Round 2: Don't pay for excursions with gift cards

[Eli_6]

Guess what? Same thing is happening again.

 

Even though I just had a problem with this when canceling another excursion booked with gift cards, I decided to cancel my "Paris On Your Own" excursion (costing $600 for 4 of us) because I wanted to book the Mt St. Michel excursion.  (I literally waited from September to March to book the Mt St. Michel excursion because I have been wanting to take it since my 2021 cruise was canceled and I had it booked as an excursion, but when it never showed up on Carnival's booking, I eventually decided to book the Paris excursion because we were getting so close to the cruise and I assumed Carnival simply wasn't going to offer MSM again. Sure enough, the MSM excursion showed up about a month later.)  I canceled POYO yesterday. No email confirming cancellation. No email about a refund.  Nothing. Just disappeared from my booking details.  So, I wait until today at noon hoping for at least the confirmation email saying I will get a refund. Nothing. So, I call the the fun shops.  On the line about ten minutes with her working on getting me my refund.  Then, without warning, I am put on hold.  Then the phone rings and someone in a different department answers. This time, a man.  And it isn't the fun shops.  He recommends I hang up and call the fun shops back.  So, here we go again...about to call back.  Why does this have to be so difficult?  

 

Yet again I am learning the lesson of don't pay for excursions with gift cards. It isn't worth the ten percent savings!

 

 

 

[wemjam]

So, I don't recall ever getting a cancellation email when I cancelled an excursion.  I have when I cancelled a cruise, but not an excursion or fun shop purchase.

 

I think if you just cancelled you have to wait at least a little bit.  They should be processing your refund and sending you new gift cards.  I would give it at least 7-10 days before you call.

 

After your last posting I cancelled a spa appointment because I wanted to do it a different day.  Didn't get an email, but had a gift card in the mail in like a week.

[wemjam]

PS:  If you sign up with Fed Ex you can see inbound packages as soon as they hit the system.  I get email alerts letting me know a package is on the way and can see it is from them.  Doesn't say Carnival, but something about card fulfillment or something like that and I know it is them.  They always send them Fed Ex

Edited May 3, 2023 by wemjam

[Eli_6]

3 minutes ago, wemjam said:

So, I don't recall ever getting a cancellation email when I cancelled an excursion.  I have when I cancelled a cruise, but not an excursion or fun shop purchase.

 

I think if you just cancelled you have to wait at least a little bit.  They should be processing your refund and sending you new gift cards.  I would give it at least 7-10 days before you call.

 

After your last posting I cancelled a spa appointment because I wanted to do it a different day.  Didn't get an email, but had a gift card in the mail in like a week.

I have always gotten a cancellation email when I cancelled an excursion before.  Only time I didn't was when I never got a refund...waited a month before before calling.  Not doing that again. 

[Eli_6]

After 35 minutes on the phone a second time, they are filling out a form for me to get new gift cards and they said I should have an email with the GCs in 5-7 business days.  Fingers crossed it works. 

[Illbcruzn4life]

As Yogi Berra used to say, “It’s deja vu all over again”.

[BlerkOne]

Next time use cash which is just as good as money.

[crooooze]

2 hours ago, Eli_6 said:

After 35 minutes on the phone a second time, they are filling out a form for me to get new gift cards and they said I should have an email with the GCs in 5-7 business days.  Fingers crossed it works. 

You should be good now. As I have mentioned in previous threads, this same situation will happen 100% of the time when you cancel a purchase you made with a gift card related to a cruise booked through a TA. This form is needed for a manual intervention. 

You may get the GC email by Fri.

[Saint Greg]

Get the Carnival credit card and just use it for excursions. You get a 10% statement credit on excursions.

[groundloop]

1 hour ago, crooooze said:

You should be good now. As I have mentioned in previous threads, this same situation will happen 100% of the time when you cancel a purchase you made with a gift card related to a cruise booked through a TA. This form is needed for a manual intervention. 

You may get the GC email by Fri.

 

THIS^^^^^

 

I had this issue a month ago.  I had received an email stating that my refund was being processed, and then............. nothing.  I wound up being on the phone with someone in fun-shops for 54 minutes, but it finally got taken care of.  The rep I talked to explained about about the "manual intervention", but this is really something Carnival needs to improve upon.  Besides giving customers high blood pressure it's costing Carnival a lot to have employees spending time dealing with this.

[Eli_6]

4 hours ago, crooooze said:

You should be good now. As I have mentioned in previous threads, this same situation will happen 100% of the time when you cancel a purchase you made with a gift card related to a cruise booked through a TA. This form is needed for a manual intervention. 

You may get the GC email by Fri.

This is the last time I using a TA so hopefully won't fight this again. 🙂

[mz-s]

4 hours ago, crooooze said:

You should be good now. As I have mentioned in previous threads, this same situation will happen 100% of the time when you cancel a purchase you made with a gift card related to a cruise booked through a TA. This form is needed for a manual intervention. 

You may get the GC email by Fri.

 

Seems like something Carnival should take a look at, if they cared about customer service.

[BlerkOne]

56 minutes ago, mz-s said:

 

Seems like something Carnival should take a look at, if they cared about customer service.

If you use a travel agent, why is it on Carnival?

[crooooze]

12 hours ago, mz-s said:

 

Seems like something Carnival should take a look at, if they cared about customer service.

I agree. I hope they’re working on it. But at least if people are aware of this, they know what to expect and exactly what has to be done. 

[crooooze]

11 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

If you use a travel agent, why is it on Carnival?

The TA was only used to book the cruise and not involved with booking excursions or dining through the Carnival Cruise Planner.

 

Those purchases are made directly with Carnival. And, yeah, behind the scenes, Carnival uses a third party for gift cards, but that should be hidden from the customer.

[wemjam]

16 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

Get the Carnival credit card and just use it for excursions. You get a 10% statement credit on excursions.

Had the Carnival card and closed it.  I had more issue getting my 10% credit from them then I have ever had with gift cards.

 

50% of the time I had to call to get the credit processed.  I would wait a couple months and nothing, and then I would have to call to get it done.

[wemjam]

17 hours ago, crooooze said:

You should be good now. As I have mentioned in previous threads, this same situation will happen 100% of the time when you cancel a purchase you made with a gift card related to a cruise booked through a TA. This form is needed for a manual intervention. 

You may get the GC email by Fri.

Do not agree with your 100% assessment at all.  I have cancelled items a LOT of different things using gift cards and only had an issue once or twice.  And those issues were stupid stuff.  Like I had used 2 gift cards, One for the majority of the purchase and the other was like $5 that I had left, they missed the $5 when the sent me new gift cards.  Called and had an emailed $5 gift card the next day.  Now I did have one issue like this OP where I didn't receive it at all, and after a shuffle game of phone calls and a lot of time on time and frustration on the phone it was resolved.  But it was the exception and not the rule.

 

 I literally just cancelled a spa item I used a gift card for like 3 weeks ago and had a new gift card in the mail in under a week.  So it is not 100% of the time there is an issue.

 

PS:  I have also had an issue with refund not going to my Credit Card once too.  So I think it is more about human error and oversight, then about the specific form of payment used.

[crooooze]

9 minutes ago, wemjam said:

Do not agree with your 100% assessment at all.  I have cancelled items a LOT of different things using gift cards and only had an issue once or twice.  And those issues were stupid stuff.  Like I had used 2 gift cards, One for the majority of the purchase and the other was like $5 that I had left, they missed the $5 when the sent me new gift cards.  Called and had an emailed $5 gift card the next day.  Now I did have one issue like this OP where I didn't receive it at all, and after a shuffle game of phone calls and a lot of time on time and frustration on the phone it was resolved.  But it was the exception and not the rule.

 

 I literally just cancelled a spa item I used a gift card for like 3 weeks ago and had a new gift card in the mail in under a week.  So it is not 100% of the time there is an issue.

 

PS:  I have also had an issue with refund not going to my Credit Card once too.  So I think it is more about human error and oversight, then about the specific form of payment used.

Were all those cruises booked directly through Carnival either by yourself or using a PVP? If so, then I agree - you wouldn’t have this issue.

 

[ontheweb]

12 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

If you use a travel agent, why is it on Carnival?

Why, because the excursions were purchased from Carnival. Every cruise line will speak to you to purchase excursions directly from them even if the cruise itself is purchased through a TA. 

 

They are cruise line excursions, not travel agent excursions!

[wemjam]

11 minutes ago, crooooze said:

Were all those cruises booked directly through Carnival either by yourself or using a PVP? If so, then I agree - you wouldn’t have this issue.

 

Yes.

[Saint Greg]

39 minutes ago, wemjam said:

Had the Carnival card and closed it.  I had more issue getting my 10% credit from them then I have ever had with gift cards.

 

50% of the time I had to call to get the credit processed.  I would wait a couple months and nothing, and then I would have to call to get it done.

 

I've never had to call.

[groundloop]

13 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

If you use a travel agent, why is it on Carnival?

 

As with the other responses, my cruise was booked through a travel agent but excursions were purchased directly from the Carnival website.  It just doesn't make sense (to my feeble little mind anyway) why getting a refund from a purchase made directly with Carnival should be so complicated.

[Eli_6]

I did book with a Travel Agent.  I won't be doing so again.  

 

I tried to modify my post to read: Don't book with a TA and then buy an excursion with a gift card...but could no longer modify.  Apparently, that is what the problem is. Live and learn.  Now I know.

 

I feel like I even though I have been doing this for awhile, I keep learning these *new* things that I should and shouldn't do.  And if I ever book with another cruise line (like I will have to do if I ever want to cruise to Egypt) it is going to be like starting over.  I have done NCL and RCL, but it has been awhile.

[BlerkOne]

1 hour ago, groundloop said:

 

As with the other responses, my cruise was booked through a travel agent but excursions were purchased directly from the Carnival website.  It just doesn't make sense (to my feeble little mind anyway) why getting a refund from a purchase made directly with Carnival should be so complicated.

Did you use a discounted gift card?

[Schoifmom]

24 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

Did you use a discounted gift card?

Other than simple curiosity, the answer to that shouldn't have any impact at all.  From the retailer's perspective, gift card value is the value, not the amount paid for it.