Princess changed price by $4400 after final payment

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

We booked a Vista Suite (formerly Penthouse Suite) on the Sun Princess over Thanksgiving through our TA.

 

The sailing was quoted the day before they announced the changes to Sanctuary Suites and booked with final payment made the day after the announcement. 

 

When making final payment with Princess, I confirmed (in writing) that this booking was being made with their new Sanctuary Suites program and included the Premier Package and anything else that changed with the new Sanctuary program since they gave us the quote the day before this program was announced. 

 

In writing they confirmed that yes, this definitely does include the Premier Package along with everything else. 

 

---

 

Fast forward to Monday of this week when I reach out to change our stateroom # (same category, just a different room) and they are happy to help but when they send me the updated booking confirmation, I see that it shows a balance of $4,400.

 

I crosscheck this with my previous confirmation to make sure I didn't miss something and I see four things:

 

- Booking says "Vista Suite" (not Penthouse Suite, confirming it was booked under the new program

- Net Due shows $0
- Below that it shows "balance paid in full"
- At the bottom of Page 2 it says, "Sanctuary Benefits"

 

---

 

I reached out to Princess about this and all they can tell me is that there was a mistake made and even though I have everything in writing as paid in full, our price has indeed gone up $4,400.

 

Somebody was supposed to follow up with me about this earlier this week but nobody has so I'm a bit at a loss as to where to go from here. 

 

---

 

Legally can they do this? I'm guessing they can but it seems like a breach of contract and we've already booked non-refundable flights so I'm feeling a bit stuck at the moment. 

 

If anybody has any insight they can offer, I would truly appreciate it. 

 

Thank you in advance!

[PacnGoNow]

This is so aggravating.  I don’t understand, that if you went through a TA…was it the TA that made an error?  Or, did you call into PCL to change your cabin?  Or, was it the TA you called and they failed to advise of the increase?  Sounds as though they rebooked the cabin and it was higher?

 

PCL is not supposed to touch a TA booking, especially, rebooking it or making changes.

Hopefully, it wasn’t a PCL agent who changed it.

 

No matter what, your issue should be with the TA, as they own that booking.  I would definitely call them immediately and see what they did.  I do not believe that increase sounds correct, if they did not advise you when you changed the cabin.  I would speak to the manager of the TA if you need to.

 

Best of luck to you.

Let us know.

[vjmatty]

Changing the room within the same category should not trigger a price change or change your booking in any other way. It sounds like someone made a mistake in the booking system. Definitely keep on this. 

[tulok]

This happened to us in February. We booked regular veranda on deck 10 aft on Emerald through my TA. Only 2 cabins available side by side on 10 was by the elevators and opening of the hall. Would have been okay but 2 cabins opened up the next day, just 3 away and more aft.  My TA didn’t even tell me the problems he was having until it was done. When he called Princess as moving my SIL was not a problem but moving my cabin caused it to go from BD cabin to price as a B2 (on deck plans it is not even close to the B2) and upped my price by 1500. He had to talk to 2 supervisors to get them to price it correctly.  It was a Princess pricing glitch and was corrected evidently (after 45mins) My TA stated that on all lines you have to watch pricing very closely as they have caught a lot of issues the last few years.

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

54 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

This is so aggravating.  I don’t understand, that if you went through a TA…was it the TA that made an error?  Or, did you call into PCL to change your cabin?  Or, was it the TA you called and they failed to advise of the increase?  Sounds as though they rebooked the cabin and it was higher?

 

PCL is not supposed to touch a TA booking, especially, rebooking it or making changes.

Hopefully, it wasn’t a PCL agent who changed it.

 

No matter what, your issue should be with the TA, as they own that booking.  I would definitely call them immediately and see what they did.  I do not believe that increase sounds correct, if they did not advise you when you changed the cabin.  I would speak to the manager of the TA if you need to.

 

Best of luck to you.

Let us know.

 

The room change was through PCL (chat) but unrelated to the change in price - that just happened to be why I noticed that it didn't show the booking was paid in full any longer.

 

I don't know if PCL should have helped with the room change or not when we used a TA, but they did help (and that wasn't related to the price change...that happened before we changed rooms, it was just that nobody told us up until we saw the new booking confirmation). 

 

When I spoke to them about the price change, two different people confirmed it had nothing to do with the room change, the price actually changed back on May 4th, they just never told us about this.

 

What I'm pretty sure happened was that when they introduced the new Sanctuary Collection for the suites, the prices increased but since they'd quoted things the day before the announcement and then we confirmed the booking and sent me a paid in full booking confirmation the day after the announcement - we got the prices from the day before with the benefits of the announcement. 

 

With that said - adding Premier at $80/day * 2 people * 7 days is only $1,120, not $4,400...so at the most, they should only be increasing our price by $1,120.

 

Like I said though - I have it in writing directly from Princess (not our TA) that the booking that was paid in full included all of the new benefits (including Premier). They also confirmed when I spoke to them on the phone about this that put it in writing that everything is included and it is paid in full.

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

54 minutes ago, vjmatty said:

Changing the room within the same category should not trigger a price change or change your booking in any other way. It sounds like someone made a mistake in the booking system. Definitely keep on this. 

 

They have told me the room change didn't change the price - it changed before and nobody told us about it...changing the room was just the reason we noticed because the new booking confirmation showed that it was no longer paid in full. 

[PacnGoNow]

10 minutes ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

 

The room change was through PCL (chat) but unrelated to the change in price - that just happened to be why I noticed that it didn't show the booking was paid in full any longer.

 

I don't know if PCL should have helped with the room change or not when we used a TA, but they did help (and that wasn't related to the price change...that happened before we changed rooms, it was just that nobody told us up until we saw the new booking confirmation). 

 

When I spoke to them about the price change, two different people confirmed it had nothing to do with the room change, the price actually changed back on May 4th, they just never told us about this.

 

What I'm pretty sure happened was that when they introduced the new Sanctuary Collection for the suites, the prices increased but since they'd quoted things the day before the announcement and then we confirmed the booking and sent me a paid in full booking confirmation the day after the announcement - we got the prices from the day before with the benefits of the announcement. 

 

With that said - adding Premier at $80/day * 2 people * 7 days is only $1,120, not $4,400...so at the most, they should only be increasing our price by $1,120.

 

Like I said though - I have it in writing directly from Princess (not our TA) that the booking that was paid in full included all of the new benefits (including Premier). They also confirmed when I spoke to them on the phone about this that put it in writing that everything is included and it is paid in full.

You really need to work this out with your TA.  
 

It may take many calls between TA and PCL, but they have control of your booking.

 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

8 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

You really need to work this out with your TA.  
 

It may take many calls between TA and PCL, but they have control of your booking.

 

 

Right, understood. Obviously my TA is aware of things and they're working on things as well, just wanted to see if anybody could share any perspective/advice.

 

My TA is equally upset (as they should be - they may lose 10% of a $16k booking if we can't work this out), but as of now there has not been any resolution.

 

I emailed the CEO of PCL and a couple other execs I could find contact info for with my TA CC'd...was hoping maybe that would help but a couple days have passed and they haven't even responded so who knows if they even took the time to read the email.

[PacnGoNow]

49 minutes ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

 

Right, understood. Obviously my TA is aware of things and they're working on things as well, just wanted to see if anybody could share any perspective/advice.

 

My TA is equally upset (as they should be - they may lose 10% of a $16k booking if we can't work this out), but as of now there has not been any resolution.

 

I emailed the CEO of PCL and a couple other execs I could find contact info for with my TA CC'd...was hoping maybe that would help but a couple days have passed and they haven't even responded so who knows if they even took the time to read the email.

It sounds like you’re doing what you can do.  I hope the TA can straighten this out. 
 

 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

1 minute ago, PacnGoNow said:

It sounds like you’re doing what you can do.  I hope the TA can straighten this out. 
 

 

Thank you, I appreciate that.

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

An update for everybody...

 

It took a second email to the executive team at Princess earlier this morning, but I did just get a call from a VP at Princess who profusely apologized and let me know that this was resolved and we were back to pay them full.

 

Thankful to share that this story has a happy ending and our family looks forward to sailing on the Sun Princess over Thanksgiving!

[startedwithamouse]

6 hours ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

We booked a Vista Suite (formerly Penthouse Suite) on the Sun Princess over Thanksgiving through our TA.

 

The sailing was quoted the day before they announced the changes to Sanctuary Suites and booked with final payment made the day after the announcement. 

 

When making final payment with Princess, I confirmed (in writing) that this booking was being made with their new Sanctuary Suites program and included the Premier Package and anything else that changed with the new Sanctuary program since they gave us the quote the day before this program was announced. 

 

In writing they confirmed that yes, this definitely does include the Premier Package along with everything else. 

 

---

 

Fast forward to Monday of this week when I reach out to change our stateroom # (same category, just a different room) and they are happy to help but when they send me the updated booking confirmation, I see that it shows a balance of $4,400.

 

I crosscheck this with my previous confirmation to make sure I didn't miss something and I see four things:

 

- Booking says "Vista Suite" (not Penthouse Suite, confirming it was booked under the new program

- Net Due shows $0
- Below that it shows "balance paid in full"
- At the bottom of Page 2 it says, "Sanctuary Benefits"

 

---

 

I reached out to Princess about this and all they can tell me is that there was a mistake made and even though I have everything in writing as paid in full, our price has indeed gone up $4,400.

 

Somebody was supposed to follow up with me about this earlier this week but nobody has so I'm a bit at a loss as to where to go from here. 

 

---

 

Legally can they do this? I'm guessing they can but it seems like a breach of contract and we've already booked non-refundable flights so I'm feeling a bit stuck at the moment. 

 

If anybody has any insight they can offer, I would truly appreciate it. 

 

Thank you in advance!

 

Your TA owns your booking, why are you dealing with Princess?

 

 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

3 minutes ago, startedwithamouse said:

 

Your TA owns your booking, why are you dealing with Princess?

 

 

The issue had nothing to do with the TA or me having Princess change my room number, which Princess already acknowledged (the price was changed before I changed our room #, that was just how I discovered the change). They made a mistake and a VP from Princess called me to apologize and resolved the issue. 

 

For what it's worth - we cruise a lot (6-8 times/year) and I've yet to ever be told the cruise lines are unwilling or unable to do something basic like change a room #. There are things I would need to go to my TA for, but as we saw here, Princess had no issue changing our stateroom number (had we been changing the category, I would have contacted our TA).

[CineGraphic]

42 minutes ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

The issue had nothing to do with the TA or me having Princess change my room number, which Princess already acknowledged (the price was changed before I changed our room #, that was just how I discovered the change). They made a mistake and a VP from Princess called me to apologize and resolved the issue. 

 

For what it's worth - we cruise a lot (6-8 times/year) and I've yet to ever be told the cruise lines are unwilling or unable to do something basic like change a room #. There are things I would need to go to my TA for, but as we saw here, Princess had no issue changing our stateroom number (had we been changing the category, I would have contacted our TA).

 

I'm glad that it's all worked out, but when there's a problem with a booking caused by the cruise line, it's always better to have your TA advocate for you. They represent a larger client base and more $$$ than any individual.

Going straight to Princess is like asking a guy who's suing you in court to fix things and make it all right, even though you have a lawyer representing you.

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

50 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

I'm glad that it's all worked out, but when there's a problem with a booking caused by the cruise line, it's always better to have your TA advocate for you. They represent a larger client base and more $$$ than any individual.

Going straight to Princess is like asking a guy who's suing you in court to fix things and make it all right, even though you have a lawyer representing you.

I hear you and I get it. 

 

I guess I'm the guy who would show up in court and defend myself 😝

 

I book hrough TAs to help them out because I know it costs me nothing and they get a commission on it, but I definitely prefer to handle things on my own because I know it will get done on my timeline versus having to worry about if they're actually following up or not. 

 

With that said, I did have my TA CC'd on my emails, so they weren't totally out of the loop. 

Edited May 16 by FamilyAtSea.travel

[Ombud]

7 hours ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

The room change was through PCL (chat)

Yet another chat line clusterf¤¤k. 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

3 minutes ago, Ombud said:

Yet another chat line clusterf¤¤k. 

They didn't do much in the way of helping, but the actual issue appears to have been completely unrelated to the chat. 

 

It seems they changed the price of my cruise after I had already booked it and paid in full, and just nobody ever bothered to tell me. 

 

With that said, the chat team did make it worse because they told me somebody was going to follow up with me and never did and when I asked them for a point of escalation, they wouldn't give me one. 

[tulok]

@FamilyAtSea.travel I agree and I don’t use my TA for everything. I have had very good luck using chat, more so than calling CS. Luck of the draw. 

You offered a very good lesson at watching your travel summary. No one watching out for my

money better than me. Well, probably my DH is better than me. 😂 🛍️ 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

4 minutes ago, tulok said:

@FamilyAtSea.travel I agree and I don’t use my TA for everything. I have had very good luck using chat, more so than calling CS. Luck of the draw. 

You offered a very good lesson at watching your travel summary. No one watching out for my

money better than me. Well, probably my DH is better than me. 😂 🛍️ 

Oh yes, they didn't want the next step of escalation on my side if I had to get my wife involved 😝🤣

 

I actually greatly appreciate that Princess has a chat option and that they are staffed by what appear to be made native English speakers, because even though this situation turned out to be messy, they do actually appear to be able to do things to help, versus just tell me I need to call CS...I wish other cruise lines would take a queue from them!

[Ombud]

10 minutes ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

... I actually greatly appreciate that Princess has a chat option and that they are staffed by what appear to be made native English speakers (?) 

I had my room changed from a BD to a BD (10239 -> 10222) and this relatively easy change eliminated OBC. Yes it was the same booking #. My CVP reinstated it.

 

Unable to tell if chat was an English speaker but that's irrelevant JMHO

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

2 hours ago, Ombud said:

I had my room changed from a BD to a BD (10239 -> 10222) and this relatively easy change eliminated OBC. Yes it was the same booking #. My CVP reinstated it.

 

Unable to tell if chat was an English speaker but that's irrelevant JMHO

That's fine if you think that, but I also think it shows an investment by Princess that they doing things domestically versus shipping them offshore to save a buck.

 

I also realize the irony in me adding an accidental extra word in there while making that comment, lol.

 

Seriously though, It would be one thing if I was attacking somebody, but I really don't think there's an issue with me giving credit where due with Princess investing in their team. 

 

It's a sad world when I can't even make a comment to give somebody credit without somebody being offended. 

Edited May 16 by FamilyAtSea.travel

[tetleytea]

I won't tell my wife what effect this thread had on my blood pressure.   But you did make me do a double-check on my balance for my next cruise--booked with FCC.  Needed to make sure they didn't "lose" the FCC.   These are supposed to be vacations.  Relaxing.  And this kind of drivel is simply not.

 

[coops]

On 5/16/2024 at 2:21 PM, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

The issue had nothing to do with the TA or me having Princess change my room number, which Princess already acknowledged (the price was changed before I changed our room #, that was just how I discovered the change). They made a mistake and a VP from Princess called me to apologize and resolved the issue. 

 

For what it's worth - we cruise a lot (6-8 times/year) and I've yet to ever be told the cruise lines are unwilling or unable to do something basic like change a room #. There are things I would need to go to my TA for, but as we saw here, Princess had no issue changing our stateroom number (had we been changing the category, I would have contacted our TA).

Lesson learned. If you book thru a TA then stick to them for any changes small or large. They get a commission so let them work for you. Less stress on your part. 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

1 minute ago, coops said:

Lesson learned. If you book thru a TA then stick to them for any changes small or large. They get a commission so let them work for you. Less stress on your part. 

If you read through this post, you'd see this had literally nothing to do with our TA or the room change. 

 

My lesson was learned though - I got this issue resolved on my own without needing to bother our TA.

 

 

[coops]

2 minutes ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

If you read through this post, you'd see this had literally nothing to do with our TA or the room change. 

 

My lesson was learned though - I got this issue resolved on my own without needing to bother our TA.

 

 

That's great to hear. If you don't want to ask TA for help why book with them? Unless you are getting a discount or obc from  then I get that.