Gift card OBC cancelled on a booking?

[PacnGoNow]

Has anyone ever had gift cards added to their sailing as OBC by a Princess agent and then a couple of days later they were

cancelled by Princess? 
 

If so, whom do you call to get them back on your sailing?  I did send a message to Customer relations. 

 

I have made 7 calls and 2 chats in the last 5 days.  I get disconnected, because I believe they have no idea how to handle this.  It took 2 agents to get them into the booking as OBC on Aug 2nd & Aug 3rd.
I did see them on my booking until Aug 5th. Now, they’ve disappeared.  No one on the weekends can help.  

 

TA can’t touch this because I am the one who went through PCL for this. Now I need to straighten it out.  What a pain.

 

Since Princess cancelled them, do they refund back to the gift card or put them back on my sailing?  They now show a zero value, so I know they were posted to my booking. I was going to pre purchase excursions.  If they do reload them on my giftcards, how long does that take?

 

I will NEVER call them in again for OBC. In the future, I’ll just present them OB. Learned my lesson.

[Cruise Raider]

I had good luck during the height of pandemic when calling Princess Cruises Gift Card Customer Service @1-833-907-3079.  It seems they know everything about the gift cards and may even be able to check to see where the balance currently sits.  They even answered the phone without waiting on hold forever.  

BTW, yes .. mine were reloaded back to the gift cards.  If you've tossed the numbers and the pins, they should also be able to issue you new cards.  Fingers crossed for you ... bon voyage.  

PS .... I think they are also only available on weekdays but who knows, someone might be there on a Saturday.  

Edited August 6, 2022 by Cruise Raider

[PacnGoNow]

3 hours ago, Cruise Raider said:

I had good luck during the height of pandemic when calling Princess Cruises Gift Card Customer Service @1-833-907-3079.  It seems they know everything about the gift cards and may even be able to check to see where the balance currently sits.  They even answered the phone without waiting on hold forever.  

BTW, yes .. mine were reloaded back to the gift cards.  If you've tossed the numbers and the pins, they should also be able to issue you new cards.  Fingers crossed for you ... bon voyage.  

PS .... I think they are also only available on weekdays but who knows, someone might be there on a Saturday.  

Thank you.  I did call them a couple of times, they just sell them and check balances, unfortunately.  They are a third party vendor, not Princess employees.

I have copies of them, no problem.

 

Do you remember how long it took  to reload?

[Cruise Raider]

14 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

Thank you.  I did call them a couple of times, they just sell them and check balances, unfortunately.  They are a third party vendor, not Princess employees.

I have copies of them, no problem.

 

Do you remember how long it took  to reload?

Good to know.  Mine were during the height of the pandemic so it may be different now but it seems like mine were reloaded in about 6 weeks.  Everything was slowed down at that point in time.  

[PacnGoNow]

4 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

Good to know.  Mine were during the height of the pandemic so it may be different now but it seems like mine were reloaded in about 6 weeks.  Everything was slowed down at that point in time.  

Thanks again!  I don’t think things have sped up yet!  😬

[beg3yrs]

I used some GCs to pay for some shore excursions last week. Have a B2B2B coming up so I was doing it in batches. Book a few, pay for a few, etc. You can't enter GCs as payment on the website, you have to call in. 😱

 

The first time I didn't have to wait very long and the agent knew what they were doing and took care of things.

 

A day later I had four more to pay for so back on the phone. Again, not a very long hold at all but ... This agent kept putting me on hold for some unknown reason and would come back about five minutes later. I suspect he was getting help from some source. Finally he took the numbers for the card and then said it didn't work. He tried again. We realized the remaining balance on the card wasn't sufficient and I was told you couldn't make a partial payment. Fortunately I had another card which worked. All seemed fine and I hung up.

 

Went to look at my excursions on the website and horror of all horrors, only my excursions had been paid and DW's were not. I checked the balances on the cards and the first card, the one that didn't have enough funds, now had a zero balance! The second card which did, had a balance a couple hundred dollars lower than it should have. Blood pressure rising here ...

 

Tried calling back and after explaining all this to the first agent I was told that he couldn't work with the GCs in the detail required to solve the problem. He transferred me to "Customer Solutions". The person who picked up the phone listened to the long explanation and when I finished by saying "That's why I am now speaking to you in Customer Solutions". "Oh", he says, "You want Customer Solutions? Hold the line while I transfer you!" Blood pressure rising some more...

 

One hour later on hold I hung up. Blood pressure slowly dropping with self medication (Gin and Tonic).

The next morning I called again and finally got a wonderful representative that knew her job and got everything fixed (I hope). She said the first card going to a zero balance had somehow overpaid the actual cruise fare (was already paid-in-full). The second card she couldn't figure out where all the funds went. So we decided to start over as she could refund all the cards in total and re-pay for all the excursions. Said the GC refunds would take a day or two to show up.

 

Blood pressure still slightly elevated but it's too early for self-medication.

 

So to paraphrase PacnGoNow, be very careful using GCs, when they screw up it's hard to get things fixed.

[PacnGoNow]

48 minutes ago, beg3yrs said:

I used some GCs to pay for some shore excursions last week. Have a B2B2B coming up so I was doing it in batches. Book a few, pay for a few, etc. You can't enter GCs as payment on the website, you have to call in. 😱

 

The first time I didn't have to wait very long and the agent knew what they were doing and took care of things.

 

A day later I had four more to pay for so back on the phone. Again, not a very long hold at all but ... This agent kept putting me on hold for some unknown reason and would come back about five minutes later. I suspect he was getting help from some source. Finally he took the numbers for the card and then said it didn't work. He tried again. We realized the remaining balance on the card wasn't sufficient and I was told you couldn't make a partial payment. Fortunately I had another card which worked. All seemed fine and I hung up.

 

Went to look at my excursions on the website and horror of all horrors, only my excursions had been paid and DW's were not. I checked the balances on the cards and the first card, the one that didn't have enough funds, now had a zero balance! The second card which did, had a balance a couple hundred dollars lower than it should have. Blood pressure rising here ...

 

Tried calling back and after explaining all this to the first agent I was told that he couldn't work with the GCs in the detail required to solve the problem. He transferred me to "Customer Solutions". The person who picked up the phone listened to the long explanation and when I finished by saying "That's why I am now speaking to you in Customer Solutions". "Oh", he says, "You want Customer Solutions? Hold the line while I transfer you!" Blood pressure rising some more...

 

One hour later on hold I hung up. Blood pressure slowly dropping with self medication (Gin and Tonic).

The next morning I called again and finally got a wonderful representative that knew her job and got everything fixed (I hope). She said the first card going to a zero balance had somehow overpaid the actual cruise fare (was already paid-in-full). The second card she couldn't figure out where all the funds went. So we decided to start over as she could refund all the cards in total and re-pay for all the excursions. Said the GC refunds would take a day or two to show up.

 

Blood pressure still slightly elevated but it's too early for self-medication.

 

So to paraphrase PacnGoNow, be very careful using GCs, when they screw up it's hard to get things fixed.

OH NO, I didn’t know whether to laugh or 

cringe at your ordeal.  But, I can relate.

 

I didn’t try to enter any GC’s.  I just called agent’s to do it. BIG MISTAKE!  Never again.  
 

Who was able to refund all the GC’s and start over?  Was it a regular customer service agent or did you get transferred to Customer Solutions again?  I didn’t know a regular agent was empowered to do that?

 

I will try first thing tmrw and it will be my 8th call.

 

 

 

[CineGraphic]

22 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

I did see them on my booking until Aug 5th. Now, they’ve disappeared.

 

Have you checked your Cruise Summary?

[PacnGoNow]

12 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Have you checked your Cruise Summary?

Yes, nothing and of course my onboard services-which shows OB credits also….no gift card credits.

 

I did see… 4 Onboard gift credits on my 2nd attempt to have an agent enter these GC’s.  I said, No it should be 2 GC’s.

 

She said, okay I got it now for 2!  After an hour plus time. We hung up then.  So, I looked at it again….

4…..Gc’s!  
Next day…someone cancelled ALL 4!  
 

I didn’t think about medication like @beg3yrs had mentioned. Maybe I should have. 😝

Edited August 7, 2022 by PacnGoNow

[beg3yrs]

2 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

...

Who was able to refund all the GC’s and start over?  Was it a regular customer service agent or did you get transferred to Customer Solutions again?  I didn’t know a regular agent was empowered to do that?

...

It wasn't a Customer Solutions agent. I went with option 2 (booked customer) and then instead of choosing the Excursions option I chose Other, figuring "Other" would have more extensive capabilities.

 

When the agent answered (12 minutes later - not too bad) I immediately asked her if she had the authority to examine and correct GC transactions as well as deal with shore excursion purchases. She said she did and we went from there.

 

Kudos to Keysuana (silent "u") at Princess for handling this so well!

[PacnGoNow]

20 minutes ago, beg3yrs said:

It wasn't a Customer Solutions agent. I went with option 2 (booked customer) and then instead of choosing the Excursions option I chose Other, figuring "Other" would have more extensive capabilities.

 

When the agent answered (12 minutes later - not too bad) I immediately asked her if she had the authority to examine and correct GC transactions as well as deal with shore excursion purchases. She said she did and we went from there.

 

Kudos to Keysuana (silent "u") at Princess for handling this so well!

I hope I’m that lucky.  So, does yours still look good?  Lmk how long it took to get the refund loaded back on your GC’s.

 

 

[PacnGoNow]

Thanks again everyone for

the replies.

[PacnGoNow]

17 hours ago, beg3yrs said:

It wasn't a Customer Solutions agent. I went with option 2 (booked customer) and then instead of choosing the Excursions option I chose Other, figuring "Other" would have more extensive capabilities.

 

When the agent answered (12 minutes later - not too bad) I immediately asked her if she had the authority to examine and correct GC transactions as well as deal with shore excursion purchases. She said she did and we went from there.

 

Kudos to Keysuana (silent "u") at Princess for handling this so well!

I have to report the good news!

I called first thing this morning, got right through, transferred to customer solutions!  Immediately got through again.  Yeah!!!

 

Spoke to Key, probably same rep you had.  She was great. She called the dept that fixes the OBC’s and within minutes

my GC’s for my  OBC showed up on my cruise as onboard gift credit’s.

 

I am going to print it out and not touch them until I’m OB!  😝
 

 

 

 

S

[CineGraphic]

1 hour ago, PacnGoNow said:

Spoke to Key, probably same rep you had.  She was great. She called the dept that fixes the OBC’s and within minutes

my GC’s for my  OBC showed up on my cruise as onboard gift credit’s.

 

 

I'm glad that you are able to resolve everything to your satisfaction, and saddened by the fact, (but not surprised) that it seems only a handful of folks know how to make things right at Princess.

[San10s]

I’m bringing my Princess Gift Cards with me on my November cruise.  I will go to the Purser’s desk to get hem placed on my on board account.  
That should work… Right? 🙄🙄

[PacnGoNow]

12 minutes ago, San10s said:

I’m bringing my Princess Gift Cards with me on my November cruise.  I will go to the Purser’s desk to get hem placed on my on board account.  
That should work… Right? 🙄🙄

YES!!!  From now on that’s what I’m doing!

[PacnGoNow]

22 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

 

I'm glad that you are able to resolve everything to your satisfaction, and saddened by the fact, (but not surprised) that it seems only a handful of folks know how to make things right at Princess.

Thanks.  I thanked her several times. It was great to find someone who could

do this.