Consequence of getting cruise refund by disputing the credit card charge

[jimbo5544]

Just now, ontheweb said:

how hard would it have been to let people know after 90 days where they stood for getting their refund? Say we are sorry, your refund is not yet processes. We expect it to be within....

I was not there, Ican only give you my view.  We had hudreds, possibly more than a thousand customers that all wanted the same thing.  We spent months trying to get them their monies back.  They thought they could do it in 90 days. If it ended there, I could floow up with just those customers for just those credits.  But many rebooked, and then those cruises were cancelled, and add another one.  Then repeat, repeat, repeat.  Try it the math does not work.They did their very best to meet their commitments to their customers.so.  I talked with these people on the phone, day after day after day (on my own dime btw, for months.  I-talked to varying levels of people within the organizations (many, not just Carnival and cruising) and they all were doing their very best.  I firmly believe that.You can accept that or not.

[Sam Ting]

4 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

I was not there, Ican only give you my view.  We had hudreds, possibly more than a thousand customers that all wanted the same thing.  We spent months trying to get them their monies back.  They thought they could do it in 90 days. If it ended there, I could floow up with just those customers for just those credits.  But many rebooked, and then those cruises were cancelled, and add another one.  Then repeat, repeat, repeat.  Try it the math does not work.They did their very best to meet their commitments to their customers.so.  I talked with these people on the phone, day after day after day (on my own dime btw, for months.  I-talked to varying levels of people within the organizations (many, not just Carnival and cruising) and they all were doing their very best.  I firmly believe that.You can accept that or not.

They were doing the best for themselves, not their customers. 

[jimbo5544]

1 minute ago, Sam Ting said:

They were doing the best for themselves, not their customers. 

Well that is a view

[EngIceDave]

It is unreasonable to expect CCL (which is ALL of their products) would be able to handle every refund on a case by case basis.

 

Period.

 

Seven months is also unreasonable

 

Options are to continue to wait or fight.

You chose fight

You won, good for you.

But they will no longer accept the credit card used and had the charges challenged.

 

Not sure what anyone wants, other than argue

[SwordBlazer Cruising]

I want to chime in with opinion and fact. Fact is CCL is a publicly traded company and did not violate any FTC polices.
 

Opinion is yes this could have been handled better all around, on all sides, but you also need to look at the card issuing banks terms and conditions for chargebacks. While the FTC does set guidelines, each card issuing bank has their own as well. i can personally say that it took AMEX to refund me 45 days for a simple TV return. They had he money but did not release it. So people also need to drill down to their credit cars or bank as they also had a hand in the delay as well. 

[sparks1093]

1 hour ago, ontheweb said:

how hard would it have been to let people know after 90 days where they stood for getting their refund? Say we are sorry, your refund is not yet processes. We expect it to be within....

And use manpower that was being used to process the refunds, thereby creating more delays? 

[sparks1093]

1 hour ago, jimbo5544 said:

OK, the poster does not care and I am really not trying to provoke them, but I will answer your question.  There is only one system.  This system was designed to book clients, not cance or cancel and rebook them in mass.  No booking engine in the travel industry was designed for that.  The system works the same for all situations.  They have to be done one at a time and touch several systems, the booking engine, the accounting system and others that I could mention but really do not pertain to the reply.  So the important piece is that everything has to go through the same process, which requires people contact, either the client to Carnival, client to PVP or client to TA.  

 

To add to this, Carnival (and every other cruise line) wanted to try and retain the booking.  The way they accomplished this was to offer a credit (it varied somewhat over the span of what was to come).  Again thinking. That there is one system, for sake of discussion, I will talk to the way we did, which was client to TA.  Someone would call, or be notified that there cruise was cancelled, or that they wanted to cancel.  There is important distinction between these two, because if it triggered several items.  Examples of this were like the following:  was it a cancellation by Carnival, by the customer, was it inside final payment or not, was there penalties in play (if the customer cancelled) stc etc etc.. Then add another variable to the equation, do they want to cancel or rebook.  Then add another variable to the mix is this the first time or was a booking rolled from one cruise, to another cruise, to another cruise etcetcetc.  Then add another variable, was all the payments on the same card, was there credits involved, was there gift cards involved etc etc etc.  Then add another variable, it matterd what the payments were for in some instances, port charges, taxes etc.

 

So each time, we would get a call, determine what the customer wanted and call Carnival.  Their system was overloaded, again not designed for anything like this, AS WAS EVERY SINGLE SYSTEM IN THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY (hey I kind of like this caps thing…. So the caller on the other end would have to look at the booking from birh to death (the case for a cancellation, others varied) and walk through with accounting while we were on hold, all the transactions that had occured.

 

Now someone cans ay they should have built a system to handle covid, but the truth and fair reply to this is nobody knew and nobody did.  Take all of what I wrote and multiple times hundreds of thousands of bookings, all happenign again and again, because who thought this would be a year and half.  

 

Long answer 

And this was undoubtedly all being done by an employee who is working from home using an internet connection much slower than the one they use in the office. I know that no one liked the delay but this was something no one could plan for.

[ProgRockCruiser]

1 hour ago, jimbo5544 said:

Long answer 

Thanks, and I do appreciate that!

[Joe817]

6 minutes ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

Thanks, and I do appreciate that!

I do too! Thanks for detailed explanation on how the travel industry works. Very educational. Thanks jimbo! 👍

[Alibaster McGillicutty]

2 hours ago, fyree39 said:

 

I read the same complaints on the Princess and HAL boards. I also read on non-CCL lines of long delays in getting refunds. I think this was a huge problem for many lines.

 

 

We were booked on a HAL cruise for May 2020 and we got ours back within the 90 days as promised.  I recall some going over that when viewing that board.

What was interesting (I'm sure it was on the CCL board here too) was all the people disputing with their cards and suggesting others do the same prior to the 90 days.  There were some level-heads telling them to be patient.  Lots of anxiety at that time with the cruise industry that they would all go bankrupt and you better get your $ while you can.  A big ol' cash grab and you better get yours before it runs out.

 

 

[jimbo5544]

31 minutes ago, sparks1093 said:

And this was undoubtedly all being done by an employee who is working from home using an internet connection much slower than the one they use in the office. I know that no one liked the delay but this was something no one could plan for.

And having to deal With unhappy people, day after day after dat after day.  Personally I think they did a remarkable job.  

[jimbo5544]

32 minutes ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

Thanks, and I do appreciate that!

You are welcome

[jimbo5544]

25 minutes ago, Joe817 said:

I do too! Thanks for detailed explanation on how the travel industry works. Very educational. Thanks jimbo! 👍

My pleasure.   

[jimbo5544]

13 minutes ago, Alibaster McGillicutty said:

We were booked on a HAL cruise for May 2020 and we got ours back within the 90 days as promised.  I recall some going over that when viewing that board.

What was interesting (I'm sure it was on the CCL board here too) was all the people disputing with their cards and suggesting others do the same prior to the 90 days.  There were some level-heads telling them to be patient.  Lots of anxiety at that time with the cruise industry that they would all go bankrupt and you better get your $ while you can.  A big ol' cash grab and you better get yours before it runs out.

 

 

Good post. 

[BlerkOne]

1 hour ago, ontheweb said:

how hard would it have been to let people know after 90 days where they stood for getting their refund? Say we are sorry, your refund is not yet processes. We expect it to be within....

Pretty hard considering how many employees Carnival let go. Carnival could have just filed for bankruptcy and that would put an end to people contesting charges.

 

The system was not designed for the unprecedented number of refunds, rebookings, etc that were taking place. Now Carnival is doing much better.

 

The customer is not always right and is quite often wrong. Especially when they believe bad advice from the Internet.

 

[BlerkOne]

37 minutes ago, sparks1093 said:

And this was undoubtedly all being done by an employee who is working from home using an internet connection much slower than the one they use in the office. I know that no one liked the delay but this was something no one could plan for.

Actually multiple employees, since multiple departments were involved. But yes, remotely.

[sanger727]

3 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

OK, the poster does not care and I am really not trying to provoke them, but I will answer your question.  There is only one system.  This system was designed to book clients, not cance or cancel and rebook them in mass.  No booking engine in the travel industry was designed for that.  The system works the same for all situations.  They have to be done one at a time and touch several systems, the booking engine, the accounting system and others that I could mention but really do not pertain to the reply.  So the important piece is that everything has to go through the same process, which requires people contact, either the client to Carnival, client to PVP or client to TA.  

 

To add to this, Carnival (and every other cruise line) wanted to try and retain the booking.  The way they accomplished this was to offer a credit (it varied somewhat over the span of what was to come).  Again thinking. That there is one system, for sake of discussion, I will talk to the way we did, which was client to TA.  Someone would call, or be notified that there cruise was cancelled, or that they wanted to cancel.  There is important distinction between these two, because if it triggered several items.  Examples of this were like the following:  was it a cancellation by Carnival, by the customer, was it inside final payment or not, was there penalties in play (if the customer cancelled) stc etc etc.. Then add another variable to the equation, do they want to cancel or rebook.  Then add another variable to the mix is this the first time or was a booking rolled from one cruise, to another cruise, to another cruise etcetcetc.  Then add another variable, was all the payments on the same card, was there credits involved, was there gift cards involved etc etc etc.  Then add another variable, it matterd what the payments were for in some instances, port charges, taxes etc.

 

So each time, we would get a call, determine what the customer wanted and call Carnival.  Their system was overloaded, again not designed for anything like this, AS WAS EVERY SINGLE SYSTEM IN THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY (hey I kind of like this caps thing…. So the caller on the other end would have to look at the booking from birh to death (the case for a cancellation, others varied) and walk through with accounting while we were on hold, all the transactions that had occured.

 

Now someone cans ay they should have built a system to handle covid, but the truth and fair reply to this is nobody knew and nobody did.  Take all of what I wrote and multiple times hundreds of thousands of bookings, all happenign again and again, because who thought this would be a year and half.  

 

Long answer 

 

Adding onto this; this was in the midst of offices shutting down, workers being laid off and furloughed, and companies repositioning jobs for people to work from home.

 

I had one issue with a charge, and my credit company said upfront the due to extreme staffing issues that they didn't recommend calling them, just to fill out forms online and submit them... and wait, and wait, and wait. I wasn't mad and didn't blame them for that.

 

I think people are forgetting how much businesses went to $*it last year. Many products and services among many industries suffered. Shoot remember not having toilet paper in stores for two months and grocery stores rationing meat and canned goods?

[volfan22701]

sad that some find this kind of thing by the cruise line to be acceptable business practice. they would never make it owning a business and treating customers this way. 

[Rob-Bob]

I had a Celebrity cruise cancelled in June 2020 and received my cash refund in 30 days.  They handled it just fine.  I wonder how they did so much better than CCL with all of the problems faced that are being described on this board.  

 

I really think some cruise lines just wanted to hang on to the money longer.  I also had a cruise cancelled on MSC and it took way longer than the 60 days promised.  

 

Why the difference?

[CoasterGuy]

OP needs to take a deep breath and calm down. And stop worrying if someone disagrees with them.

[jimbo5544]

1 hour ago, CoasterGuy said:

OP needs to take a deep breath and calm down. And stop worrying if someone disagrees with them.

 

1 hour ago, Rob-Bob said:

I had a Celebrity cruise cancelled in June 2020 and received my cash refund in 30 days.  They handled it just fine.  I wonder how they did so much better than CCL with all of the problems faced that are being described on this board.  

 

I really think some cruise lines just wanted to hang on to the money longer.  I also had a cruise cancelled on MSC and it took way longer than the 60 days promised.  

 

Why the difference?

Pretty easy one,  How many ships does Celebrity have?  How many does Carnival have?  How many does MSC have?  Then ask how many bookings were affected by each line.  The answer is you can add a zero from Celebrity to MSC and then again from MSC to Carnival.  You can think whatever you want (like another poster does regardless of the facts submitted, which is fine).   One last point to put it in perspective, CArnival had 4.5 billion in deposits on the books, think of how many transactions that is.

[Alibaster McGillicutty]

1 hour ago, Rob-Bob said:

I had a Celebrity cruise cancelled in June 2020 and received my cash refund in 30 days.  They handled it just fine.  I wonder how they did so much better than CCL with all of the problems faced that are being described on this board.  

 

I really think some cruise lines just wanted to hang on to the money longer.  I also had a cruise cancelled on MSC and it took way longer than the 60 days promised.  

 

Why the difference?

Question for those that had the experience......

What were the wait times for those that received refunds on booked CCL cruises?

 

We know the OP waited 7 months after being told 90 days.

Others gave their experience on other lines.

 

Was the CCL board melting down when the chaos began in 2020?  I was not hanging out here because I didn't have a CCL booked so couldn't tell you the vibe.

 

[Rob-Bob]

4 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Pretty easy one,  How many ships does Celebrity have?  How many does Carnival have?  How many does MSC have?  Then ask how many bookings were affected by each line.  The answer is you can add a zero from Celebrity to MSC and then again from MSC to Carnival.  You can think whatever you want (like another poster does regardless of the facts submitted, which is fine).   One last point to put it in perspective, CArnival had 4.5 billion in deposits on the books, think of how many transactions that is.

Not to really get into a debate but your numbers are way off.  Ships are Carnival - 23, MSC - 14, Celebrity - 10.  I am not sure of bookings but ships are not multiples of 10.

 

I would think the number of employees would be in the same percentages.  More for CCL.

[mommysoncruiser]

4 minutes ago, Alibaster McGillicutty said:

Question for those that had the experience......

What were the wait times for those that received refunds on booked CCL cruises?

 

We know the OP waited 7 months after being told 90 days.

Others gave their experience on other lines.

 

Was the CCL board melting down when the chaos began in 2020?  I was not hanging out here because I didn't have a CCL booked so couldn't tell you the vibe.

 

Well I can only speak for me and my experience. I had two cruise booked with Royal Caribbean and when they cancelled my cruises, they notified me of the cancellation and I had my money back within 1 or 2 weeks without pause. They were booked at different times and for different years and Royal was very efficient with refunding. Never had to ask nor did I have any unreasonable wait. This is my experience only so I cannot speak for anyone else.

[Sam Ting]

3 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Pretty hard considering how many employees Carnival let go. Carnival could have just filed for bankruptcy and that would put an end to people contesting charges.

 

The system was not designed for the unprecedented number of refunds, rebookings, etc that were taking place. Now Carnival is doing much better.

 

The customer is not always right and is quite often wrong. Especially when they believe bad advice from the Internet.

 

Carnival is the one that laid off their employees.  Now you think it’s an acceptable excuse for them to be so untimely with the refunds?  That’s just absurd.  How many executives with million dollar salaries did they lay off?