opinions please? Assigned guarantee

[Banditswife]

We are booked on Nieuw Statendam for March 25th & again on April 1, 2023.  We booked an inside cabin for the April 1 sailing (L6213) in order to save $ on a cruise my son & his wife are on.  Then I received a casino offer for an OV guarantee, F category & booked the 3/25 sail date using the offer.  The 4/1 date was not in the offer.  We were just assigned K6193, which is an inside cabin.  Can they do that? I thought on a category F guarantee they had to assign a window (OV) or better.  So do I call the HAL folks & complain, will I get results?  What are our options?

[KAKcruiser]

Well, there is no harm in calling.  Did you receive a written confirmation when you booked the cruise?  Do you still have a copy of the original offer?

[Laminator]

27 minutes ago, Banditswife said:

We are booked on Nieuw Statendam for March 25th & again on April 1, 2023.  We booked an inside cabin for the April 1 sailing (L6213) in order to save $ on a cruise my son & his wife are on.  Then I received a casino offer for an OV guarantee, F category & booked the 3/25 sail date using the offer.  The 4/1 date was not in the offer.  We were just assigned K6193, which is an inside cabin.  Can they do that? I thought on a category F guarantee they had to assign a window (OV) or better.  So do I call the HAL folks & complain, will I get results?  What are our options?

Usually it says based on availability in the fine print!

[Banditswife]

2 minutes ago, Laminator said:

Usually it says based on availability in the fine print!

ok thanks, I will look at our offer again.

[Banditswife]

Up until tonight, our booking said Category F.  We've been checking every day for the past couple of weeks.

[Banditswife]

8 hours ago, KAKcruiser said:

Well, there is no harm in calling.  Did you receive a written confirmation when you booked the cruise?  Do you still have a copy of the original offer?

yes, I have a copy of the original offer.  Thanks to reading cruise critic, I learned to print out everything 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Banditswife

[DaveOKC]

Did you "link" your two cruises when you booked? HAL may have thought you wanted the same category for both and thus moved you up on the second week from a L to a K and down the first week to a K.  Just a thought......

[Banditswife]

1 hour ago, DaveOKC said:

Did you "link" your two cruises when you booked? HAL may have thought you wanted the same category for both and thus moved you up on the second week from a L to a K and down the first week to a K.  Just a thought......

If they had put us in the same cabin, I might not have minded so much.  But we are not in the same cabin for both, just down the hall a bit.  And that may be their reasoning- an easier move.  I am waiting until Seattle time is at least 8 AM, then I will call.  

[FlorenceItaly]

30 minutes ago, Banditswife said:

If they had put us in the same cabin, I might not have minded so much.  But we are not in the same cabin for both, just down the hall a bit.  And that may be their reasoning- an easier move.  I am waiting until Seattle time is at least 8 AM, then I will call.  

Let us know how it goes.  Thank you.

[Banditswife]

I called & was put on hold, then sent to another dept who again put me on a long hold & kept telling me this wasn't covered by his dept.  But he was able to find an F category way at the back of ship on deck 1-#F1183.  But I am pretty sure those get bad reviews from noise & fumes.  So we kept the 6193 an inside which is close to our April 1 cabin #6213.  

 

[FlorenceItaly]

25 minutes ago, Banditswife said:

I called & was put on hold, then sent to another dept who again put me on a long hold & kept telling me this wasn't covered by his dept.  But he was able to find an F category way at the back of ship on deck 1-#F1183.  But I am pretty sure those get bad reviews from noise & fumes.  So we kept the 6193 an inside which is close to our April 1 cabin #6213.  

 

Did anyone have any explanation why and how this happened?  Reason I ask is Laminator mentioning the casino offer and fine print.  I have never read of anyone not being assigned booked category the offer is for and wondered if this was something new to consider.  I am glad you got it worked out but sorry it was so much trouble.  Thank you for the update.

[KAKcruiser]

Maybe you should call back.  Another person might give you a different result.

[Banditswife]

I most likely won't call back.  The 1st rep was friendly, but really couldn't figure out why they changed our booking to an "inside" from an F.  What she saw on her end was the inside guarantee.  I explained that every day, up until last evening, when we checked for our assignment, our booking said "category F."  And that I had the offer we booked under printed out in front of me.  That is when she transferred me to another person who kept repeating that this wasn't his dept.  As I said the 2nd person was able to find a very undesireable OV.  After a very long hold time, he had already switched us from 6193 to 1183 w/o even asking me if that would be ok/better.  And then got mad when I said we would prefer the more desireable inside 6193.  And then he had the nerve to tell me that this call was taking too long.  

 

Since he was able to find an undesirable OV, I am pretty sure they are not supposed to give you anything less than the guarantee category, just don't be surprised if it is the worst cabin in that category.  

[KAKcruiser]

You just explained my point.  All the reps are different and you definitely got a bad one.  The next one might just be better.  (Or maybe not.)

[Banditswife]

9 hours ago, KAKcruiser said:

You just explained my point.  All the reps are different and you definitely got a bad one.  The next one might just be better.  (Or maybe not.)

You could be right, but I think we are done with HAL for awhile.  If we had a regular HAL PCC, it might be a better experience.  But I don't think we are allowed to ask for names/numbers on Cruise Critic.  We've had bad experiences with the one Hal assigns to us, so usually just call the generic number when we need help.

[DaveOKC]

20 minutes ago, Banditswife said:

You could be right, but I think we are done with HAL for awhile.  If we had a regular HAL PCC, it might be a better experience.  But I don't think we are allowed to ask for names/numbers on Cruise Critic.  We've had bad experiences with the one Hal assigns to us, so usually just call the generic number when we need help.

Call the HAL PCC 800-355-3017 number and ask to be reassigned.  Nothing to lose and you might find a good one.

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by DaveOKC