Final Payment Extention

[Norn Iron Man]

https://www.azamara.co.uk/cruising-suspension

 

I held off as long as I could and today Azamara cancels all their October Cruises.  I'm sure my TA knew this on Monday when I was pressurised into paying or lose my deposit.

 

ANGRY!!!!

[Grandma Cruising]

1 minute ago, Norn Iron Man said:

https://www.azamara.co.uk/cruising-suspension

 

I held off as long as I could and today Azamara cancels all their October Cruises.  I'm sure my TA knew this on Monday when I was pressurised into paying or lose my deposit.

 

ANGRY!!!!

At least if you choose to take a FCC you will now get 125%!

[uktog]

6 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

At least if you choose to take a FCC you will now get 125%!

Hardly a benefit given that many agents won't give you the same pricing than if you were paying cash - and what price will the new cruise be.  Id be disputing now via my credit card not even waiting for the refund process given this is only 48 hours after Norn Iron was forced to pay

[uktog]

10 minutes ago, Norn Iron Man said:

https://www.azamara.co.uk/cruising-suspension

 

I held off as long as I could and today Azamara cancels all their October Cruises.  I'm sure my TA knew this on Monday when I was pressurised into paying or lose my deposit.

 

ANGRY!!!!

Azamara certainly would have

[Norn Iron Man]

1 hour ago, Grandma Cruising said:

At least if you choose to take a FCC you will now get 125%!

 

Who knows what state the world of cruising or indeed the world will be at in 12 months time..  I feel a lot more companies will fold and apart from that Covid is on the rise.  Will there be enough money left to pay out everyone.??

1 hour ago, uktog said:

Azamara certainly would have

Yes and that is one of the most annoying aspects. The TA claimed Azamara were pressurising them for the balance.

[laurieb]

1 hour ago, Norn Iron Man said:

 

Who knows what state the world of cruising or indeed the world will be at in 12 months time..  I feel a lot more companies will fold and apart from that Covid is on the rise.  Will there be enough money left to pay out everyone.??

Yes and that is one of the most annoying aspects. The TA claimed Azamara were pressurising them for the balance.

I think your TA did it themselves; they'll get paid their commission if the cruise is paid in full and the cruiseline cancels it, but would not get paid otherwise

[excitedofharpenden]

Oh I wish we could name and shame on here. If I knew who the ta was I'd never use them again and tell all my friends the same thing. I'm sorry this has happened to you. Just too bad. 

 

Phil 

[Host Jazzbeau]

I don't like the CC rule against discussing TAs either, but I have to enforce it.  Please stop trying to sneak around it.

[Norn Iron Man]

I can understand the rule about naming and shaming but suffice to say I will not be using them again! I find it incredible however that a specialist TA would not know that Azamara were planning to cancel.  Even the dogs in the street knew that it was likely.  Listen to the cruising sites on YouTube

[hiccups]

On 8/3/2020 at 6:08 AM, Norn Iron Man said:

I know that I don't have to pay the balance to lift and shift.  That is not the issue here.  The issue is that the TA and Azamara are chasing a final payment for a cruise which is obviously not going to take place.

 

Unfortunately today I had the ultimatum of pay the balance now or lose the deposit.  So with reluctance and under protest I have paid the balance. Now Azamara will owe me 5 times the amount of money that they owed me yesterday.  Why can they not admit that the cruise will not take place.  

I was responding to CHTobi that said customers had to pay the balance to Lift & Shift--just wanted to make sure s/he had the correct information.

I'm sorry that you had to make your final payment--I would be frustrated as well.  We had a paid in full Celebrity cruise that was cancelled, and it took about three months to get our money back.  Compared to an Azamara cruise, though, it wasn't a lot of money to be waiting on for months!  I hope you have some recourse with your credit card company.

[uktog]

1 hour ago, Norn Iron Man said:

I can understand the rule about naming and shaming but suffice to say I will not be using them again! I find it incredible however that a specialist TA would not know that Azamara were planning to cancel.  Even the dogs in the street knew that it was likely.  Listen to the cruising sites on YouTube

And if they had operations in Glasgow it is the talk of the town - just look out the window and you see the three ships

[Norn Iron Man]

1 minute ago, uktog said:

And if they had operations in Glasgow it is the talk of the town - just look out the window and you see the three ships

And if you worked in the cruise industry you would know that it takes quite a few weeks to prepare a cruise ship for carrying fare paying passengers and then the is the difficulties in bringing in a couple of thousand crew members from all over the world to crew the ships.  With “inside” knowledge you would therefore be aware that there will be no cruises for the foreseeable future. Maybe I’m just being cynical

 

[CHTobi]

16 minutes ago, hiccups said:

I was responding to CHTobi that said customers had to pay the balance to Lift & Shift--just wanted to make sure s/he had the correct information.

I'm sorry that you had to make your final payment--I would be frustrated as well.  We had a paid in full Celebrity cruise that was cancelled, and it took about three months to get our money back.  Compared to an Azamara cruise, though, it wasn't a lot of money to be waiting on for months!  I hope you have some recourse with your credit card company.

I am okay with making the final payment if it is due... But it certainly would have been nice to know about the extension in a timely manner (like NOT AFTER the final due date!) Again, on the other "lift and shift" I did, I received a refund for the full payment minus the required deposits for the new (lifted and shifted) booking within days and a new due date 120 days out of sailing! So, a limited risk exposure as all they have is deposit until 120 days out. There was s small difference in our favor to differential in port taxes and fees. I have to say that, in my opinion, Azamara is handling things quite well and even though I hand off to US agent, I can work with Azamara directly on any issues (they are supporting my agency) and they are relatively easy to get a hold of and are quite responsive. I am assuming that is part of the often mentioned differential between the way the US market is managed and the way the UK market is managed.

[uktog]

12 hours ago, hiccups said:

I was responding to CHTobi that said customers had to pay the balance to Lift & Shift--just wanted to make sure s/he had the correct information.

 

You are right to highlight this. A major UK online cruise vendor selling only cruises so should know better  has tried that line with us in relation to a river cruise. I contacted the river cruise provider and found it was not true. They intervened on my behalf but had I not been savvy I would have been duped. 
The dirty tactics will come home to roost I

 am sure. We have taken our business elsewhere and whilst it’s not a lot just now it could be again in the future 

[Norn Iron Man]

1 hour ago, uktog said:

You are right to highlight this. A major UK online cruise vendor selling only cruises so should know better  has tried that line with us in relation to a river cruise. 

The dirty tactics will come home to roost I

 am sure. We have taken our business elsewhere and whilst it’s not a lot just now it could be again in the future 

I agree with you.  I will be voting with my feet. I will not be using the same TA again.  Within 48hrs of being pressurised into paying the balance the cruise is cancelled. It seems that the TA was the only person "surprised" as everyone else on here and Facebook knew it was imminent!!!! Had the deposit only been a few quid i would have touched it out but almost £1000.00 is too much to gamble

[longton]

We are due to pay the balance of our South American cruise in December by 10 September. We haven't received any emails regarding an extension to the final payment deadline.

 

We booked direct.

 

Obviously the cruise on Quest will not be happening but as far as I know has not yet been cancelled. 

 

We will not be making the final payment.

 

Does anyone have the status of Quest sailings in December?

 

Thanks.

 

 

[Norn Iron Man]

If you do not make your final payment it is likely that you will lose your deposit. In my case it was a substantial amount. Two days after I paid the final amount the cruise was cancelled.

 

If I were a cynic I would say that this is a ploy by the cruise line to get an interest free loan so that they can refund the people who felt pressured into making their final payments a couple of months ago.

 

Despite promises from the TA I have not had any refund from them or Azamara but managed to get a chargeback on my credit card for the final payment.

[Baynanno1]

9 hours ago, longton said:

We are due to pay the balance of our South American cruise in December by 10 September. We haven't received any emails regarding an extension to the final payment deadline.

 

We booked direct.

 

Obviously the cruise on Quest will not be happening but as far as I know has not yet been cancelled. 

 

We will not be making the final payment.

 

Does anyone have the status of Quest sailings in December?

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

You could "lift & shift" to next year.

The final payment would then not be due until the usual time pre-cruise start next year.

You would also retain your current pricing (+/- any difference in port charges) and retain any current perks you have on the December 2020 cruise.

[longton]

Thanks for the replies.

 

This was to be our first Azamara cruise.

 

Given that Azamara, and everyone else, know full well that the cruise we are booked on will not be going ahead, I find Azamara's policy of cancelling after the deadline for final payment dishonest.

 

As a result, we will not be booking another Azamara cruise.

 

Earlier we had decided not to make the final payment but we would then lose our £750 deposit. 

 

However, we have now decided to make the final  payment by credit card then claim a full refund once it is cancelled. We do not want Azamara to keep any of our money!

 

 

[Norn Iron Man]

5 minutes ago, longton said:

Thanks for the replies.

 

This was to be our first Azamara cruise.

 

Given that Azamara, and everyone else, know full well that the cruise we are booked on will not be going ahead, I find Azamara's policy of cancelling after the deadline for final payment dishonest.

 

As a result, we will not be booking another Azamara cruise.

 

Earlier we had decided not to make the final payment but we would then lose our £750 deposit. 

 

However, we have now decided to make the final  payment by credit card then claim a full refund once it is cancelled. We do not want Azamara to keep any of our money!

 

 

That’s exactly what I did. Got the final payment back from Bank within 10 days. Still waiting on over £850 deposit from Azamara