Refunds

[clo]

5 minutes ago, NJ Cruiserman said:

And here is another Sputnik article, from an Indian website, debunking the first article.

https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/italian-embassy-claims-tourism-minister-did-n-904954.html

And here's from another Indian source

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/italy-to-ease-lockdown-restrictions-from-may-4-will-remain-closed-for-tourists-till-year-end/as75404907.cms

 

You don't suppose he was being "sarcastic," do you???

[NJ Cruiserman]

Just now, clo said:

And here's from another Indian source

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/italy-to-ease-lockdown-restrictions-from-may-4-will-remain-closed-for-tourists-till-year-end/as75404907.cms

 

You don't suppose he was being "sarcastic," do you???

LOL. You made me laugh!! (I need that as I had been planning to fly to Brussels this Saturday for a week, then train to Paris for two days, then Phoenix for three, then home to NJ, than back to Phoenix for three days. Then on to the maiden Moon cruise in August and two weeks in Sicily, London in October, and a couple of trips over the pond that were not yet finalized, mostly on business.) At least United has extended my 1K status through 2021.

[clo]

7 minutes ago, NJ Cruiserman said:

LOL. You made me laugh!! (I need that as I had been planning to fly to Brussels this Saturday for a week, then train to Paris for two days, then Phoenix for three, then home to NJ, than back to Phoenix for three days. Then on to the maiden Moon cruise in August and two weeks in Sicily, London in October, and a couple of trips over the pond that were not yet finalized, mostly on business.) At least United has extended my 1K status through 2021.

I'm glad I made you laugh. That sounds EXHAUSTING. Whew. Bon voyage.

[cruiseej]

13 hours ago, James S said:

Thanks so much, Jolly Jones. Now my agent is offering me 125% FCC, but I still kind of want my refund. Not sure what to do. I wonder how long they’ll wait. The agent is telling me they could move the cruise from Venice to a new cruise embarkation port, but that would defeat part of the purpose of the cruise, as we wanted to spend a little time in Venice. I really don’t want to play chicken with them. I want them to be honorable and cancel the cruise and give me my refund. 

 

Silversea, and most of the cruise lines, have adopted a system of cancelling cruises roughly a month at a time, roughly 4-7 weeks before the end of their previously-announced cancellations. This both keeps any possibility of resuming cruising open and to spreads out the processing of refunds (both for workload and cash flow purposes). So Silversea last week extended their shutdown from mid-May to mid-June. I'd expect them to extend the cancellation to mid-July by the end of May, and to mid-August by the end of June. Your late August cruise might get cancelled by then, or you might need to wait until July for them to cancel through mid-September. If you want a 100% refund, you need to accept that you're likely going to need to wait that long to see if the cruise is cancelled. Expecting them to "be honorable" and cancel your late-August cruise now is not going to happen.

 

(There's a possibility that some cruise lines might decide to mothball their ships and say things are cancelled for the rest of the year, but that means they'd have to refund a half year or more of cruises at one time -- so that seems unlikely). 

 

If waiting for your cruise to be cancelled will stress you over the next several months, then consider taking the 125% future cruise credit now, and perhaps plan for a similar trip next summer. Or wait until the summer to see if they cancel, knowing that at worst you can cancel just a few days for the cruise and end up with a 100% credit. 

[spinnaker2]

I have my refund from Silversea in my credit card account!

Yippeeeeeee.

 

 

 

[NJ Cruiserman]

Congratulations. This is the first refund of which I am aware. When did you cancel?  I am now going on day 28 and was planning on emailing my TA this morning for any update. 

[Silver Spectre]

15 minutes ago, spinnaker2 said:

I have my refund from Silversea in my credit card account!

Yippeeeeeee.

 

 

 

That’s good to hear.

[TLCOhio]

Just now, NJ Cruiserman said:

Congratulations. This is the first refund of which I am aware. When did you cancel?  I am now going on day 28 and was planning on emailing my TA this morning for any update. 

 

YES!!  Great news for Spins.  We had cancelled our early 2021 Galápagos Islands cruise on March 12 and were promised a credit to be posted in "eight to ten business days".  That did not happen and we got some additional misinformation and piles of excuses.  But after some other moves, our credit did finally showed up the morning of Tuesday, April 28.  

 

Overall, the good news is that the RCCL parent still has a decent pile of cash, for now, on hand.  And the Wall Street folks are sending upward the stock values for the three main cruise lines.  The money people see a recovery and some hope ahead.  But, things are still cloudy as to when and how cruising will resume. 

 

THANKS!  Enjoy!  Terry in Ohio

 

 

Amazon River-Caribbean 2015 adventure live/blog starting in Barbados. Many visuals from this amazing river and Caribbean Islands (Dutch ABC's, St. Barts, Dominica, Grenada, San Juan, etc.).  Now at 66,208 views:

www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2157696

[spinnaker2]

41 minutes ago, NJ Cruiserman said:

Congratulations. This is the first refund of which I am aware. When did you cancel?  I am now going on day 28 and was planning on emailing my TA this morning for any update. 

NJ

We cancelled 15 of March.

[pausulli]

3 hours ago, spinnaker2 said:

NJ

We cancelled 15 of March.

Thanks for the update.  So about 45 days.  They told me to expect 30 to 45 days.  I will be fine with that.  Even 60 as long as it shows up.  

[NJ Cruiserman]

19 minutes ago, pausulli said:

Thanks for the update.  So about 45 days.  They told me to expect 30 to 45 days.  I will be fine with that.  Even 60 as long as it shows up.  

I don't mind waiting as long as I know it's in process. My TA called SS today and called me while on the line with them. The card I used for the final payment had expired and they wanted the new expiry date. The AMEX I used for the deposit onboard had also expired, but they said that refund was in process, but the refund to the other card might take another 30 days.

I'll keep you all posted.

[jollyjones]

Interesting that I have had refunds received or in process from American Airlines, HomeAway and Airbnb, all to my credit card that has a new three-year-further-on-expiry-date since I made the bookings, without any question - SS is the only one who can’t seem to proceed without asking for the new expiry date.  Dunno if that’s good or bad!

 

I was told today that the refund should go to my card by May 29th. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by jollyjones

[HilsTas]

8 hours ago, NJ Cruiserman said:

Congratulations. This is the first refund of which I am aware. When did you cancel?  I am now going on day 28 and was planning on emailing my TA this morning for any update. 

 

We received a refund via our TA this week.  First cancelled in January, and then I seriously started chasing the refund in March, so it has been a process and a half.  But it's a great relief.  

[wren2]

On 4/30/2020 at 2:01 PM, spinnaker2 said:

NJ

We cancelled 15 of March.

 

On 4/30/2020 at 1:30 PM, TLCOhio said:

 

YES!!  Great news for Spins.  We had cancelled our early 2021 Galápagos Islands cruise on March 12 and were promised a credit to be posted in "eight to ten business days".  That did not happen and we got some additional misinformation and piles of excuses.  But after some other moves, our credit did finally showed up the morning of Tuesday, April 28.  

 

Overall, the good news is that the RCCL parent still has a decent pile of cash, for now, on hand.  And the Wall Street folks are sending upward the stock values for the three main cruise lines.  The money people see a recovery and some hope ahead.  But, things are still cloudy as to when and how cruising will resume. 

 

THANKS!  Enjoy!  Terry in Ohio

 

 

Amazon River-Caribbean 2015 adventure live/blog starting in Barbados. Many visuals from this amazing river and Caribbean Islands (Dutch ABC's, St. Barts, Dominica, Grenada, San Juan, etc.).  Now at 66,208 views:

www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2157696

 

[wren2]

So happy for you.  I feel you should be awarded a medal! I filed March 9 and was told 21 days.  Still waiting. It is a waste of time speaking to Guest Relations.  In the past I have always booked and paid well over a year ahead but in future I will not book until a few months before.  Have cruised with them for many years, so am flexible as to ports or perhaps I might explore river cruises.

[Unibok]

Just FYI on timing ... my SS cruise was cancelled on 10 March, 5 days before we were scheduled to embark, when India would not allow the Spirit to dock. 

 

The cruise refund appeared in my account about 10 days ago, and the refunds for my air and hotel are still in process. My additional 25% future cruise credit has already been applied to a voyage I really hope to take when face-to-face connected life resumes.

 

45-60 days is a reasonable expectation at this point. Processes, normally slow, are even moreso under the current challenging conditions. 

 

Wishing good health to you all,

[Tothesunset]

In the UK many, many travel companies are refusing refunds and only issuing vouchers or credit notes in spite of the customer's legal right to a refund. All credit to SS in that they are refunding when requested, even if somewhat slowly. 

 

The moral of the tale is that those companies illegally retaining customer funds will be investigate by the Competition and Markets Authority and will also see any customer goodwill and loyalty evaporate. 

 

Compared to many of the slipshod shysters operating a travel-related business (and I include some big names here) SS and most cruise companies, as far as I'm aware, seem to be acting honourably. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Tothesunset
Typos!

[ChicagoHen]

Hello all,

 

Just a follow-up on refunds.  My March 17th cruise was canceled on March 13 by SS. I requested from my agent that day the full refund, and yesterday it finally posted to my account. So about 48 days. Note: it also included the upgraded airfare and pre/post hotels.

 

Thank goodness!  

[Denny01]

Our original Silverseas Shadow cruise out of Rome to Barcelona departing 23 April was moved to departing from Lisbon, then on 23 March, our cruise was cancelled. We knew we weren’t going but waited for them to cancel it. We requested a full refund and got it this morning. It’s back on our AmEx card and I called AmEx and they will transfer a good chunk of it from the card to my bank account. takes 3-4 business days. I believe they can transfer ~ $9K max, but that may not be a fixed max level. 

 

We were not planning to go on this cruise but waited until Silverseas cancelled the cruise, and I’m surprised about the OP’s cruise in that Silverseas is well aware that no crises are departing from Venice and they should have at a minimum moved the departure port...no idea where in the Med/Europe you’d move it to so that may be the reason they haven’t made a change because they know it’s not going anywhere and are waiting to cancel it so they don’t have another influx of refunds. 

 

One funny....I emailed my TA yesterday asking about the status of the refund since it’d been a month; she immediately responded that some Lines are taking 1-3 months to refund but she thought Silverseas should be responding within a month plus a bit,,,,,and the next day it showed up!! I told her it was because she was a magician! 

 

Den

[G2G]

On 4/30/2020 at 2:01 PM, spinnaker2 said:

NJ

We cancelled 15 of March.

I'm so pleased to hear that, I cancelled on the 17th but nothing showing yet. I've been told the refund comes in 2 parts, the deposit to method of payment and the balance to my agent and then back to me. Silversea rang me on Thursday to bring me up to date.

[machotspur]

On 5/2/2020 at 7:28 AM, G2G said:

I'm so pleased to hear that, I cancelled on the 17th but nothing showing yet. I've been told the refund comes in 2 parts, the deposit to method of payment and the balance to my agent and then back to me. Silversea rang me on Thursday to bring me up to date.

You may be waiting a fair bit longer !

The UK offices of all luxury cruise companies are still quoting 90 days for the refund to be made. This compares to 30-45 days for USA. I have yet to identify why the difference. 

 

The two - as yet not refunded - cancellations I have with Silversea are :-

3rd March (61 days ago)

25th March (39 days ago)

I also have a cancellation with Crystal made on 19th March (41 days).

 

This is despite my using a very strong, experienced and well connected travel agency. They are unable to achieve any acceleration of these refunds 

 

I was going to file a Section 75 Credit Card Chargeback for these however the credit card companies are showing at least a 6 week delay before they get to look at an application. Equally legal action is a non starter at this stage, due to the long lead times, particularly in the current situation.   

 

The total value of the three bookings is £57,000 so my patience is running out, but realistically I have little option but to sit and wait ! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

[bitob]

We cancelled on April 9

Today I got a notice through my TA that the refund has "processed" and will be paid on June 4.

 

"Processed" must mean they looked at it.

 

 

[NJ Cruiserman]

25 minutes ago, bitob said:

We cancelled on April 9

Today I got a notice through my TA that the refund has "processed" and will be paid on June 4.

 

"Processed" must mean they looked at it.

 

 

I cancelled April 2 and my TA received a message last week that it would be credited back by May 30. 

[NJ Cruiserman]

On 5/3/2020 at 3:41 AM, machotspur said:

You may be waiting a fair bit longer !

The UK offices of all luxury cruise companies are still quoting 90 days for the refund to be made. This compares to 30-45 days for USA. I have yet to identify why the difference. 

 

The two - as yet not refunded - cancellations I have with Silversea are :-

3rd March (61 days ago)

25th March (39 days ago)

I also have a cancellation with Crystal made on 19th March (41 days).

 

This is despite my using a very strong, experienced and well connected travel agency. They are unable to achieve any acceleration of these refunds 

 

I was going to file a Section 75 Credit Card Chargeback for these however the credit card companies are showing at least a 6 week delay before they get to look at an application. Equally legal action is a non starter at this stage, due to the long lead times, particularly in the current situation.   

 

The total value of the three bookings is £57,000 so my patience is running out, but realistically I have little option but to sit and wait ! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

I believe that my friends from Cheltenham received a refund from SS last week. I do not know when they cancelled but I believe it was in the middle of March.

[Wizpharm2]

We notified our Travel Agent on March 10, 2020 to cancel our Sept 2020 transatlantic cruise.

Credit hit the credit card on April 29th