Final Payments Due Date

[tyler6597]

We are booked on a Azamara cruise on 5-7-21 and the final payment is due on 1-7-2021 and is close to 5 months away. Is this a normal span of time for when the final payment is due for Azamara. I just checked a cruise we booked on RCCL on 1-9-21 and the final payment was due on 10-22-2020 which is roughly 3 and a half months. I don't recall in all of our 40 plus cruises what is the normal time difference for making a final payment date and the sail date.  I don't like tying up our money for 5 months not knowing if this cruise on Azamara will actually take place because of the pandemic. We had a Azamara cruise booked for a Spain and Portugal 13 days cruise in May of 2021 but was canceled by Azamara because some company had booked a charter which pissed me off and were still waiting for a refund from Choice Air or the airline and after 6 month still no check. I realize if we want to cruise within this environment you must put down a down payment and then eventually make the final payment and wait until we hear from Azamara if it's a go or not and I guess it comes down to whether you can afford to have your money tied up. I just thought that 5 months between the final payment date and the cruise is too far apart. I wouldn't normally be wondering about this in normal times but we are as far away from normal as you can get. Any help on this would be appreciated.

Tyler

[Host Jazzbeau]

1-7-21 to 5-7-21 is only four months.  That was Azamara's policy  for our cruises in 2016 and 2018.

[uktog]

The date may be determined by your agent.  Certainly we see a considerable variation in final payment dates depending on which Travel Agent we use.  For many agents 16 weeks is the norm.

[Host Jazzbeau]

In the US we get an official Azamara invoice (through the TA) that shows their final payment date, which as noted was 4 months for my cruises.

[Grandma Cruising]

My travel agent wants the final balance 16 weeks ahead of the cruise date.

[Mackdogmolly]

4 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

My travel agent wants the final balance 16 weeks ahead of the cruise date.

So does mine.

[Baynanno1]

Copied from Azamara's Travel Advisory :

"To hold your place on the voyage, Azamara Club Cruises must receive payment of your remaining balance 120 days prior to the sailing date if your voyage begins on or after January 2016. You may pay your balance through your travel professional, or directly to Azamara if you booked through us."

 

We have cruised with Azamara since 2013 and all our final payments have been as above.

Some Travel Agents request payment a week or so before Azamara's due date for "administrative purposes"

[Grandma Cruising]

The UK Ts & Cs say 90 days . We must receive the full balance of the holiday cost not less than 90 days prior to departure.

However elsewhere it says that where someone is booked through a Travel Agent, then the Travel Agents T’s & Cs apply, so if, like ours, payment is at 16 weeks before (112days) then that’s when you have to pay up!

[uktog]

Yes. We see the Azamara invoice with the due date but are then given a copy from the agency of their due date. The large online agency actually starts chasing at 20 weeks even though Azamaras deadline is later and of course we now know due to the covid debacle they don’t actually pay Azamara until almost sail date. 

[excitedofharpenden]

My learning point recently with all that is going on with covid?  In future and unless I get a great deal through a travel agent is I'll book direct with Azamara and be bound by their 90 day prior to sailing rather than 120 days with the agency.

 

I'm still waiting for deposit funds from that agency  for a cruise which was cancelled back in June. Thank goodness it was just the deposit and not final balance. 

 

Phil 

[Roger88]

The final date can be changed, you should keep that in mind. It sounds weird that your agent want the entire sum so much earlier before the cruise. I would be worried. In any case, I doubt there should be any major change of plans 

[excitedofharpenden]

24 minutes ago, Roger88 said:

The final date can be changed, you should keep that in mind. It sounds weird that your agent want the entire sum so much earlier before the cruise. I would be worried. In any case, I doubt there should be any major change of plans 

No it can’t. Not in my case at least. 

 

Phil

[uktog]

14 minutes ago, excitedofharpenden said:

No it can’t. Not in my case at least. 

 

Phil

You are right, pretty standard UK practice we had an Azamara itinerary change after the money was paid to the agent but not passed on to the cruise line but could do nothing about it 

Edited October 20, 2020 by uktog

[upwarduk]

1 hour ago, Roger88 said:

The final date can be changed, you should keep that in mind. It sounds weird that your agent want the entire sum so much earlier before the cruise. I would be worried. In any case, I doubt there should be any major change of plans 

At one time it was said it was so that the agent could earn interest on the money, but now I think its to keep the agent afloat.

We were told by the agent that we were using for our last (Celebrity) Cruise, that we could push the payment from 5th May to 3rd June as Celebrity require their payments 57 days before sailing day. We should have been sailing 1st August.

I know it was an attempt to persuade us not to cancel the booking, as at the time I wanted to cancel as Celebrity required a ‘Fit to Sail’ doctors letter for the over 70’s( which I knew I wouldn’t get as I was Shielding).

As Azamara are in the Royal Caribbean Group, I fail to see why the T&C are different for payment dates.. 

[tyler6597]

Thank you everyone for replying to my post. I'm going to call my TA today and ask her about delaying the final payment but I don't expect it can be. out of the 40 + cruises we taken we have used a TA maybe 10 times and I handled all the rest but since we've gotten older(68) and at least 10 of our past cruises have involved longer cruises and post hotels stays I just punted the cruises to a TA and I still find that I have to get involved because she's a little scatter brained but overall she's been fine. We were on a Azamara cruise last year that did 13 days from Monte Carlo and all stop in between and it ended up the cruise in Venice for two days. Our TA booked a hotel on the Grand canal and Azamara set it up with a private motor boast to take us and luggage directly to the hotel and Azamara was also handling the return to the airport. We had breakfast our final morning in Venice and I went to the gentleman behind the check in desk in the hotel lobby and asked him about out return from the hotel to the dock where the cabs where and then we would go to the airport. he very politely told me that he knows nothing about this. I quickly showed him the document from Azamara which showed in detail about the transfers and again he told me that they don't handle this so he suggested I call Azamara. I was getting really upset and I called our TA and withing a half hour a representative from RCCL was there with a boat provided by the hotel and she rode with us to the airport to make sure we had the boarding passes and the luggage checked. Now that was service and we appreciated it very much and yes we gave her a $50.00 tip. So my TA did something right and well keep using her. Again everyone, thanks.

Tyler

[excitedofharpenden]

3 hours ago, upwarduk said:

At one time it was said it was so that the agent could earn interest on the money, but now I think its to keep the agent afloat.

We were told by the agent that we were using for our last (Celebrity) Cruise, that we could push the payment from 5th May to 3rd June as Celebrity require their payments 57 days before sailing day. We should have been sailing 1st August.

I know it was an attempt to persuade us not to cancel the booking, as at the time I wanted to cancel as Celebrity required a ‘Fit to Sail’ doctors letter for the over 70’s( which I knew I wouldn’t get as I was Shielding).

As Azamara are in the Royal Caribbean Group, I fail to see why the T&C are different for payment dates.. 

Azamara is 90 days according to their website and the cruises I’ve taken with them more recently bear this out. It used to be 60, but they changed it a while ago.  What you are talking about is a different cruiseline and special terms that were offered at the height of the start of covid so it is irrelevant and confusing the question asked here to be honest.  

 

Phil

[macmax]

In Canada & the US, the final payment date is determined by the cruise line.  Most ethical TA's will process the payment directly with the cruise line not through the agency.  TA's will usually request payment a week or so prior to that date to ensure that there are no credit card issues and the payment is confirmed.

 

Some cruise lines have reduced the final payment date to 60 days out but Azamara is still at 120.

[Baynanno1]

@Azamara Team

 

It seems there are different time frames for final payment in different parts of the world!

UK 90 days, Australia & Canada 120 days.

 

In this day and age, it takes no longer for a payment made electronically to travel from one country or another!

 

Surely final payment should be the same world wide as far as Azamara is concerned, yet the documentation is there on the various Azamara websites as noted in previous comments by cruisers from the different countries!!

 

[Cruise Wonderland]

4 hours ago, Baynanno1 said:

@Azamara Team

 

It seems there are different time frames for final payment in different parts of the world!

UK 90 days, Australia & Canada 120 days.

 

In this day and age, it takes no longer for a payment made electronically to travel from one country or another!

 

Surely final payment should be the same world wide as far as Azamara is concerned, yet the documentation is there on the various Azamara websites as noted in previous comments by cruisers from the different countries!!

 

 

It is also 120 days in Asia.

[Grandma Cruising]

I wonder if the differences are due to the different legal background relating to travel in each country.

[Baynanno1]

6 hours ago, Cruise Wonderland said:

 

It is also 120 days in Asia.

 

Thanks for the input.

 

Hopefully @Azamara Team might respond.

[Baynanno1]

2 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

I wonder if the differences are due to the different legal background relating to travel in each country.

 

It would be interesting to know just why some of us have to part with the full fare 30 days earlier than others!

[uktog]

I wonder if it’s a throwback to old times (delays in money transfers as Trish highlighted) but now it’s a cruise industry convention that suits them all so they’re not going to break rank. 
However it does cut both ways, Viking asks US guests to pay up in full much further in advance than UK guests are asked to (that one is a legislation issue). UK guests pay up at about the same point as they would with Azamara

[ceejilly]

My wife and I have a cruise booked for December 2021 through a TA based in the North of England, they usually ask for final payment 120 days before embarkation as this is calculated as, quote “we take the balance 30 days prior to the cruise line due date to build on some late leeway for late payments etc”, though for the December cruise I was informed that they required final payment by 180 days prior to embarkation.

 

On talking to the TA finance office to ask them to confirm if the company had changed its  payment policy, the response I received was that this change was correct.                      

 

I then called the TA’s Cruise Concierge who I deal with and was informed that the payment balance was showing as too early, this was corrected back to the expected 120 days.

 

I would expect that they (TA) had introduced this new payment period due to Covid-19 and its cash flow implications, needless to say I will be looking elsewhere when I book further cruises.

[Host Jazzbeau]

11 hours ago, uktog said:

However it does cut both ways, Viking asks US guests to pay up in full much further in advance than UK guests are asked to (that one is a legislation issue). UK guests pay up at about the same point as they would with Azamara

 

I suspect it's the same legislative issue for Azamara.  Every other area has reported in at 120 days, which seems to be what Azamara does when they are allowed to.  But the flip side is that your deposits are non-refundable.