Courtesy Hold - TA

[Tedferg]

I used Chat hoping they would release the Hold and allow TA to see the cabin. The chat person did not understand what I was asking for, understandably. He sent me the TA transfer form but I though processing it could take way too long. TA booked the cruise with an adjacent equally acceptable cabin.

[mbglib]

3 hours ago, Mary loves to travel said:

When I was looking at the most recent cruise we booked (1-2 weeks ago), I selected a cabin, etc.   Last step offered the choice of using our FCD , use a credit card for the deposit, or do a Hold.   
 

We did the courtesy Hold, then the next day decided to move forward.    At this point, using the FCD was no longer offered as an option.  
I used Live Chat, and they were able to use our FCDs.   That took only a few minutes.   
No idea why we couldn’t do that ourselves.  
 

 

Mary

I did the same and the chat function applied all four of our FCDs!  It was a mess.

[Coral]

3 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

Theresa, I had that situation last week & it has changed.

 

On the Elite level one day early booking we saw our bucket list Around Australia cruise that was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic. I check cabin availability before contacting my TA & since cabins were rapidly being booked made a 3 day Hold before contacting her. Unfortunately she could not take over our Hold even though no deposit had been made.

I was going to ask my TA this weekend but I think you saved me the trouble of doing so! thanks for confirming that the process has changed.

 

Sounds like an amazing cruise!

Edited April 15, 2023 by Coral

[Coral]

3 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

Looking at a screenshot I took of my 4/4/23 Hold it stated payment was due on 4/7…3 days or 72+ hours which is basically your experience. 🙂
 

Our deposit was due on Good Friday & didn’t want to risk it by waiting that long hoping the transfer to my TA would be made before deposit was due. As it turned out the transfer was made on the same day the deposit was due however I wasn’t willing to risk losing our bucket list cruise.

 

I think Travel Agents can push it to 5 days but the standard is 3 days, that is unless the cruise is near or past final payment. Then it is often 1 day.

[Steelers36]

For those using a TA, I would suggest when wanting to put a cruise on hold to first check into whether your agency has a self-serve booking engine instead of doing it on Princess.com.  One other poster recommended this on page 1.  If you do the booking on your agency website, your TA can easily pick up where you left off and no need to fuss with transfer form. 

 

I am not aware of a third-party booking engine that offers up FCD option for a deposit.  This is because the booking engines are generic and cover multiple cruise lines and don't appear to have any specific features.  If your agency booking process requires payment at the end, just put in fake credit card number (if you know how to alter some of your CC digits and get it accepted as a valid number). What happens is the booking gets made and you will have a booking in Princess system and get a confirmation number back.  However, payment will have failed and the agency will be looking to you to provide a valid number.  But that's NBD as you are going to follow up with your agent. 

 

The above is useful if agency is closed or your TA is off and you want to be sure to grab a price point or particular cabin.

[jonesbk]

Dunno about transferring holds to a TA, but…..

 

When doing courtesy holds, make sure you don’t have any FCC (leftover from cancelled “pause” cruises, not FCDs) as if you put a courtesy hold on a cruise, if you have any FCCs, Princess’ system automatically uses them and books the cruise versus just placing a hold on the cabin for you.

 

I just put a hold on a cruise this past weekend and emailed my PVP and, to my surprise, she emailed me back the next business day saying she saw that I was able to book it and everything looked right. A few emails later and a follow up phone call and I was made aware of Princess’ system apparently having the “power” to automatically book the cruise if you have any FCCs still in the system even if you’re just trying to place a hold on it. Very annoying, and my PVP loses out on the booking credit, an issue that they’ve made their management aware of.

 

I honestly don’t understand how Princess can “force” you to book a cruise that you are just placing a hold on, especially when the deposit is non-refundable. So if you decide not to book it, after they’ve forced you to book it, you lose your FCC. If I decided to cancel the booking, I am hopeful, but not overly so, that I could have the FCC reinstated.

 

If this has been mentioned on the boards previously, my apologies. We haven’t cruised (with Princess) since before the pause and haven’t been following Cruise Critic much. We did however try HAL recently and while it was “nice”, HAL is no substitute for Princess IMO.

[caribill]

3 hours ago, jonesbk said:

I honestly don’t understand how Princess can “force” you to book a cruise that you are just placing a hold on, especially when the deposit is non-refundable.

 

Lousy programming?

[Tedferg]

Our TA is a one-person shop and I put the courtesy hold after hours.