Onboard bill charged in U.S. dollars only?

[traveling teacher2010]

Wondering if any Canadians can help out here. At the end of the cruise, will HAL convert your cabin charges into Canadian dollars before billing your credit card? Hoping to avoid the 2.5% international credit card fee. Thanks Canucks!  

[shebag]

They have always sent the charges in US dollars to CC then it gets converted there, only other option is to pay the bill in cash prior to disembarkation.

[highscar]

Always have and always will pay cash. 

[CurlerRob]

Nope - they clearly state the onboard currency is USD.

 

I register a US dollar credit card from my bank as my shipboard CC, and pay it with funds from my USD account - beats the international fee (unfortunately, not the exchange!). 🍺🥌

[sunviking90]

We have a Mastercard that doesn’t have the 2.5 fee and that’s what we use for USD charges. We have had other cruise lines give us the option of having the charges converted, but we always decline as the exchange is not favorable. 
What you can do, if you’re at least 4 days before your cruise is purchase onboard credit for at least the amount of the tips, or what you think your charges may come to. These are purchased in CAD so you don’t have to worry about the CC exchange AND right now they are charging $125 for $100 usd, so a bit better exchange than the current 1.30 ish. 

[VMax1700]

Also check out pre paying the Crew Appreciation charge aka tips, grats, service charge, hotel charge etc.

The exchange rate can be very beneficial and it is charged in the currency of the booking.

Example: for our present 14 day cruise on Rotterdam the Tips are US$15.50 x 14 day (per person).  That would be us$217 each.  The exchange rate USD-Euro was $1.02 = €1.00, but would be lucky to get $1 to a Euro.  The cost to pre pay the tips was Euro 193 each.  That is a saving of approx €24 each and most important is that is does not effect the amount of tips for the crew.

[Tigrou]

1 hour ago, VMax1700 said:

Also check out pre paying the Crew Appreciation charge aka tips, grats, service charge, hotel charge etc.

The exchange rate can be very beneficial and it is charged in the currency of the booking.

Example: for our present 14 day cruise on Rotterdam the Tips are US$15.50 x 14 day (per person).  That would be us$217 each.  The exchange rate USD-Euro was $1.02 = €1.00, but would be lucky to get $1 to a Euro.  The cost to pre pay the tips was Euro 193 each.  That is a saving of approx €24 each and most important is that is does not effect the amount of tips for the crew.

 

Thank you for this.  I didn't realise that if pre-paid it would be in the booking currency, or that the exchange rate would be beneficial.  I've just pre-paid mine in £ and got a rate of $1.30/£ which it hasn't been since April (currently $1.13). 

 

[robotpony]

We. use a USD RBC card, and transfer money to that account ahead of our travels. This lets us time our conversions, and forgoes the extra fees many cards have.

[Damcruiser]

2 minutes ago, robotpony said:

We. use a USD RBC card, and transfer money to that account ahead of our travels. This lets us time our conversions, and forgoes the extra fees many cards have.

But does the bank not charge you for converting CAD into US$ that you deposit?

[robotpony]

4 minutes ago, Damcruiser said:

But does the bank not charge you for converting CAD into US$ that you deposit?

Yes, but not at 2.5% (only .2%), when moving between US and CAD accounts. We also keep some investments in USD, and can pull from those with no additional fees.

[Damcruiser]

If one selects paying by cash, do you pay daily or their guess at overall spending for the whole cruise?

 

We have the get it all package and don't expect to spend much on board.

[Florida_gal_50]

For any Canadian that might be interested Home Trust Visa offers a credit card with transaction fee and there is no yearly fee on the credit card.  I believe all the others do charge a yearly fee.

[Torquer]

In Canada (and other non-US countries), aren't there any credit cards available that have no foreign transaction fees?  In addition to onboard spending, I would think this would also be important for you for buying things in foreign ports.

 

In the US, sometimes you have to search a bit to find credit cards with no foreign transaction fees, but they are available.  In our case, 2 of our 4 credit cards have no foreign transaction fees, so those are what we use in foreign countries.  In fact one of them, we only use in foreign countries because it has PIN priority and you don't get the funny looks outside the US when the seller finds he has to get a signature for a credit card transaction and  doesn't know what to do.

[traveling teacher2010]

16 hours ago, sunviking90 said:

We have a Mastercard that doesn’t have the 2.5 fee and that’s what we use for USD charges. We have had other cruise lines give us the option of having the charges converted, but we always decline as the exchange is not favorable. 

16 hours ago, sunviking90 said:

We have a Mastercard that doesn’t have the 2.5 fee and that’s what we use for USD charges. We have had other cruise lines give us the option of having the charges converted, but we always decline as the exchange is not favorable. What you can do, if you’re at least 4 days before your cruise is purchase onboard credit for at least the amount of the tips, or what you think your charges may come to. These are purchased in CAD so you don’t have to worry about the CC exchange AND right now they are charging $125 for $100 usd, so a bit better exchange than the current 1.30 ish. 

 

16 hours ago, sunviking90 said:

We have a Mastercard that doesn’t have the 2.5 fee and that’s what we use for USD charges. We have had other cruise lines give us the option of having the charges converted, but we always decline as the exchange is not favorable. 
What you can do, if you’re at least 4 days before your cruise is purchase onboard credit for at least the amount of the tips, or what you think your charges may come to. These are purchased in CAD so you don’t have to worry about the CC exchange AND right now they are charging $125 for $100 usd, so a bit better exchange than the current 1.30 ish. 

Thanks Sun Viking. I like your idea of purchasing onboard credits ahead of time. Scotiabank has a passport visa with no fees for international purchases so I'm also looking at that.

 

 

 

[Damcruiser]

8 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

For any Canadian that might be interested Home Trust Visa offers a credit card with transaction fee and there is no yearly fee on the credit card.  I believe all the others do charge a yearly fee.

I cancelled mine when I stopped cruising and they stopped giving points on US$ purchases..

I also had a Scotia passport which I dumped because  their annual fee was more than my annual savings..  Now that we are dipping our toes in cruising again, the Home Trust Visa might be worthwhile again.

If one gets points for spending it's tough to calculate the 2.5 % charge vs the points to use at hotels such as AMEX Bonvoy which gives a free hotel room every year... in US funds.

[highscar]

@DamcruiserI pay cash at the end of the cruise. 

[traveling teacher2010]

32 minutes ago, robotpony said:

We. use a USD RBC card, and transfer money to that account ahead of our travels. This lets us time our conversions, and forgoes the extra fees many cards have.

Hmmm Do you earn travel points on that RBC USD account? My points card is RBC and perhaps points could be transferred from a USD RBC account to my other card. I hate not getting travel points for major purchases. I'm going to check it out!

[daisy-mae]

22 minutes ago, highscar said:

@DamcruiserI pay cash at the end of the cruise. 

So do we. And we don't need to wait until the end of the cruise - cash can be deposited on our onboard account at any time.

[richwmn]

1 hour ago, Damcruiser said:

If one selects paying by cash, do you pay daily or their guess at overall spending for the whole cruise?

 

We have the get it all package and don't expect to spend much on board.

If you wish to pay in cash they request a deposit of $60 per person per day be deposited at the front desk at the beginning of the cruise, or by purchasing OBC prior to the cruise. At the end of the cruise they will refund any overage in cash or back to the card used. If you over spend the deposit, they will request more during  the cruise.

[VMax1700]

1 hour ago, Torquer said:

and other non-US countries), aren't there any credit cards available that have no foreign transaction fees?

There are no charges within countries using the euro.

[VMax1700]

26 minutes ago, richwmn said:

If you wish to pay in cash they request a deposit of $60 per person per day be deposited at the front desk at the beginning of the cruise, or by purchasing OBC prior to the cruise. At the end of the cruise they will refund any overage in cash or back to the card used. If you over spend the deposit, they will request more during  the cruise.

Is it not possible to use a credit card for the 'deposit' of $60/day and then pay cash on last evening?

 

[sailingdutchy]

18 hours ago, sunviking90 said:

We have a Mastercard that doesn’t have the 2.5 fee and that’s what we use for USD charges. We have had other cruise lines give us the option of having the charges converted, but we always decline as the exchange is not favorable. 
What you can do, if you’re at least 4 days before your cruise is purchase onboard credit for at least the amount of the tips, or what you think your charges may come to. These are purchased in CAD so you don’t have to worry about the CC exchange AND right now they are charging $125 for $100 usd, so a bit better exchange than the current 1.30 ish. 

 

@sunviking90 Could you please tell me if that is still available and how and where to arrange that . We have done this for our last few cruises purchase a gift to ourselves of $1000 or more before our cruise and received a good exchange rate but  I was told by my TA that for our next cruise  she could not find that option anymore. The balance I usually always pay in cash and have never been asked to pay a deposit because my Credit Card is on file with HAL . 

[richwmn]

16 minutes ago, VMax1700 said:

Is it not possible to use a credit card for the 'deposit' of $60/day and then pay cash on last evening?

 

Yes you could but that would cause the 'hold' which is a concern to some. In addition the question concerned selecting the cash option for payment which would require a cash deposit or purchased OBC at the beginning of the cruise.

[VMax1700]

1 minute ago, richwmn said:

Yes you could but that would cause the 'hold' which is a concern to some. In addition the question concerned selecting the cash option for payment which would require a cash deposit or purchased OBC at the beginning of the cruise.

But it would get around the 2.5% transaction charge as the 'hold' would not be classed as a transaction.

[sunviking90]

1 hour ago, sailingdutchy said:

 

@sunviking90 Could you please tell me if that is still available and how and where to arrange that . We have done this for our last few cruises purchase a gift to ourselves of $1000 or more before our cruise and received a good exchange rate but  I was told by my TA that for our next cruise  she could not find that option anymore. The balance I usually always pay in cash and have never been asked to pay a deposit because my Credit Card is on file with HAL . 

It was available as recently as 2 weeks ago when we were getting ready for our cruise. Unfortunately I don’t currently have any cruises booked with HAL, so I can’t tell you exactly how to find it, but if you log in and go into “my bookings” there should be options there. I “think” it will be under onboard gifts, etc.