Holland America not allowing AARP benefit to be combined with TA perks????

[bajae]

3 hours ago, margretha said:

Spoke with "agent" at HAL. Learned we have the AARP OBC on one cruise and will get the military OBC on the other because you can't get the AARP and Military both on the same cruise. Hey, free money so don't want to look a gift ship in the hold but that seems at odds with others have written. So no complaints here but glad to have gotten the reservation info from this thread and gotten the $$.

margretha

I have the AARP, shareholders benefit, educator, and military credit all applied to my cruise. All of these are linked to me, not my travel companion. 

[LAX]

9 hours ago, RRFan said:

Here is my experience.  We are stock owners (have been for years).  We already had two cruises booked with HAL for 2024 when I read about the AARP and Educator benefits in March.  I submitted both requests but did not expect to get them on our April cruise since it was already booked.  We were notified that the AARP and Educator status was verified, but never got any confirmation on credit being applied.  When we boarded the ship and checked our statement on the Navigator app, we had $300 OBC that we weren't expecting (we were expecting the owner's benefit and this was in addition).  So Yeah!! and yes it was combined with our owner's benefit, the TA benefit from the booking and both husband and I got the AARP (we have two numbers) plus I got the educator benefit.  

 

While onboard, we booked an August cruise and I was asking the future cruise person about the AARP and Educator benefits and told her we got them on the current cruise.  She said to tell our TA (we were transferring the booking to our local TA) and the TA would be able to get them applied.  My TA says he will look at that this week.  I got the feeling this was something new to him but he hated to admit he was going to have to figure it out.  So hoping for the best and will follow up with HAL if he tells me he can't do it.  Such a surprising benefit amount (all 3 cruises were two weeks in length BTW).  

Please correct me if I am misunderstanding your post. So you and your spouse are on the same reservation and able to receive AARP OBC for each AARP membership (so OBC x 2)?

 

LAX

 

[crystalspin]

1 hour ago, LAX said:

So you and your spouse are on the same reservation and able to receive AARP OBC for each AARP membership (so OBC x 2)?

The offer is perfectly clear that the benefit is per stateroom. (As I think you know!) I suspect there was some other OBC in the mix, as HAL does not make it clear where OBC is coming from on pax documentation.

 

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/us/cruise-deals/community-appreciation-cruise-offers/aarp-member-benefit-offer

 

[Bocker3]

11 hours ago, margretha said:

Spoke with "agent" at HAL. Learned we have the AARP OBC on one cruise and will get the military OBC on the other because you can't get the AARP and Military both on the same cruise.

This is incorrect information, unless it just changed.  I have both AARP and Veteran OBC on all my booked cruises.  I didn't have to do anything special to get them, other than remind my PCC that I should get both.  I'd call again and ask.

[electricguy]

I booked a cruise onboard April 28th.  The cruise was assigned to my big box TA.  The Cruise Consultant advised that the AARP OBC could not be automatically applied but would need to be requested by the TA.  Called the TA May 7th to have them “get” the cruise which took a few minutes.  However, it took him about 30 minutes on the phone with HAL to get the $200 AARP OBC.  Time well spent for OBC and TA cash card.

[scooter6139]

We have both AARP and Educator on our next cruise; just AARP applies to me, and Educator applies to my wife. At least, that is how our PCC told us it worked out.

[pghflyer]

I have (1) Holland Early Booking and (2) Holland Future Cruise Deposit and (3) AARP and (4) Healthcare and (5) TA OBC all on a single booking right now. Plan to add (6) Shareholder OBC before we cruise. I did get things lined up BEFORE booking, but I do hear it sometimes works after too.

[RRFan]

1 hour ago, pghflyer said:

I have (1) Holland Early Booking and (2) Holland Future Cruise Deposit and (3) AARP and (4) Healthcare and (5) TA OBC all on a single booking right now. Plan to add (6) Shareholder OBC before we cruise. I did get things lined up BEFORE booking, but I do hear it sometimes works after too.

Do you see that on your app, on the web or where?  I never see it but it’s there when we get onboard. I do see our future cruise deposits, but nothing else. Thanks!  

[crystalspin]

1 hour ago, RRFan said:

Do you see that on your app, on the web or where?  I never see it but it’s there when we get onboard. I do see our future cruise deposits, but nothing else. Thanks!  

The total amount of OBC is shown in your Booking Confirmation. If you are using a travel agent/agency, they get that document and may or may not pass it along to you. You could ask for it?

 

I do not know how transparent the breakdown of where the OBC came from is for TAs as I do not use one. I can get the breakdown from my PCC. 

[pghflyer]

7 hours ago, RRFan said:

Do you see that on your app, on the web or where?  I never see it but it’s there when we get onboard. I do see our future cruise deposits, but nothing else. Thanks!  

Same as @crystalspin I just had my TA run an updated booking confirmation for me and they produced a new one with the updated total I expected for OBC (but had not told them) - honestly my TA has no idea what extra stuff I have going on, they just see it when it refreshes. What I get from my TA does not break down the individual OBC but just has one overall OBC total from Holland and one over OBC total from the TA.

[ScottishMaid]

I booked two cruises back to back through a TA for August. I called HAL reservations today to follow up on the AARP benefit and the Educator/teacher benefit.

The agent said I already had an AARP benefit for a July cruise and I needed to reapply for the benefit for the August cruises. If I make dummy bookings for the cruises it shows I qualify for the benefit. Thoughts?

 

For the teacher benefit she said it can only be applied to one cruise so it's been applied to the first but not the second. I get the impression she's saying it can only be used once. It doesn't say that on HAL's information page. Anyone have experience with this?

[shadow 123]

10 hours ago, ScottishMaid said:

I booked two cruises back to back through a TA for August. I called HAL reservations today to follow up on the AARP benefit and the Educator/teacher benefit.

The agent said I already had an AARP benefit for a July cruise and I needed to reapply for the benefit for the August cruises. If I make dummy bookings for the cruises it shows I qualify for the benefit. Thoughts?

 

For the teacher benefit she said it can only be applied to one cruise so it's been applied to the first but not the second. I get the impression she's saying it can only be used once. It doesn't say that on HAL's information page. Anyone have experience with this?

I think the agents make it up as they go along

[doobieb]

On 5/19/2024 at 10:33 PM, RRFan said:

Do you see that on your app, on the web or where?  I never see it but it’s there when we get onboard. I do see our future cruise deposits, but nothing else. Thanks!  

We have educator and AARP obc for an upcoming cruise on the Oosterdam  in September. It was frustrating to me that I had to phone a PCC or shipboard services to know how much obc we had. I thought surely this would show up in our online account. I asked. No. You have to call and speak with someone to know if obc has been applied.

Somebody let me know if they had a different experience. Seems very old school.  

[Sea42]

1 hour ago, doobieb said:

We have educator and AARP obc for an upcoming cruise on the Oosterdam  in September. It was frustrating to me that I had to phone a PCC or shipboard services to know how much obc we had. I thought surely this would show up in our online account. I asked. No. You have to call and speak with someone to know if obc has been applied.

Somebody let me know if they had a different experience. Seems very old school.  

Our TA send us a statement that includes this information:

Includes: "Have It All" Perks.

Includes: Club Orange Upgrade - VC stateroom at VH rates.

Includes: $100 OBC Military Benefit

Includes: $100 OBC from Group Program

Includes: $1000 OBC as our gift (added prior to sailing).

Total OBC - $1200 per stateroom.

[shadow 123]

2 hours ago, Sea42 said:

Our TA send us a statement that includes this information:

Includes: "Have It All" Perks.

Includes: Club Orange Upgrade - VC stateroom at VH rates.

Includes: $100 OBC Military Benefit

Includes: $100 OBC from Group Program

Includes: $1000 OBC as our gift (added prior to sailing).

Total OBC - $1200 per stateroom.

That's exactly how I see my onboard credits from my new travel agent. However, when I called in to Holland America and asked if they could see all of those onboard credits they told me no. The only onboard credits they could see were the ones they gave me directly. Actually,  I'm glad to see this because it was new to me and I didn't know how to feel about that.

Edited Thursday at 03:57 PM by shadow 123

[RRFan]

4 hours ago, doobieb said:

We have educator and AARP obc for an upcoming cruise on the Oosterdam  in September. It was frustrating to me that I had to phone a PCC or shipboard services to know how much obc we had. I thought surely this would show up in our online account. I asked. No. You have to call and speak with someone to know if obc has been applied.

Somebody let me know if they had a different experience. Seems very old school.  

I think HAL has not standardized how they are handling this new (at least it’s new to me) OBC. We’ve had the stockholder’s benefit since ‘09 and have never had a glitch and always got it. I just learned about the AARP and Educator benefit earlier this year after we’d already booked and paid for our April cruise. We didn’t really expect to get it but when we got onboard, it was all there. Now trying to apply it to our Aug and Oct cruises and getting different answers when we ask HAL from what our TA was told by HAL. So far we seem to get all of it for Aug cruise but not Oct. We don’t make final pymt until July so we’re holding off to see if that triggers the rest of the OBC to be applied. 

[Tampa Girl]

A reminder, please....  how recent must the proof of Carnival stock ownership be with respect to the date of embarkation?   

[shadow 123]

When I started this thread it was because I could not get the AARP benefit combined with my travel agent benefit. However, I changed travel agents for my cruise next year and I got both.. I got the new travel agent on board credit and the AARP obc. Like I said before....go figure.

 

And..... Some of you may think this is mean and I'm sorry if you do but for my cruise that the travel agent benefits and the AARP benefits couldn't be combined, well I had that transferred to a different travel agent and everything was combined.

 

Ps .. I could transfer the cruise over because it was within the 30 days.

Edited Thursday at 04:07 PM by shadow 123

[RRFan]

5 minutes ago, Tampa Girl said:

A reminder, please....  how recent must the proof of Carnival stock ownership be with respect to the date of embarkation?   

It used to specify last 90 days, but now I just send the most recent quarterly stmt even if I’m applying for a cruise many months out. They want you to use the Stockperks app now instead of email or fax as we used to. That’s a whole other thread. The stock perks app verifies you own the stock and it seems once that’s verified, you just redeem the benefit.