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Moving a Casino Comp Cruise due to Cancellations


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I wanted to report on my success with moving a casino comp cruise that was cancelled in this latest round of cancellations. 

We had a Symphony Eastern Caribbean booked for 1 August using a casino comp offer.  Of course, this cruise was a victim of the latest round of cancellations. I held out little hope of being able to move this cruise to a later date (I had heard of scarcely a few successful attempts at getting a casino comp moved) but much to my surprise, I was successful in moving this cruise to Feb 13, 2021 with full price protection on the original casino booking. I had upgraded this inside room comp to a JS for $258 PP so I was delighted that the original upgrade price was honored.

This is not a Lift & Shift, in that I could not book further out than 2-28-21 but I also was not required to maintain the same itinerary....in other words, I wasn’t required to book another Eastern Caribbean.  I booked a companion cruise to my already-booked 6 Feb cruise, turning my 6 Feb into a B2B.  Apparently they are allowing cancelled casino comp cruises to be moved to a qualifying cruise between 1 Oct 2020 and 28 Feb 2021.  I know the next question will be, what constitutes a qualifying cruise ?  I cannot answer that question as I was moving a 7 night Symphony cruise to another 7 night Symphony Cruise, but I CAN tell you that they didn’t care that I was changing from an Eastern Caribbean to a Western Caribbean, so it’s not a tradition L & S.

Maybe I just got very lucky and got a good casino CS Rep but it was very easy and handled efficiently and quickly.  I was able to get my airfare moved over from the August to the Feb itin with no problem. There was a $4.20 difference in the cruise fare due to differences in taxes/port fees and a $60 difference in airfare. All of my Cruise Planner purchases were automatically cancelled, and will be refunded.  I will have to rebook for the replacement cruise.

All-in-all, a huge surprise at how easy it was.  I am lead to believe it is a new “policy” for cancelled casino comps.  A bit of good news in an otherwise sea of bad news.

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So glad to hear of a positive experience given so many negative ones, especially with casino comps.

I too feel lucky with my latest changes. We had two cruises booked this year, September 20th on Oasis (OV Balcony) and December 6th on Harmony (Jr. Suite). We decided to cancel both (not all COVID-19 reasons) and combine to September 19th, 2021 in a Jr. Suite. WELL. September is cancelled and I'm waiting for a FCC and December was moved to September and the Jr. Suite was CHEAPER. Looking at the balance and time I have to save, thinking Grand Suite or Owners Suite upgrade.

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1 hour ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Yes, I was very fortunate to get a casino CS rep that gave me one of those deals from the "good ol' days".....back when casino comp upgrades were really GREAT deals.

I just got off with the Casino and got a good "Oregon" Rep.. In fact I have had her many times in the past and she is wonderful. I wish I could always call her lol.. She also confirmed that they are letting people moved comped cruises to the time frame you said.. I am happy they decided to do this and makes life so much easier. My Rep was so nice. The reason I actually called her is I am all of a sudden a victim of not receiving offers... She went through my history and said this makes no sense. She said I even remember booking many offers for you. She had to take many screenshots for proof for management but she said it will absolutely get fixed and I should be receiving new offers absolutely. Its no nice when we get the good competent reps on the phone.. I wish they could all be like that lol. But anyway I am glad you got to move your cruise!!

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1 hour ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I’m not getting any offers either. I was on the phone so long with them already doing the transfer that I didn’t think to ask about offers.  The truth is, we don’t have time right now to do anymore anyway. After Dan retires next spring...different story

Some how I got stuck in their system according to the Rep.. She went through my history and said oh yes you should absolutely be getting offers. Then she had to take a bunch of screenshots and all this proof to send to management and then they can fix the problem for me lol. I don't understand how it happens but she said because of their wonderful IT system it happens all the time lol. 

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Just now, AGSLC5 said:

Some how I got stuck in their system according to the Rep.. She went through my history and said oh yes you should absolutely be getting offers. Then she had to take a bunch of screenshots and all this proof to send to management and then they can fix the problem for me lol. I don't understand how it happens but she said because of their wonderful IT system it happens all the time lol. 

So have you gotten any new offers ?  The only thing on my list are our annual prime offers.  I haven't decided where I'm going to use these, yet.

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Just now, WAAAYTOOO said:

So have you gotten any new offers ?  The only thing on my list are our annual prime offers.  I haven't decided where I'm going to use these, yet.

No I also only have those and I am part of a Club Royale Facebook group and they keep posting all these offers everyday and I was like why I am not getting these I always get offers.. So This morning I decided to call and ask what the issue is and that's when the Rep started working on it for me..She had to submit this whole proposal to management and she told me in 5 business days it should be fixed and I should be getting offers again. She said keep checking the website and if I don't call again so they can make adjustments. She said I am entitled to about 3 offers they have running. Its just annoying that we have to be like policemen and police the website lol. If it weren't for the facebook group I would of had no clue.. One of the offers is for a cruise in Jan or Feb and I wanted a January cruise for my birthday so I was wondering why did I not get this offer and according to the Rep I absolutely qualify. So hopefully it gets fixed by management and I don't have to call again. 

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2 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

So have you gotten any new offers ?  The only thing on my list are our annual prime offers.  I haven't decided where I'm going to use these, yet.

That is the only offer I have in my queue currently also. I suspect Club Royale is holding off on new offers other than the required annual status offers since most ad hoc promotions have a limited shelf life, and the short term future for sailings remains uncertain.  I do, however, check frequently just in case....??

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2 hours ago, Ogilthorpe said:

That is the only offer I have in my queue currently also. I suspect Club Royale is holding off on new offers other than the required annual status offers since most ad hoc promotions have a limited shelf life, and the short term future for sailings remains uncertain.  I do, however, check frequently just in case....??

They are not holding back actually lol. Like I said I belong to a Facebook group for club Royale members and they post all the offers out there. There are like 5 different offers out there I have seen. You might want to call Casino like I did and make sure your account is able to get offers.

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49 minutes ago, PRebecca said:

Hey that's awesome news! I already requested the refund for my first casino cruise (upgrade to JS), didn't want to mess with the FCC on the upgrade but if our next one gets cancelled too that's something I'll keep in mind!

For what it’s worth, along with the one we moved, we also did a straight cancellation with 2 others....so they weren’t all worth the effort to move them !

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I wanted to touch base once again with more good news regarding this moved casino comp booking.

When I made the move from August 2020 to Feb 2021 with this casino comp, I completely forgot about the $150 Free Play that was part of the original comp deal.  I figured...there is no way they are going to add that back in, since it was not part of the original switch....but I figured it was worth a call.

To my great surprise and glee, the Casino Rep said, "No problem.  I see that you had $150 each in Free play on the original booking.  I will add it back".  So, with that....in less than 2 minutes, I had restored the $150 each in Free Play to our booking !!!  With so many BAD things happening with cancellations, rebookings and S.L.O.W refunds, I wanted to provide a GOOD report.  Not everything is going wrong.

I think that Royal is really doing the right thing with this latest announcement about Odyssey and Jewel/Liberty.  They are now allowing affected pax to book ANY same-itinerary cruise with price protection on a cruise within 1 week on either side of the cancelled cruise.  This is the way they should have done it all along....and they are learning.  With each successive round of cancellations, they are adding more and more options to try and keep those booking.  Price protecting to a different ship is a great thing for everyone.

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30 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Price protecting to a different ship is a great thing for everyone.

Agreed!  It keeps Royal holding the money they need right now and keeps the customers happy.  Will increase demand on other sailings which could inflate prices for new bookings as well. 

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  • 8 months later...

Not exactly relating to this topic, but I wanted to report that I spoke with a really good agent this morning and among the many things she did for me, she also informed me that we were absolutely 100% going to get new annual tier casino comp cruises in April.  This was great news...I know there has been plenty of speculation about whether or not the casino would be awarding new annual comps this year since nobody cruised or earned one in 2020.  But the good news is - we will be getting a new annual comp next month.  YIPPEE !!

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We have had great success with Casino Royale, they have been very accommodating. We have successfully moved our comp cruises and also had a few cruises where we had applied the dollars off certificates. The cruises have been cancelled twice round and each time they have moved the dollars off certificate value to the next / new sailings. Third round of bookings I hope is lucky and we finally sail.

I know that Casino Royale will honour our status, but reading they may offer a comp cruise with consideration we could not sail would be unreal, so fingers crossed on that. Being from Australia we don't get any offers due to some local legislation on international gambling so for us it is just a matter of calling once a month and have a chat to them.

    

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Sorry, forgot to mention that Casino Royale certificates are able to be transferred from cancelled sailings, but "dollar's off" promootions, like the one they had last Oct 2019, they will not honour and move to a new sailing. Bit annoying as we had $800 USD in value lost. On a positive, they also confirmed for prime and above, they will be issuing in April the comp rooms, which is great, and trumps the loss of the dollars off offer. No wonder we are loyal to Royal.  

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