Voucher Credit Question

[mhb1757]

We paid for an upcoming cruise with a voucher ( from a canceled cruise during COVID). I know the full value of the voucher must be used before we board or it is forfeited. I had planned to use the remainder to upgrade our airfare however that was only available for our outbound flights so there was quite a bit of credit left over.  I have prepaid gratuities and booked all the optional excursions we wanted and there is still some left. My DD and SIL are cruising with us in a different cabin. Does anyone know if Viking will let me use the remaining credit to book optional excursions for them?  
any other suggestions for using the remaining credit? (Not really interested in SSBP)?

[duquephart]

27 minutes ago, mhb1757 said:

We paid for an upcoming cruise with a voucher ( from a canceled cruise during COVID). I know the full value of the voucher must be used before we board or it is forfeited. I had planned to use the remainder to upgrade our airfare however that was only available for our outbound flights so there was quite a bit of credit left over.  I have prepaid gratuities and booked all the optional excursions we wanted and there is still some left. My DD and SIL are cruising with us in a different cabin. Does anyone know if Viking will let me use the remaining credit to book optional excursions for them?  
any other suggestions for using the remaining credit? (Not really interested in SSBP)?

 

Two words: jewelry store.

[Heidi13]

50 minutes ago, mhb1757 said:

We paid for an upcoming cruise with a voucher ( from a canceled cruise during COVID). I know the full value of the voucher must be used before we board or it is forfeited. I had planned to use the remainder to upgrade our airfare however that was only available for our outbound flights so there was quite a bit of credit left over.  I have prepaid gratuities and booked all the optional excursions we wanted and there is still some left. My DD and SIL are cruising with us in a different cabin. Does anyone know if Viking will let me use the remaining credit to book optional excursions for them?  
any other suggestions for using the remaining credit? (Not really interested in SSBP)?

 

Doesn't hurt to ask Viking the question, but I expect it is unlikely.

 

Another possible option is to book additional optional shore-ex and then cancel them once onboard. Hopefully, they will refund the credits to your onboard account, which could be used onboard.

[TayanaLorna]

33 minutes ago, duquephart said:

 

Two words: jewelry store.

Has to be used before boarding so spa treatments and shopping on board does not work.

[TayanaLorna]

10 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Doesn't hurt to ask Viking the question, but I expect it is unlikely.

 

Another possible option is to book additional optional shore-ex and then cancel them once onboard. Hopefully, they will refund the credits to your onboard account, which could be used onboard.

Another possibility is to book optional excursions for your DD & SIL on your MVJ account and pay for them with your vouchers.  The excursions must be different from yours and not overlap with any of your excursion times.  That might be tough.  The excursion tickets that are issued and will be in your stateroom do not have names or room numbers on them.  Just give those to your family.

[SailorPaulH]

2 hours ago, mhb1757 said:

We paid for an upcoming cruise with a voucher ( from a canceled cruise during COVID). I know the full value of the voucher must be used before we board or it is forfeited. I had planned to use the remainder to upgrade our airfare however that was only available for our outbound flights so there was quite a bit of credit left over.  I have prepaid gratuities and booked all the optional excursions we wanted and there is still some left. My DD and SIL are cruising with us in a different cabin. Does anyone know if Viking will let me use the remaining credit to book optional excursions for them?  
any other suggestions for using the remaining credit? (Not really interested in SSBP)?

Is there enough left over that you could justify upgrading your cabin?

[janetcbl]

1 hour ago, TayanaLorna said:

Another possibility is to book optional excursions for your DD & SIL on your MVJ account and pay for them with your vouchers.  The excursions must be different from yours and not overlap with any of your excursion times.  That might be tough.  The excursion tickets that are issued and will be in your stateroom do not have names or room numbers on them.  Just give those to your family.

Our excursion tickets have our names and cabin numbers on them.

[ropomo]

They do not check the names on the excursion tickets. They just blindly take them at the onset of the excursion.

[TayanaLorna]

2 hours ago, SailorPaulH said:

Is there enough left over that you could justify upgrading your cabin?

LOL.  That shows how observant I've been!  I always checked to be sure we had the correct excursions but don't recall names or cabin numbers.

[TayanaLorna]

1 hour ago, ropomo said:

They do not check the names on the excursion tickets. They just blindly take them at the onset of the excursion.

And this is true.  

[Peregrina651]

4 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Doesn't hurt to ask Viking the question, but I expect it is unlikely.

 

Another possible option is to book additional optional shore-ex and then cancel them once onboard. Hopefully, they will refund the credits to your onboard account, which could be used onboard.

 

Andy, I'm pretty sure that booking extra tours won't work. Viking is very good about keeping track of refundable and non-refundable funds.

 

However, I do agree with Andy that you should ask Viking and I go further to suggest that you should skip the call center and deal directly with the folks at tellus@vikingcruises.com. "TellUs" is a bit higher up the customer service ladder.

 

ALSO, revisit the airfare. Is upgrade not available because you are returning to a US port or is not available because there were no seats available at the time you tried to book? If the latter, maybe seats have opened up. Keep trying.

 

 

[mhb1757]

On 7/18/2022 at 1:47 PM, SailorPaulH said:

Is there enough left over that you could justify upgrading your cabin?

Cruise is sold out so no option to upgrade. 😢

[mhb1757]

On 7/18/2022 at 5:04 PM, Peregrina651 said:

 

ALSO, revisit the airfare. Is upgrade not available because you are returning to a US port or is not available because there were no seats available at the time you tried to book? If the latter, maybe seats have opened up. Keep trying.

 

 

Apparently Viking could only book economy or business on that flight. I was wanting premium economy and they can’t book that on their contract.  business seats were not available on the long haul flight… those could potentially open up and I will watch but they will be ticketing the flights before long and then we won’t be able to upgrade. 

Edited July 20, 2022 by mhb1757

[SailorPaulH]

12 minutes ago, mhb1757 said:

Apparently Viking could only book economy or business on that flight. I was wanting premium economy and they can’t book that on their contract.  business seats were not available on the long haul flight… those could potentially open up and I will watch but they will be ticketing the flights before long and then we won’t be able to upgrade. 

Did you find out if your cruise voucher balance was transferable? I thought vouchers that were issued due to Viking cancelling a cruise due to Covid were transferable - but don't take my word for it: I would definitely get an answer from a resource like tellus@vikingcruises.com (I believe that's the best email to reach out to).

[mhb1757]

23 hours ago, SailorPaulH said:

Did you find out if your cruise voucher balance was transferable? I thought vouchers that were issued due to Viking cancelling a cruise due to Covid were transferable - but don't take my word for it: I would definitely get an answer from a resource like tellus@vikingcruises.com (I believe that's the best email to reach out to).

The voucher was transferable but it must be used by one person on a single cruise.  I can’t use part and transfer the remainder to another person or even apply the remainder to another cruise. 

[Hazel52]

On 7/18/2022 at 11:23 AM, Heidi13 said:

 

Doesn't hurt to ask Viking the question, but I expect it is unlikely.

 

Another possible option is to book additional optional shore-ex and then cancel them once onboard. Hopefully, they will refund the credits to your onboard account, which could be used onboard.

This is my question exactly. Does anyone know if they will do this? I was thinking of booking spa appts with the hopes that some of the sold out excursions will open up once on board so we can cancel spa and pay for excursions.

[mhb1757]

I did hear back from TellUs. The voucher cannot be used to book anything for another passenger. Flights have now been ticketed so cannot be upgraded (seats were not available anyway). She was able to remove a $200 referral credit voucher that had been applied to this cruise after I applied the FCC voucher and it will be available for a future booking, so that helped a little. We will probably just book some more optional excursions unless I can come up with something better. 

[SailorPaulH]

On 7/20/2022 at 6:35 PM, mhb1757 said:

Cruise is sold out so no option to upgrade. 😢

Keep checking - there may be cancellations in higher level cabins even this late in the game. Good luck.