Gift Card Refunds (3/13 - Present)

[ypcat]

39 minutes ago, KatyDawn said:

We also paid for a large portion of our July 2020 cruise with gift cards.  We opted for the FCC with $600 per room OBC.  We want to rebook for July 2021, but my husband won't rebook until we get the gift cards back from Carnival.  Our trip was just cancelled last week, so I was wondering how long we'll be waiting.  Sounds like it could be quite a long time.  It's comforting to know that we aren't the only ones in this position.  I have an impatient hubby who keeps insisting that I call Carnival, and I keep trying to remind him that we don't really have a question or a problem and that calling isn't going to do us any good.  I'll be glad to share what y'all have said.  Thank you! 

If you are going to take the FCC, you won't be getting any gift cards back. If the new cruise is cheaper than the original, they can transfer up to $500 in OBC. If it is more than that, then you would get the balance back in gift card.

[KatyDawn]

5 minutes ago, ypcat said:

If you are going to take the FCC, you won't be getting any gift cards back. If the new cruise is cheaper than the original, they can transfer up to $500 in OBC. If it is more than that, then you would get the balance back in gift card.

The new cruise that we're looking at costs more than the previous cruise. Should we go ahead ad book the July 2021 cruise now?  My husband doesn't want to do that because he says "we will have too much money tied up with Carnival" but I'm itching to get it booked before the rooms we want get booked.  I'd love to hear some opinions from more experiences cruisers.  This will only be our third cruise.  

[ypcat]

1 minute ago, KatyDawn said:

The new cruise that we're looking at costs more than the previous cruise. Should we go ahead ad book the July 2021 cruise now?  My husband doesn't want to do that because he says "we will have too much money tied up with Carnival" but I'm itching to get it booked before the rooms we want get booked.  I'd love to hear some opinions from more experiences cruisers.  This will only be our third cruise.  

I would go ahead and book if you are definitely going with the FCC/OBC option. As long as you have enough FCC to cover the deposit, you aren't going to have any more money tied up than you do now. We rolled over our 2 times cancelled cruise to add a B2B to our March 2021 cruise. But Carnival isn't getting another cent until they start operations again.

[KatyDawn]

4 minutes ago, ypcat said:

I would go ahead and book if you are definitely going with the FCC/OBC option. As long as you have enough FCC to cover the deposit, you aren't going to have any more money tied up than you do now. We rolled over our 2 times cancelled cruise to add a B2B to our March 2021 cruise. But Carnival isn't getting another cent until they start operations again.

Thanks for the tip!  I wasn't sure whether the FCC would cover the deposit or not.  We filled out the form Carnival sent last week but haven't gotten any correspondence since then, so we didn't have any idea how that worked.  We have done mock bookings but haven't gone as far as the point where we'd have to put down a deposit.  We're obviously apprehensive about spending any more money right now, especially on a vacation that is more than a year in the future.  

My husband was under the impression that we could not apply the FCC to the next cruise until the refund was granted, and he was not super enthused about waiting at least 9- days to rebook.

I appreciate your expertise so much.  Thank you!

[bstel]

On 5/3/2020 at 3:10 AM, Treyatl2006 said:

It makes no sense to get a refund if you paid by giftcards. You might as well get the fcc with the $600 obc. 

correct.  but most cases people dont pay the full amount with gift cards.  so for me i paid my cancelled cruise with $300 in gift cards and rest on my Amex.  So i still opted for the full refund, because i want my Amex payment back which is much higher than the gift card.  

[ypcat]

12 minutes ago, KatyDawn said:

Thanks for the tip!  I wasn't sure whether the FCC would cover the deposit or not.  We filled out the form Carnival sent last week but haven't gotten any correspondence since then, so we didn't have any idea how that worked.  We have done mock bookings but haven't gone as far as the point where we'd have to put down a deposit.  We're obviously apprehensive about spending any more money right now, especially on a vacation that is more than a year in the future.  

My husband was under the impression that we could not apply the FCC to the next cruise until the refund was granted, and he was not super enthused about waiting at least 9- days to rebook.

I appreciate your expertise so much.  Thank you!

If you read the fine print, it is not supposed to, but my PVP was able to do it, as have others. You won't be able to apply the FCC without calling Carnival anyway, so I would recommend calling the PVP line and getting one if you don't have one already. I would recommend mine, but board rules prohibit posting PVPs.

[KatyDawn]

I don't have a PVP yet, but I'm planning on getting one this time.  We want connecting rooms on the next vacation since we're planning on surprising my mom with a balcony (rather than the oceanview she's paying for).  I truly appreciate all the advice.  Looks like lots of time on hold is in my future.  

[bury me at sea]

1 hour ago, KatyDawn said:

I don't have a PVP yet, but I'm planning on getting one this time.  We want connecting rooms on the next vacation since we're planning on surprising my mom with a balcony (rather than the oceanview she's paying for).  I truly appreciate all the advice.  Looks like lots of time on hold is in my future.  

 

Once you are assigned a PVP you will find it much easier to get things done.  I phone mine and leave a voice mail.  If it's on a business day I get a return call the same day.  If it's a weekend I e-mail and get a call sometimes on the weekend and never later than the next business day.

[SNJCruisers]

4 hours ago, 13cheermom said:

Well my logic is the FCC has an expiration date and the gift cards do not.  Easy decision for me!

The FCC expiration date is 31 months from now and all you need to do is sail once and you get another 600 in OBC.  I don't have a horse in this race, but I do use gift cards to save 10%.  It would be an easy decision for me to take the FCC because all you need to do is cruise once in the next 31 months to pick up that 600.

[13cheermom]

5 minutes ago, SNJCruisers said:

The FCC expiration date is 31 months from now and all you need to do is sail once and you get another 600 in OBC.  I don't have a horse in this race, but I do use gift cards to save 10%.  It would be an easy decision for me to take the FCC because all you need to do is cruise once in the next 31 months to pick up that 600.

Sorry to confuse, we sail Carnival & Princess. The cruise I was referring to is a Princess Alaskan cruise inside passage that is only available in May for us. We cancelled this year and already have another cruise booked for next year same timeframe and FCC has to be used for Princess by 5/1/22.  So we don't have the opportunity to use the FCC before then. So for this situation we can use the gift cards for May of 2022.  

[SNJCruisers]

4 hours ago, KatyDawn said:

The new cruise that we're looking at costs more than the previous cruise. Should we go ahead ad book the July 2021 cruise now?  My husband doesn't want to do that because he says "we will have too much money tied up with Carnival" but I'm itching to get it booked before the rooms we want get booked.  I'd love to hear some opinions from more experiences cruisers.  This will only be our third cruise.  

Do you have any gift cards in your possession now that you could use for the deposit?  If you do, then use them.  If you don't,  then buy them at the reduced rate 10 or 12%, which I assume you got through Allstate and use that money to lock in the cabin you want.  When the FCC comes through,  then you can apply it.

Your husband doesn't have to worry about having too much money tied up with Carnival.  They're not going out of business and if you really want a specific cabin, click it in.  If that particular cabin is not that important,  then wait till the FCC gets processed and book then if you would rather play it safe.  Only you can decide how important that particular cabin is.

[SNJCruisers]

1 hour ago, 13cheermom said:

Sorry to confuse, we sail Carnival & Princess. The cruise I was referring to is a Princess Alaskan cruise inside passage that is only available in May for us. We cancelled this year and already have another cruise booked for next year same timeframe and FCC has to be used for Princess by 5/1/22.  So we don't have the opportunity to use the FCC before then. So for this situation we can use the gift cards for May of 2022.  

Yes, it was a point of confusion  because you're  referring to a Princess cruise on a Carnival cruise thread.

Edit....don't  know the particulars, but if Princess was offering 600 in OBC, which I doubt, I would take advantage of it and then push back your other cruise for a year.  That is what we're contemplating with a possible lift and shift with our Oasis cruise for August of 2020 and shifting it to August of 2021 and then pushing back our Mardi Gras cruise to August of 2022.

Edited May 11, 2020 by SNJCruisers

[13cheermom]

4 minutes ago, SNJCruisers said:

Yes, it was a point of confusion  because you're  referring to a Princess cruise on a Carnival cruise thread.

So sorry, like I stated earlier we sail BOTH cruise lines and was mainly searching for information concerning gift cards refunds since we have about $10K tied up in this cruise. But regardless its all apart of CCL corporation and I go back and forth between both boards for information. 

[HLGW60]

Bumping this post back up to page 1 to better see if anyone has gotten refunds via Carnival gift cards lately.   

[powderqn]

No gift card refund yet. Cruise was scheduled for 3/15, and cancelled 3/13. Paid for beverage package with gift cards; cruise, excursions and gratuities paid with credit card. Received credit card refunds about 10 days ago, so just waiting for this last bit. 

[bingomamma19]

I had a cruise from april 4th cancelled.   I had paid for that mostly with discounted carnival gift cards.

 

I rebooked for the Breeze for August 15th (luckily that is still on 🙂 ) ...my PVP was able to move most of my refund to the new cruise, but the new cruise was cheaper than our April cruise, and we even got a spa balcony on the new one.     Since i paid for the original in carnival gift cards, i needed to wait for the difference ($639) to be refunded in gift cards.

 

Boom....they came today!!   So dont worry...your refunds are coming!!   Its taking some time, but they are working on them.

[bury me at sea]

Glad you got them and thanks for letting us know.

[HLGW60]

If you don’t mind saying, on what date did you rebook?  

[bingomamma19]

10 minutes ago, HLGW60 said:

If you don’t mind saying, on what date did you rebook?  

I rebooked saturday March 14th.    I have an excellent PVP who got right on it and transferred everything he could.     So it took about 60 days total to get this back.    I wasnt worried, i knew they were swamped.

[mnp75]

I got my $140 gift card today also. This was from a price drop for May Horizon cruise, prior to it being canceled. 

[N7786W Flyer]

Wow!  I must one of the lucky ones...

 

I had two cruises cancelled on March 30 and April 1.  After waiting a while for the dust to settle, I was able to get Carnival's Customer Service on the phone on April 8th to generate the necessary FCCs and refunds.

 

Today, approximately 35 days later, I received over $5,000 in gift card refunds...in 8 total FedEx packages.  Not sure why they didn't consolidate everything into one shipment, but I'm not complaining!  Just glad to have the refunds and VERY thankful that the refunded amounts match up perfectly with what I was expecting.

 

Garnett

[HLGW60]

11 minutes ago, bingomamma19 said:

I rebooked saturday March 14th.    I have an excellent PVP who got right on it and transferred everything he could.     So it took about 60 days total to get this back.    I wasnt worried, i knew they were swamped.

Thanks!   We rebooked our cruise the night of March 13 with our PVP and transferred everything over and will be getting a gift card on the difference.  We received our shore excursions credit on our cc last Friday.  Hopefully, we will be getting our other gift card refunds soon too on Fun shop purchases.

[evandbob]

Still waiting for new gift cards from our cancelled extended Legend Balcony June 20 cruise from Dover England to the Norway fjords.  I used discounted AARP gift cards for our cabin fare, and so far, nothing has shown up in the mail.

[hkateach]

I manually cancelled the excursions for my June 13 cruise on March 24 (before Carnival cancelled the cruise). I got my gift card refunds via FedEx today.

[Johnc3211]

My May 10th cruise was cancelled March 30th. All paid with GC. Took the FCC and OBC.  Re-booked within a week with PVP. 

Took about a week for all FCC and OBC to transfer. Cruise, gratuities, and taxes all paid with FCC. Received GC refund yesterday for excursions. Still waiting on room purchases refund. Only about 6 weeks, so pretty happy!