Shore Ex credit vs regular OBC

[Travels with Lisa]

Has anyone had experience with both general OBC and credit specifically for shore ex?  I'm wondering if their system is smart enough to use the shore ex credit first when you book the excursions on line or do you need to call them.

 

TIA

[Gardendog]

In my experience, they use the shore excursions OBC first. 

[cavaaller]

Pardon me for adding a question:

The fine print of my "Experience more essentials" package says

"The Shore Excursion OBC portion of the Experience More Essentials Package will be applied to the booking as an individual component, with the option to spend pre-cruise. The balance of any pre-cruise spend of Shore Excursion OBC, will be reconciled once onboard"

Am I too optimistic if I think/hope that once on board shore excursions OBC becomes "just" OBC that may also be spent on spa, shops etc?

[Grandma Cruising]

5 hours ago, cavaaller said:

Pardon me for adding a question:

The fine print of my "Experience more essentials" package says

"The Shore Excursion OBC portion of the Experience More Essentials Package will be applied to the booking as an individual component, with the option to spend pre-cruise. The balance of any pre-cruise spend of Shore Excursion OBC, will be reconciled once onboard"

Am I too optimistic if I think/hope that once on board shore excursions OBC becomes "just" OBC that may also be spent on spa, shops etc?

I think you are too optimistic! We bought the Indulgence package which includes $250 spa credit. Once on the ship (Quest) the onboard account on the TV didn’t separate the Spa credit out, so we thought it could be used as ordinary OBC, so ‘spent’ some of it in the shop. We got a nasty shock when we got home and saw the final invoice and found out that our credit card had been charged for the things we bought in the shop!

[plucasana]

That is good to know, thanks @Grandma Cruising

Edited April 7, 2023 by plucasana

[tonyl1956]

15 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

I think you are too optimistic! We bought the Indulgence package which includes $250 spa credit. Once on the ship (Quest) the onboard account on the TV didn’t separate the Spa credit out, so we thought it could be used as ordinary OBC, so ‘spent’ some of it in the shop. We got a nasty shock when we got home and saw the final invoice and found out that our credit card had been charged for the things we bought in the shop!

Like you we bought the Indulgence package on Quest and found the onboard account confusing on the TV. The balance payable was incorrect at all times due to the fact that the 'reconciliation' doesn't happen until the very end of the cruise. We knew we'd marginally overspent on the Shore Excursion element but had enough Spa credit for my wife to buy some stuff from the Spa on the last day, leaving an unspent balance, but I was still confused enough by the end of the holiday to request a copy of the final account by email (no longer supplied on paper), though I was in fact more concerned that two real 'spends' on the last day hadn't been charged or had been charged to friends rather than us. The account showed that they don't offset between shore and spa credits, never mind 'ordinary' spending.

 

I hesitate to say it, but maybe the software system onboard needs an upgrade!!!!!!

[cruiseaholic78]

Just a general tip regarding using OBC in the shop, do not wait until the end of your cruise if you have quite a bit to spend. For some reason they don’t stock nearly enough larger sizes (for men at least) and on our port intensive cruise people were looking round desperately trying to spend their OBC! We managed it by being a bit earlier and DH looks great today wearing his 7diamonds shirt.

Rosalyn

[Riocca]

2 hours ago, tonyl1956 said:

Like you we bought the Indulgence package on Quest and found the onboard account confusing on the TV. The balance payable was incorrect at all times due to the fact that the 'reconciliation' doesn't happen until the very end of the cruise. We knew we'd marginally overspent on the Shore Excursion element but had enough Spa credit for my wife to buy some stuff from the Spa on the last day, leaving an unspent balance, but I was still confused enough by the end of the holiday to request a copy of the final account by email (no longer supplied on paper), though I was in fact more concerned that two real 'spends' on the last day hadn't been charged or had been charged to friends rather than us. The account showed that they don't offset between shore and spa credits, never mind 'ordinary' spending.

 

I hesitate to say it, but maybe the software system onboard needs an upgrade!!!!!!

I don’t think unless it was done manually onboard, which the ships probably didn’t have the resources to do, the old system could differentiate between the different types of OBC, over the years we’ve used Shorex OBC for other things many times without problems. However looking at our current bookings our OBC is showing in two categories general & Shorex so I have a feeling the new system once fully implemented is going to be a bit more pedantic.