Shareholder OBC towards Cruise Next certificates

[dasmonkey]

On Breakaway and $100 OBC will not apply to Cruise Next.  Is this standard not to work towards this.  If not any suggestions on cashing it out? 

[gmbhardy]

You can no longer use non refundable OBC to purchase CruiseNext certificates. Use it to upgrade your cruise experience, room service, premium drinks, duty free purchases, gif shop, and a host of other things not included in your cruise fare.

[dasmonkey]

Thanks, I was afraid of that.  Literally need nothing else I need or want on board but will figure something out. 

[oteixeira]

2 minutes ago, dasmonkey said:

Thanks, I was afraid of that.  Literally need nothing else I need or want on board but will figure something out. 

Buy a nice bottle of champagne?  Bring home a gift for the person watching your home/dog/cat/people?  Splurge at a dinner in a pay restaurant?  There are tons of ways to spend it.

[LloydJr]

Shorex

Taxes on drinks in port

Nominal upcharges for drinks over $15.

 

These are things a lot of us would have paid for regardless.  

[FLAHAM]

I usually buy a bottle of cognac with the shareholder OBC.  Sometimes some chocolates from the ship’s chocolate shop.

[pghflyer]

I feel you, it is a nice problem to have but definitely a problem when you have the Free at Sea package and status - my laundry, drinks, shore excursions, and specialty dining are already paid for up to as much as I can use them.   

 

I am going to try and see if any of my pre-booked excursions are still available once I am on the ship and then will refund my CC and rebook onboard (which will use my OBC).

Other than that, yes, the others are correct you may need to stock up on miscellaneous purchases from the ship store for take home.

[luv2kroooz]

Yes, Norwegian makes it exceptionally difficult to use your onboard credit on things of value to you. They will allow it to be used on things that have very little value to them. It would be nice if you could use it to pre cruise to buy an upgraded dining package in advance of your cruise. It would be nice if you could use it to pre-book shore excursions on the NCL website. Other cruise lines allow this, but not NCL. With NCL, they show you how much onboard credit you have right beside the screen that shows you everything you can prepay for.

 

Of course, other cruise lines allow onboard credit to be used in the casino, used against the daily service charge, etc. NCL, not surprisingly, is very very restrictive.  Good luck and have a great cruise.

[ggTexasGal]

11 minutes ago, pghflyer said:

I am going to try and see if any of my pre-booked excursions are still available once I am on the ship and then will refund my CC and rebook onboard (which will use my OBC).

I hope you are able to get what you believe!  However, over this past year, when any of our pre-booked excursions got cancelled while onboard, the funds went directly into our Onboard Credit accounts (not back to our credit card). Has happened on multiple cruises. 😏

[pghflyer]

Thanks....I have never done this before but my understanding is the refunded pre-booked excursions are REFUNDABLE OBC, and when you rebook onboard, the non-Refundable is used first so I believe the end result (unless I spend it) would be a refund.  But yeah a lot of mechanics involved............

[dbrown84]

I will also have this OBC for the first time on my cruise in 2 weeks.  I'm waiting to get onboard and then will upgrade my drink package, thus using the $100 credit to offset the cost 

[ggTexasGal]

1 minute ago, pghflyer said:

Thanks....I have never done this before but my understanding is the refunded pre-booked excursions are REFUNDABLE OBC, and when you rebook onboard, the non-Refundable is used first so I believe the end result (unless I spend it) would be a refund.  But yeah a lot of mechanics involved............

They have been giving only CASH refunds prior to disembarkation (stopping people at their final card scan, in order to "CASH OUT."  (Many posts about this taking. Also, happened to us in January.)

[pghflyer]

Thanks for sharing, I had heard that. Still if it all worked, I would rather have my cash than a suitcase full of NCL t-shirts.

[Russiamomm]

2 hours ago, oteixeira said:

Buy a nice bottle of champagne?  Bring home a gift for the person watching your home/dog/cat/people?  Splurge at a dinner in a pay restaurant?  There are tons of ways to spend it.

This.  Use it for Starbucks, an extra specialty dinner or at the duty free.  If you know any smokers, cigarettes are dirt cheap and a good way to use OBC.

[julig22]

So, here's my last experience.  I had $100 in SH OBC.  Bought $250 in CNC and charged $100 in cash in the casino.  Per the app (no account info available on the TV), my account balance at that time was $253 which would imply that the $100 was used but the app can be misleading so I can't verify.

Then came some excursion credits ($300+ in cash, reduced to $200 after FAS was reversed) plus another $100 in NR OBC for a missed port.

Other charges came to less than $50.

So $200 cash + $200 NR OBC less $350 in non-eligible purchases yet at the end of the day, I ended with a credit.  Creative accounting at the very least, I'm not complaining.  YMMV.

[dasmonkey]

18 hours ago, dasmonkey said:

On Breakaway and $100 OBC will not apply to Cruise Next.  Is this standard not to work towards this.  If not any suggestions on cashing it out? 

Thanks for all the suggestions.  Used some for Saphire meal tip in Cagney's last night.  2 more specialty meals lined up so will do more of that.  

[laudergayle]

12 minutes ago, dasmonkey said:

Thanks for all the suggestions.  Used some for Saphire meal tip in Cagney's last night.  2 more specialty meals lined up so will do more of that.  

From my experience, sometimes the SH OBC can be used as gratuity in specialty dining venues…and sometimes not.  I believe the non refundable OBC terms state it cannot be used for gratuities.  On the Breakaway last Fall our OBC covered those gratuities. Recently on the Epic, the OBC did not cover them.  So, for us it is hit or miss.

[dasmonkey]

It showed as deducted this morning on the account so it appears to be working on Breakaway for now. 

[pghflyer]

Nice!! I definitely used non-refundable OBC for my CruiseNext certificate purchase on Jewel this time last year, but I know the official T&Cs have changed.

[julig22]

2 hours ago, laudergayle said:

From my experience, sometimes the SH OBC can be used as gratuity in specialty dining venues…and sometimes not.  I believe the non refundable OBC terms state it cannot be used for gratuities.  On the Breakaway last Fall our OBC covered those gratuities. Recently on the Epic, the OBC did not cover them.  So, for us it is hit or miss.

As far as I know, it can be used for gratuities on meals.  Just not the daily service charge.

[laudergayle]

3 minutes ago, julig22 said:

As far as I know, it can be used for gratuities on meals.  Just not the daily service charge.

Yeah that is what I thought, however on the Epic in February I did an upcharge $6 plus $10 tip. The $6 counted towards OBC and the $10 didn’t. It was easy to see on our account as it was the very first night so no other activity to cloud the picture. It surprised me as it did work on the Breakaway.

[Joken35]

We used our OBC towards the purchase of CNC. On the Gateway in January.At first it appeared that they did not credit it but the next day they did use the OBC we already had.Seems to be no rhyme or reason to things on N L lately

 

[pghflyer]

On 3/21/2023 at 6:28 PM, pghflyer said:

Thanks....I have never done this before but my understanding is the refunded pre-booked excursions are REFUNDABLE OBC, and when you rebook onboard, the non-Refundable is used first so I believe the end result (unless I spend it) would be a refund.  But yeah a lot of mechanics involved............

Just to confirm back, I got my approach to work out fine for me on the Jade last week. I had a lot of non-refundable OBC and had prebooked (paid with CC) all my excursions. On the first day onboard, I  went to the Shore Excursion desk and they did not touch my actual excursion bookings but instead just adjusted the amounts on my bill by refunding and reapplying them.  As a result, all my non-refundable OBC (up to the amount of my shore excursions I had prebooked) became refundable and I got cash on the day before departure.