Oh, and the FCCs have an expiration date, which is absolutely horrendous.  They should be kissing people's feet for taking an FCC at this point, not trying to slap expiration dates on them.

 

Just absolutely entitled, dreadful handling of the loyal customer base.  And yes, I do realize it's industry-wide.  Still doesn't make it right.

Well then let's agree to disagree.  I never specifically said the 90 day window is excessive.  It is in normal circumstances but there are mitigating issues that might take that long, specifically having limited cash to give out.  I do not call it being unethical for a business to not do something they cannot do.  I'm very sensitive to naming things when the facts are not known.

[Newleno]

3 hours ago, njhorseman said:

I don't know what you mean by "aren't landing where they belong" and the last place I would be looking for accurate information about anything is Facebook...not that I totally discount the possibility of some screw ups in the roll out.

Yeah I would go to cruise critic first with out a doubt

[KateQ22003]

2 hours ago, buckeyefrank said:

Well then let's agree to disagree.  I never specifically said the 90 day window is excessive.  It is in normal circumstances but there are mitigating issues that might take that long, specifically having limited cash to give out.  I do not call it being unethical for a business to not do something they cannot do.  I'm very sensitive to naming things when the facts are not known.

So you don't find it unethical for the cruise lines to have spent our money they haven't actually earned yet? I find that completely unethical.

[buckeyefrank]

11 minutes ago, KateQ22003 said:

So you don't find it unethical for the cruise lines to have spent our money they haven't actually earned yet? I find that completely unethical.

Uhm.... no.  That's business.  How else are they going to pay for the ship, payroll, port fees, food, fuel?  They need those things to offer the cruise.  They don't have a fiduciary duty in a legal sense with the cash given.  It's not like a security deposit on a rental, which does carry fiduciary responsibility.

[Waquoit]

48 minutes ago, buckeyefrank said:

Uhm.... no.  That's business.  How else are they going to pay for the ship, payroll, port fees, food, fuel? 

Not our problem. That's what banks are for.