Cruise Planner Refunds

[Traveler]

On 7/19/2020 at 6:18 AM, AshleyDillo said:

I'm referring to the CP purchases for a cruise that gets L&S.  It was a glitch experienced by several people that the refund for their CP purchases ended up being posted as a credit towards the new cruise date rather than refunded as they should have when the original cruise was canceled to be L&S.

I did a L&S to our cruise around May , did not got the CP refunds  , 

Called them today and they told me it was added to my cruise payment !  After 10 minutes they got back to me and told me it will be refund and I can expect 30 to 45 days from today ... so I guess its quite common "glitch"

[Ogilthorpe]

I did a Liftt and Shift on July 16 ... BUT cancelled our cruise planner purchases online and had the confirmation emails before calling to L&S assuming the refund processes were different. The refund was posted to my RCL visa today. My recommendation is to cancel cruise planner prior to L&S for faster refunds.

[Mathias]

Wanted to come back her and tell you I finally received my Cruise Planner Cancellation refunds. It was me who got told by Royal Caribbean on the phone to travel around the country to have every person on my several cabins bookings to individually call in to Royal Caribbean and request them to process the glitched refund as I who paid and bought the items very not allowed to do it.

Anyway, after that it got even more bizarre and my adventures with Royal Caribbean's customer service has more unexpected twists and turns than an Alfred Hitchcock (or if you prefer,  M. Night Shyamalan) movie. I won't bore you with to much details but here follows a small summary example of what happened.

This is over a period of a month or so. First, I tried calling them but soon switched over to emailing them to get proof of the correspondence (this proved to be important). These responses are from several persons, I believe I were in contact with at least 10 different persons at Royal Caribbean's customer service.

• Royal Caribbean claims I never had a booking with them. I stand my ground and after speaking to another person, they find my booking and they promise to get back to me about my refund, but they never did.
• Royal Caribbean claims I never cancelled my Cruise Planner items. I send them proof of the emails I received of Cruise Planner Cancellation Summary and they promise to get back to me, but did not.
• On my next contact suddenly Royal Caribbean confirms I had a booking with them and that I cancelled my Cruise Planner purchases. However, they claim the refund  already have been paid back to my credit card a long time ago. They promise to send proof of this to my email. This time they actually get back to me and send a refund summary of cancellations I made in May. I get back to them and says that this is not about the May cancellation, I want to know where the refund for my April cancellation is. They promise to get back to me, but never did.
• On my final contact, we enter the twilight zone. Royal Caribbean claims (and I have this in writing from them) that Royal Caribbean is not responsible for refunding Cruise Planner Cancellations made on Royal Caribbean's Cruise Planner. They write that the Cruise Planner Cancellations will be paid out in full to me from my travel agent. Because the refund will be paid to me from my travel agent, they can't assist me any further with my request.

I showed the last response to my travel agent and they take over the case. They contact the highest executive at Royal Caribbean they can get to and things start to move forward. The executive at Royal Caribbean says they will conduct necessary training with the involved customer service agents because in my case there was several opportunities for improved experience. The refund was escalated.

I have now received refunds for all my cancellations and they even paid me an 250 $ extra as an compensation for all the troubles I had. It really pays to have a good travel agent and I am happy they managed to get this resolved. Without my travel agents involvement,  I would probably still be waiting for my refund.

[WAAAYTOOO]

Great news !!  Were you able to get the refunds made directly to you for the members of your family who do not intend to cruise again ?

[Mathias]

@WAAAYTOOO The refund I was waiting for was for Cruise Planner Cancellations only. Every purchase I made for everyone in my group got refunded to my credit card along with the 250 $ compensation. The cruise itself we made a Lift & Shift on. 

[WAAAYTOOO]

2 minutes ago, Mathias said:

@WAAAYTOOO The refund I was waiting for was for Cruise Planner Cancellations only. Every purchase I made for everyone in my group got refunded to my credit card along with the 250 $ compensation. The cruise itself we made a Lift & Shift on. 

THanks, @Mathias.  I  must have gotten 2 stories confused.  So glad it all worked out for you.

[Jax]

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I repriced a CP purchase but it was fast. Repriced July 14th and credit appeared July 23rd.  

[mike potts]

Sounds like I am not the only one having trouble W/RCL.  Not very comforting though.  I am now waiting for someone to call me back.  We'll see how this goes.

[SpeedNoodles]

I sent another message to RCL on Facebook Messenger last week about my refund on my cruise planner cancellations from 5/9.  They got back to me within an hour (in which I did not have to sit on the phone and wait) and they said my refund would be back to me in 7-10 business days.  On day 7 I received my refund.  They are finally starting to catch up, but they may need to be prodded a little bit.  Now I'm just waiting for the cruise planner purchases that were automatically cancelled for the Odyssey inaugural sailing - 45 business days from cancellation will be August 12, so I have a little time before I start "reminding" them.  

[CrznTxn]

RCL has caught up finally with all our CP purchases and FCP letters for the 125%. With the amounts on the FCP was able to reserve our Dec and Jan cruise excursions while they were at a very low price. They have updated the website so when you have the FPC applied to a specific cruise you can play with reservations and everything is updated immediately. Just wish they had the step where we could enter the credit number to the cruise on line and not have to call. The longest part was waiting on hold for the "next available associate". When I did get through the credit was applied immediately. I like the subtle improvements I've seen on the website and operations. Can't wait until the cruising starts again.