QANTAS suspends all international flights until March 2021

[crusinbanjo]

On 8/13/2020 at 5:08 PM, Mocamps said:

If you're not planning on making your final payment then I think you ARE going to have to decide for them if our experience is anything to go by!

 

Mrs Banjo and I have already made the decision for them, we just haven't told them yet.......  Just in case they come to their senses.   

[MrsWaldo]

4 hours ago, crusinbanjo said:

Mrs Banjo and I have already made the decision for them, we just haven't told them yet.......  Just in case they come to their senses.   

That makes 2 of us..

 

I certainly won't be paying for a cruise that has 0 chance of going ahead and if by some strange coincidence it does, then a last minute booking will happen.

Edited August 15, 2020 by MrsWaldo

[Mocamps]

Our October 10th cruise that ends in Sydney has just been cancelled!! So now for the refund!!

 

 

[Silver Spectre]

37 minutes ago, Mocamps said:

Our October 10th cruise that ends in Sydney has just been cancelled!! So now for the refund!!

 

 

Not at all surprised, I would think the following 2 Muse cruises will both go as well. Please let us know how long you are told for the refund.

[FlyerTalker]

2 hours ago, Mocamps said:

Our October 10th cruise that ends in Sydney has just been cancelled!! So now for the refund!!

 

Still listed on the website.  Did you get email from SS directly or from your travel agent?  Or both?

 

Now, we have a data point to see how long till the change shows up on the SS website.

[Mocamps]

We had an e-mail direct from Silversea - a copy to my husband and one to me. It stressed what good value the 125% FCC is and said that can be credited to our account within 15 days -  but we're going for a refund.  I then phoned my agent and he said he would get the ball rolling for that. He said it would be 90 days for a refund but the actual email states 30-45 days. 

The e-mail also said that if we accept the FCC we can get Venetian Society credit for this cruise AND for whatever we book in its place. The credit is valid for 2 years and is VERY tempting but a bird in the hand..........

[crusinbanjo]

4 hours ago, Mocamps said:

Our October 10th cruise that ends in Sydney has just been cancelled!! So now for the refund!!

 

 

That's 53 days prior to embarkation.....  long past the final payment date..........   

[etual324]

We were booked 20 December SYD - AKL  guess we will  have Christmas here in South Carolina

Bah Humbug

 

[philipb]

3 hours ago, Mocamps said:

We had an e-mail direct from Silversea - a copy to my husband and one to me. It stressed what good value the 125% FCC is and said that can be credited to our account within 15 days -  but we're going for a refund.  I then phoned my agent and he said he would get the ball rolling for that. He said it would be 90 days for a refund but the actual email states 30-45 days. 

The e-mail also said that if we accept the FCC we can get Venetian Society credit for this cruise AND for whatever we book in its place. The credit is valid for 2 years and is VERY tempting but a bird in the hand..........

 

Take the money. I doubt that ATOL or ABTA gives you protection for a 'future cruise credit'.

[Silver Spectre]

2 hours ago, philipb said:

 

Take the money. I doubt that ATOL or ABTA gives you protection for a 'future cruise credit'.

If the original cruise came with an ATOL certificate then the FCC is protected provided the FCC is issued before Sept 30th. ABTA is irrelevant in this case.

[Stumblefoot]

6 hours ago, etual324 said:

Guess we will  have Christmas here in South Carolina.  Bah Humbug.

 

C’mon out to Colorado for a good ol’ fashioned white Christmas.  No bah humbugs here during the most magical of seasons.  I’ll even let you scoop the snow off the sidewalk on Christmas morn!

[Mocamps]

Yes, we're taking the refund as I don't think we'd be covered by ABTA or ATOL if Silversea or Royal Caribbean collapse. We didn't book a flight inclusive holiday so think that rules out ATOL and I believe ABTA only helps if the travel agent goes under. I'll report back to let you know how long it takes.

 

Website is now showing the first Muse cruise as being 31st October from Sydney to Perth. Could that possibly go with just Australians onboard?

Edited August 20, 2020 by Mocamps
Sent it too soon!

[brimary]

Always take the refund option .Its simpler and safer than becoming an unsecured creditor in a liquidation.

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, brimary said:

Always take the refund option .Its simpler and safer than becoming an unsecured creditor in a liquidation.

 

Of course, that position is assuming that a liquidation will happen.

 

Do you have some special insider pipeline to assert that WILL be the case?  If not, then it is completely a risk-reward assessment, made by each individual by their own judgment.

[brimary]

Merely expressing personal opinion on the advantage of cash refunds as opposed to FCC .I would prefer cash in my pocket rather than SS in today’s uncertain world which could last until 2022 before normality returns.But Who knows?

[Tothesunset]

As long as those taking FCC realise the gamble, then why not? Personally I'm of the A refund in the hand is worth 2 FCCs in the bush school. 

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, brimary said:

Merely expressing personal opinion on the advantage of cash refunds as opposed to FCC .I would prefer cash in my pocket rather than SS in today’s uncertain world which could last until 2022 before normality returns.But Who knows?

 

Fair assessment of a personal choice.

 

My thoughts tend to run -- are the risks as good or worse than other investments, considering the 25% return.  Given that bank accounts are paying next to nothing and government securities the same, think of it as buying a note with that kind of return.  And if it takes two years to be paid back, then it was a 12.5% annualized rate of return.

 

Like many financial investments, if you are prepared to lose all of your principal (your refund amount), you can leverage to achieve significant returns.  IF you assume the risk of insolvency, and thus no refund, to be less than 53% of the time, you are mathematically advantaged to take the FCC.  That's about the break even point for a two year wait for use of FCC.  If the risk is lower, the better the overall investment.

 

Of course, this is a situation with binary outcomes.  You either win or lose on your investment.  If you cannot, or will not, make those kinds of investments, then you operate from a different environment.  But for people who put down a bet in a casino, or options, or notes - you know about binary outcomes.  And everyone is different.

[philipb]

2 hours ago, brimary said:

Merely expressing personal opinion on the advantage of cash refunds as opposed to FCC .I would prefer cash in my pocket rather than SS in today’s uncertain world which could last until 2022 before normality returns.But Who knows?

 

The uncertain world will last until 2022 as you rightly say. But will the cruise companies?

 

https://thepointsguy.com/news/crystal-cruises-parent-company-financial-trouble/?utm_source=flipboard

[MrsWaldo]

17 hours ago, Mocamps said:

 

 

Website is now showing the first Muse cruise as being 31st October from Sydney to Perth. Could that possibly go with just Australians onboard?

Not unless Victoria gets it together.

 

There is no talk of state borders reopening yet and Tasmania is closed until Dec 1.   Draw what you wish from that

[brimary]

Interesting to read all the different and valid views on the current desperate scenario for Cruise Company Management.to deal with.Most regular cruisers I suspect will share the same objectives of returning to cruising as soon as it feels safe to do so for all concerned.

[cruiseej]

So I'm curious, for those of you who are urging cash refunds…

 

We paid in full for a December 2021 Antarctica cruise. It's an expensive 18-day cruise over the holidays. We were originally going to go in December 2020. We did not take a FCC, but rolled our money over to the December 2021 trip -- so this is refundable (except for $200/pp) until September 2021. Would you cancel the cruise this far out because you feel either (a) there will still be no safe cruising by December 2021, or (b) Silversea will be bankrupt and out of business by December 2021? The former is really not a risk, since we can cancel and get our money back a year from now; the latter is where $50k is on the line. Are you pessimistic enough about the prospect of the cruise lines surviving to think no one should have any money on any future cruises?

[tgh]

 Are you pessimistic enough about the prospect of the cruise lines surviving to think no one should have any money on any future cruises?

 

Yup….there are better gambling odds about .. ymmv of course

[Mocamps]

So $50k is a LOT of money and personally, I'd be unwilling to gamble it.

 

I'm guessing that your cruise wasn't cancelled at the point you decided to postpone it. If it had been you would have FCC rather than rolling over the original amount. So, if you choose to cancel you lose the $200 per person but no more.

 

In the situation we were in, our cruise was only 4 months off when final payment was due and we chose to pay it in the full knowledge that it was likely to be cancelled - though we still had a forlorn hope that it might go ahead! But we were also hoping that, if Silversea cancelled it, we would be offered extra FCC to offset against the same cruise a year later.

 

What has put us off accepting the FCC is that Silversea took so long to cancel - way beyond when we KNEW the cruise couldn't go ahead because of the restrictions in Australia.

 

This made us realise how desperate the company must be to hold onto our money for as long as possible and this, in turn, makes us want to get our money back while we can. We know that all cruise lines must be in trouble but are hopeful that Silversea (with smaller ships and Royal Caribbean backing) are better placed than most. If there was a reasonable chance that we could use the FCC early next year we might have been tempted but I don't think that's the case so we're choosing to have our money back. I definitely wouldn't want to risk the amount you're talking about!

 

But all of this is just best guessing and very much a personal choice.

[cruiseej]

23 minutes ago, Mocamps said:

I'm guessing that your cruise wasn't cancelled at the point you decided to postpone it. If it had been you would have FCC rather than rolling over the original amount. So, if you choose to cancel you lose the $200 per person but no more.

 

Actually, no. We had decided we wouldn't go on a cruise this December if it happened to sail, and we were going to pull out at 120 days in advance when it was still refundable, but SS cancelled first. When it was canceled, because SS delayed the Wind renovations, we were offered a 110% FCC, not even the 125% most canceled cruises received. The cruise we booked is an Antarctica trip that includes South Georgia island, an itinerary that's available just a couple times each year. If we took the FCC and used it for December 2021, and then decided not to go next year for any reason, the FCC would have expired before the December 2022 trip. So we turned down the FCC. We decided that being able to get our money back outweighed the bonus 10% credit SS was offering. So we essentially got a refund and rebooked for 2021, although our TA was able to roll over the money without going through the process of actually waiting for a refund and then re-investing.

 

Our problem in approaching this is that we're basically targeting a single cruise each year. SS only has a few trips to South Georgia island each winter season, and because two of our group of four are still working, going over the holidays is the only way to pull off an 18-day cruise. We could take our money back and wait to see if cruising resumes in 2021. But then it will likely be too late to book this cruise for December 2021; there are already limited suites available at our price level. So we could wait until 2022… or 2023. But we don't want to wait that long if we can avoid it, (Antarctica might melt by 2023! 😉 ) and who knows how the prices will be in a few years as the cruise lines try to recoup their massive losses from 2020. 

 

So it's a gamble that the cruise line will still be in business 12 months from now versus giving up on a treasured trip we've been waiting for for a long time. I change my mind at least once a week.

[rojaan19]

Alan Joyce  CEO of Qantas said  20th August - Sydney Morning Herald =

" International services will likely not resume before June next year, he said, with flights to the United States not expected until the end of 2021, after a vaccine can bring the virus under control there."