Is this a new Gratuities policy?

[SCX22]

Something else as food for thought...

Some passengers use their OBC, all or in part, to offset the crew appreciation that is due.  Some passengers use their OBC, all or in part, to offset the Plus/Premium package charges, which are inclusive of CA, once they are onboard.  OBC comes out of thin air and nothing is paid to the cruise line.  So are the cruise lines really pooling together the CA for these type of scenarios when there really wasn't any money, in full or in part, paid for crew appreciation.?  In other words, are the cruise lines shouldering the costs of CA in these scenarios or are they shorting the pool?  It looks legit on passenger folios, in terms of credits and debits, but is it legit in the backoffice?

[TRLD]

5 minutes ago, SCX22 said:

Something else as food for thought...

Some passengers use their OBC, all or in part, to offset the crew appreciation that is due.  Some passengers use their OBC, all or in part, to offset the Plus/Premium package charges, which are inclusive of CA, once they are onboard.  OBC comes out of thin air and nothing is paid to the cruise line.  So are the cruise lines really pooling together the CA for these type of scenarios when there really wasn't any money, in full or in part, paid for crew appreciation.?  In other words, are the cruise lines shouldering the costs of CA in these scenarios or are they shorting the pool?  It looks legit on passenger folios, in terms of credits and debits, but is it legit in the backoffice?

To put it simply the amount of the CA contribution does go into the pool.  The only time it does not is if it is removed or reduced. 

 

So then if an excursion is paid by obc the excursion operator does not get paid because as you put it comes out of this air.

 

No just as x dollars is transfered to the excursion operator when an excursion is paid for by obc, X dollars goes into the pool.

[SCX22]

3 minutes ago, TRLD said:

To put it simply the amount of the CA contribution does go into the pool.  The only time it does not is if it is removed or reduced.

 

If you have time, can you not put it simply?  Really interested in this.  So the cruise lines shoulder the costs of CA paid by OBC?  Tour operators have recourse because if they don't get paid they have sense that they can terminate future services.  Crew really has few labor rights, again this is due to registry of convenience of ships.  And these are listed as bonuses, so there's no obligation to pay.

[TRLD]

22 minutes ago, SCX22 said:

 

If you have time, can you not put it simply?  Really interested in this.  So the cruise lines shoulder the costs of CA paid by OBC?  Tour operators have recourse because if they don't get paid they have sense that they can terminate future services.  Crew really has few labor rights, again this is due to registry of convenience of ships.  And these are listed as bonuses, so there's no obligation to pay.

Actually there is maritime law and the entire issue of crew employment contracts. There is an obligation to pay. 

 

 The crew is not slave labor. They do have employment rights, just not the same as US labor law.

 

Again why is it that some consider failing to live up to the terms of an employment contract and screwing over employees would be a reasonable business practice. 

 

Would be rather counter productive when it comes to getting employees to accept new contracts if the company did not live up to terms of the old one.

 

 

[SCX22]

2 minutes ago, TRLD said:

Actually there is maritime law and the entire issue of crew employment contracts. There is an obligation to pay. 

 

I get that part.  The crew gets a minimum wage and they freely accept this as part of their contract.

 

But in instances were CA is paid fully or in part with OBC, how does the cruise line account for that?  The cruise line isn't a central bank that can print money.  Does the cruise line shoulder the costs? 

 

For example:

Assuming a passenger didn't purchase anything on a cruise (no wi-fi, no drinks, no shore excursions, no duty free, no gambling, no spa, etc.).  The only thing itemized in their folio to pay was the CA.  If the CA due at the end of a cruise is $100 and the person had $100 OBC in their folio as a stockholder benefit which wiped out the $100 CA balance, where does the cruise line get the money to pay the CA?  The passenger didn't fork over money, it was covered by the OBC.  Does the cruise line shoulder the cost of the CA that was listed in the folio that was not paid by the passenger's money, but with shareholder OBC?

[dog]

The CA is discretionary for those on Standard fare.  

So, the crew will receive their salary as agreed to in the contract.

Princess is not supplementing CA for those who choose to not pay CA.

[jimlouisesophie]

On 5/29/2024 at 8:09 AM, whitecap said:

So, taking a few minutes to re-read all the post and comments I think I have a handle on this and have found the "common ground".  First, "crew appreciation" is mis-leading as it would lead a person to believe that they are appreciating the service provided by the crew on the ship they are currently on; secondly, a cruiser has the ability to remove automatic gratuities and provide a "tip" to an individual for good/excellent service to the person(s) with a cash tip; third, those that want to pay the automatic wage supplement, also known as gratuities, can do so understanding that the money goes to Princess, not necessarily to anyone or group of individuals on the current sailing.  Individual decisions made by individual cruisers and there is no right or wrong.  It's your money be well informed as to how it is used and make your own decision.  

 

[jimlouisesophie]

Just now, jimlouisesophie said:

 

Very interesting posts.  So if we decide to remove the automatic tips and instead obtain envelopes to give to the staff that we feel give us personal attention, do we do this on the first day of our cruise, or later on?

[CineGraphic]

8 hours ago, TRLD said:

In my over 90 cruises on various lines I never worried about who was getting paid on any of the lines, after all that is between the employer and their employers

 

With the countless threads on the subject over the years, it's obvious that many on here worry about who's getting paid what.

[mtnesterz]

2 hours ago, jimlouisesophie said:

Very interesting posts.  So if we decide to remove the automatic tips and instead obtain envelopes to give to the staff that we feel give us personal attention, do we do this on the first day of our cruise, or later on?

Just to be thorough, if you buy a package, you "buy" the gratuity so that is not removable.

If you go Standard, then it accrues daily. So if that is your preference, then it would make sense to "opt-out," earlier rather than later at Passenger Services, where you can also ask for envelopes if they are not already out on the PS desk. 

[TRLD]

8 hours ago, SCX22 said:

 

I get that part.  The crew gets a minimum wage and they freely accept this as part of their contract.

 

But in instances were CA is paid fully or in part with OBC, how does the cruise line account for that?  The cruise line isn't a central bank that can print money.  Does the cruise line shoulder the costs? 

 

For example:

Assuming a passenger didn't purchase anything on a cruise (no wi-fi, no drinks, no shore excursions, no duty free, no gambling, no spa, etc.).  The only thing itemized in their folio to pay was the CA.  If the CA due at the end of a cruise is $100 and the person had $100 OBC in their folio as a stockholder benefit which wiped out the $100 CA balance, where does the cruise line get the money to pay the CA?  The passenger didn't fork over money, it was covered by the OBC.  Does the cruise line shoulder the cost of the CA that was listed in the folio that was not paid by the passenger's money, but with shareholder OBC?

Yes the cruise line does. Just as they do when they run a tips paid special fare or with the current packages.  The appropriate funds are removed from revenue and transferred into the pool.

 

Tips are not revenue or expense to the company. The pool is a pass through account that is held for the employees. 

 

The pool is a contractual requirement. It is not arbitrary. 

 

Let me put it this way as was implied earlier the cruise line reduced the contribution for those with packages as an example, enough packages are now being sold, that if such a reduction occurred the funds going into the pool would be substantially reduced to the point that it would be impacting employee payouts impacting their willingness to work for Princess.  Princess and other cruiselines have a vested interest in the moral of their employees and keeping the pool level stable.

 

Edited June 4 by TRLD

[dog]

3 hours ago, jimlouisesophie said:

Very interesting posts.  So if we decide to remove the automatic tips and instead obtain envelopes to give to the staff that we feel give us personal attention, do we do this on the first day of our cruise, or later on?

When you wish. Just don’t leave it too close to end.

[TRLD]

1 hour ago, CineGraphic said:

 

With the countless threads on the subject over the years, it's obvious that many on here worry about who's getting paid what.

Only those that seem to want to justify cutting or removing tips.

[MacMadame]

15 hours ago, SCX22 said:

OBC comes out of thin air and nothing is paid to the cruise line.

This is not true. OBC comes from many sources. Sometimes customers buy OBC with real money. Also, if you get refunded some money via OBC, that is real money that Princess got and didn't give back to your CC but put into  account via OBC. It's real money.

 

Yes, some OBC is a promotion and does not have real money backing it. But that doesn't mean that no one is paid if something is bought with OBC. Do you really think the jewelry store or excursion company only gets money if the price comes out of "real" money and not OBC? That makes no sense.

[SCX22]

1 hour ago, MacMadame said:

This is not true. OBC comes from many sources. Sometimes customers buy OBC with real money. Also, if you get refunded some money via OBC, that is real money that Princess got and didn't give back to your CC but put into  account via OBC. It's real money.

I guess so.  I've only experienced the promotional kind of OBC.  To me it doesn't make sense to buy OBC and have your money kept captive with no interest.  There are some who buy the AARP GCs and have them converted to OBC once onboard, but even then the face value of the GC is still more than what was paid.  (This is anecdotal because I'm not part of that demographic yet.)

 

1 hour ago, MacMadame said:

Yes, some OBC is a promotion and does not have real money backing it. But that doesn't mean that no one is paid if something is bought with OBC. Do you really think the jewelry store or excursion company only gets money if the price comes out of "real" money and not OBC? That makes no sense.

I don't care so much about the shore excursions, onboard retail, or spa services.  These are third party companies, and when it's a company to company exchange of money, you better believe everyone is getting paid exactly what they should be.

 

My concern is the waitstaff and cabin steward crew appreciation on ships. 

 

My side gig is as a restaurant partner.  Wage theft via tips is a huge problem in this industry.  Because point of sale systems have gotten so sophisticated, many times the waitstaff rely and trust the statistics generated by said systems, which itemize their chits of customers served, which also detail the tips they earned and any overtime.  Theoretically, its foolproof, but there is so much room for error and fudging tips to the detriment of waitstaff.  It's more common an occurrence than people think.  Unless waitstaff are keeping duplicates of their chits and doing a check and balance with what the POS is generating, this practice is easily concealed.  Most waitstaff don't bother because they are too tired to even care and only start to noticed when it's too late, if at all.

 

On a cruise ship with auto CA (and I don't have problem with this system), the crew doesn't get such statistics.  Not saying that they do (but my post above did insinuate) and one poster has already said they don't withhold CA paid solely out of promotional OBC from the pool, but it's an easy way commit wage theft since there was no exchange of the customers money. In California, you can't leave your tips with a restaurant GC.  You have to leave them in cash if your restaurant GC covered the entire bill because theoretically money is on a GC, it money held by the restaurant that issued it and can't technically be considered a tip; employers can't tip their employees, only customers can.

 

Reason why I brought it up is because there are some shorter cruises when the CA that I owe is covered completely by promotional OBC.  Was thinking about giving at least the cabin steward something, but I guess I don't have to.

Edited June 4 by SCX22

[Princessfan20]

8 hours ago, TRLD said:

Only those that seem to want to justify cutting or removing tips.

 

I really think it is the other way around if you read the posts.  It doesn't matter anyway because no one really knows what is happening and people still have a choice which is a fantastic idea in a free world.

[ldubs]

23 hours ago, funship freddy said:

I began cruising in the mid 90’s.  It was a different world. At the end of the cruise you would get envelopes in your cabin to present on the last evening in the dining room.  There were no specialty restaurants.  You got an envelope for your room steward, your waiter and his assistant and the maitre’d. I remember vividly that the only time you ever saw the maitre’d was on the last night when they visited your table to “collect” their envelopes.  There was no mention of leaving tips for those “behind the scenes” that make your cruise special.

Along came specialty restaurants for an extra fee that included gratuity.  That was then.

Quietly the cruise lines added their 18% to specialty restaurants.

Today we are charged “gratuity” on everything.  We are paying the wages of the crew.  What a shift from when I began cruising.  And now if you want an edible steat in the dining room you have to pay $20 or more.

Face it…. they don’t pay that much for the steak.

They mask their “burden” to us.

Reduce Reduce Reduce

Charge us more.

I don’t know how you feel but I am beginning to squeal.

Your comments   ?

 

 

Of course we pay the wages of the crew.  I think the bone to pick for some is how that money is transferred from the customer's pocket to the crew's salary.    

 

Of course the cruise line's expense for that steak is less than what they charge.    Pretty much what businesses do if they want to stay in business.  I think for some folks, it appears the bone to pick is that cruise lines have elected to keep basic fares low and charge extra for things that might have been included in higher fares charged in the past.  

 

Twenty five years ago I might have paid $2500 for an inside cabin with MDR food equivalent to today's specialty restaurants.  Today, the fair might be $1,500  for a balcony with an extra charge for better dining, room service, etc.   The difference in base fares is even greater if you factor inflation impact on real dollars.

 

My perspective is I continue to enjoy cruise vacations and consider them a bargain.      

 

 

[CineGraphic]

2 hours ago, SCX22 said:

On a cruise ship with auto CA (and I don't have problem with this system), the crew doesn't get such statistics.

 

I haven't sailed with Princess in two years, but I clearly remember seeing our room steward or a supervisor with a spreadsheet noting who pre-paid grats, and who didn't. I've also been thanked by staff for pre-paying. They know....and they also know who goes to Guest Relations and has the grats adjusted or removed.

[MacMadame]

6 hours ago, SCX22 said:

and one poster has already said they don't withhold CA paid solely out of promotional OBC from the pool,

They said it. That doesn't make it true, right? 😄 Someone said the excursion operators don't get paid if you pay for your excursion with OBC and that is clearly not true.

 

My understanding of how Princess works is that they have made every position have a higher salary than before the fleet-wide pool came into being and that is guaranteed pay some of which comes from CA. Obviously, if there isn't enough CA, Princess is contractually required to pay crew what their contracts say anyway. (But that is unlikely to happen given that 75-80% of pax have a package and can't remove CA.) The rest of the CA comes to crew in the form of bonuses for performance. Princess determines who gets bonuses based on criteria that hasn't been made public. (But it seems that naming crew in the post-cruise survey has something to do with it.)

 

So they are not equivalent to the tips that restaurant workers get. With those tips, the boss has ways to deny that tips were paid when they were. I have read that they sometimes fudge the top-up when tips aren't enough to get to minimum wage as well. But CA isn't worked like tips so that kind of fudging can't happen. The worst they could do was claim that they didn't receive the CA that they did and so there isn't as much available for bonuses but if they did that and got caught, they would be in major trouble and I just don't think the reward is there for them to take that risk.

 

As for buying OBC via the GC, I am paying for my cruise with GCs and I will end up with some left over because my cruise will not cost exactly as much as the GCs are for. So that's one way to get OBC with real money. Other people say they know they will spend at least X on board and buy GCs to cover it and put them to OBC. I think a lot of them either gamble so need money for the casino or they don't have a package or they buy things like spa treatments that aren't covered by packages. I have a package and don't gamble so I won't be doing that, I think. I'll decide closer to.

 

[Torfamm]

On 6/3/2024 at 6:48 PM, SCX22 said:

 

Never do the round up for charity thing.  It's how companies donate to charity to seem charitable using your money, but they take the credit.

To be fair, organizations are incredibly grateful when companies do this kind of thing. It can have a huge impact, but can take a fair amount of effort on the company’s part to collect donations.
 

Encouraging and accepting donations doesn’t make companies “seem charitable” anymore than the individual who participates in a pledge-based activity like a walkathon does it to “seem charitable”.

[Torfamm]

On 6/3/2024 at 7:20 PM, funship freddy said:

I began cruising in the mid 90’s.  It was a different world. At the end of the cruise you would get envelopes in your cabin to present on the last evening in the dining room.  There were no specialty restaurants.  You got an envelope for your room steward, your waiter and his assistant and the maitre’d. I remember vividly that the only time you ever saw the maitre’d was on the last night when they visited your table to “collect” their envelopes.  There was no mention of leaving tips for those “behind the scenes” that make your cruise special.

Along came specialty restaurants for an extra fee that included gratuity.  That was then.

Quietly the cruise lines added their 18% to specialty restaurants.

Today we are charged “gratuity” on everything.  We are paying the wages of the crew.  What a shift from when I began cruising.  And now if you want an edible steat in the dining room you have to pay $20 or more.

Face it…. they don’t pay that much for the steak.

They mask their “burden” to us.

Reduce Reduce Reduce

Charge us more.

I don’t know how you feel but I am beginning to squeal.

Your comments   ?

 

The fact is that cruise fares haven’t increased as much as costs have. I can get a balcony cabin for a week on Princess for what I paid for a week in a cabin with a tiny porthole on Carnival on my first cruise in the early 80’s. That $1000 per person would be well over $3000 today.

 

Keeping base fares low comes with having to simplify the basic product. 

 

We could certainly have everything we used to have included in today’s cruise fares if we are willing to pay for it. There are luxury cruise lines that offer that experience. It’s the same with air travel. Here’s an interesting read on the changes in cruising 

https://pamperedcruiser.com/longing-for-the-good-old-days-of-cruising/

 

[PrincessLuver]

11 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

I haven't sailed with Princess in two years, but I clearly remember seeing our room steward or a supervisor with a spreadsheet noting who pre-paid grats, and who didn't. I've also been thanked by staff for pre-paying. They know....and they also know who goes to Guest Relations and has the grats adjusted or removed.

 

How would they even know this information when people say they wait until the last night to remove gratuities which evidently Princess has no problem allowing.  We have never seen this or heard of this after sailing hundreds of days  at sea with Princess.

[SCX22]

6 hours ago, MacMadame said:

My understanding of how Princess works is that they have made every position have a higher salary than before the fleet-wide pool came into being and that is guaranteed pay some of which comes from CA. Obviously, if there isn't enough CA, Princess is contractually required to pay crew what their contracts say anyway. (But that is unlikely to happen given that 75-80% of pax have a package and can't remove CA.) The rest of the CA comes to crew in the form of bonuses for performance. Princess determines who gets bonuses based on criteria that hasn't been made public. (But it seems that naming crew in the post-cruise survey has something to do with it.)

 

That's fine, but am I inadvertently making the pool smaller by making the CA pool smaller for wages and bonuses by paying my CA with promo OBC?  What I can't wrap my head around is promotional OBC isn't real money; it's Princess Cruises currency which has a one to one exchange rate with the US Dollar, that only exists on shipboard folios for use while on the ship.  How does this get put in the pool if it doesn't exist as real money?  Princess can't pay their crew with OBC, they have to pay them in US Dollars.

[Musky Ike]

4 minutes ago, SCX22 said:

 

That's fine, but am I inadvertently making the pool smaller by making the CA pool smaller for wages and bonuses by paying my CA with promo OBC?  What I can't wrap my head around is promotional OBC isn't real money; it's Princess Cruises currency which has a one to one exchange rate with the US Dollar, that only exists on shipboard folios for use while on the ship.  How does this get put in the pool if it doesn't exist as real money?  Princess can't pay their crew with OBC, they have to pay them in US Dollars.

No, it should simply go back to Princess Just the accounting line changes. Now part of the CA fund.

[Mary loves to travel]

1 hour ago, SCX22 said:

 

That's fine, but am I inadvertently making the pool smaller by making the CA pool smaller for wages and bonuses by paying my CA with promo OBC?  What I can't wrap my head around is promotional OBC isn't real money; it's Princess Cruises currency which has a one to one exchange rate with the US Dollar, that only exists on shipboard folios for use while on the ship.  How does this get put in the pool if it doesn't exist as real money?  Princess can't pay their crew with OBC, they have to pay them in US Dollars.

OBC is real money & must be accounted for.  
People like to feel we’re getting some sort of a deal.   
Princess could drop the price by say $100 per person and call it a Sale.  Or, they can keep the price the same and offer $100 OBC - basically giving you back $100 of your fare to spend *with them* any way you like.    
By dropping the price, you might spend that savings in port on a private excursion, souvenirs, or food.   Or simply keep it in your pocket.  
By giving you OBC Princess guarantees that $100 gets spent with them. 
 

When you pay for your cruise, they book $100 as an Account Payable and the rest as income.