An important lesson learned about canceling a Lift & Shift'ed cruise

[JLMoran]

So my Iceland & Greenland cruise is officially canceled now, and I learned something very important that I wanted to share here. It appears that if you cancel a cruise that has been Lift & Shifted and you were past final payment when you did the Lift & Shift, you will be assessed the standard cancellation penalty that applied at the time the Lift & Shift was booked. That is, if you were in the first 15 days past final payment when you did the L&S, you would then be assessed a 25% cancellation penalty if you then cancel the sailing; doing the L&S between 15 and 30 days after final payment would mean a 50% penalty; etc.

I was utterly unaware of this when I did the L&S, as was my TA at the time. I even had him call Celebrity before doing the L&S, just to confirm the cruise was still cancelable and to see if there was any problem with the fact I was already past final payment on the original booking. The Celebrity rep that he spoke with assured him the cruise could be canceled and said nothing at all about penalties. (likely because he hadn't yet gotten that particular memo)

Now, I got really lucky. Because I did have my TA call Celebrity beforehand, and he was not informed of the penalty by their rep and had documented that person's response, he was able to call them and speak to a senior supervisor to get all penalties waived for my particular cancellation. I will actually be getting back 100% of my fully-paid-for cruise (after 60-75 days ), for which I'm incredibly relieved. Otherwise I'd have had to take the FCC option to keep everything that had been paid, and had my money locked up with Celebrity for who knows how long before cruising actually resumes in any meaningful way.

Please make a note of this if you have already done an L&S on a cruise you had. If you have an upcoming cruise that hasn't been shifted out, you have any doubts about whether it will actually sail, and you think you would rather L&S to the following year to be safe, do it before final payment if at all possible. That should ensure you can also get a 100% refund with no questions asked, although I would still advise to have your TA get that in writing / direct from a rep in some way in case they try to finagle a way to keep some of your money.

[Shari]

So sorry you had to cancel the greenland iceland cruise.  I am glad that you were able to get all of your money back. 

Quote

 

 

[WAAAYTOOO]

Wow, Joe.  This has really been a saga.  Thanks for the intel.  One more icy step in this path of treachery.

[sk8erguy1978]

Sorry about the cruise!

It was a few days before final payment of my September cruise that I knew we would cancel, especially since the extension to September announcement just happened. We also had a December cruise we knew we wanted to cancel as it was supposed to be a friends trip but everyone was having trouble making it.

I considered making final payment on September until Royal official cancelled (assuming we aren't sailing in September at all) but once my agent told me about the cancellation policy following you with a L&S that was enough to make my move on both cruises.

Cancelled September, moved December to September. I wasn't keeping the same stateroom category (upgrading) so no price to protect with L&S.

Another note. Do some basic math before deciding to wait and hope on a 125% FCC. Our friend taking the same September sailing considered waiting for Royal to cancel on them... We looked up the price and it was ... about ... 125% more. So, instead they L&S to protect their price & did it before final payment to not get locked into the cancellation policy if Royal does happen to sail mid September and they L&S.

Edited July 12, 2020 by sk8erguy1978
add

[Kathleen]

23 hours ago, JLMoran said:

So my Iceland & Greenland cruise is officially canceled now, and I learned something very important that I wanted to share here. It appears that if you cancel a cruise that has been Lift & Shifted and you were past final payment when you did the Lift & Shift, you will be assessed the standard cancellation penalty that applied at the time the Lift & Shift was booked. That is, if you were in the first 15 days past final payment when you did the L&S, you would then be assessed a 25% cancellation penalty if you then cancel the sailing; doing the L&S between 15 and 30 days after final payment would mean a 50% penalty; etc.

I was utterly unaware of this when I did the L&S, as was my TA at the time. I even had him call Celebrity before doing the L&S, just to confirm the cruise was still cancelable and to see if there was any problem with the fact I was already past final payment on the original booking. The Celebrity rep that he spoke with assured him the cruise could be canceled and said nothing at all about penalties. (likely because he hadn't yet gotten that particular memo)

Now, I got really lucky. Because I did have my TA call Celebrity beforehand, and he was not informed of the penalty by their rep and had documented that person's response, he was able to call them and speak to a senior supervisor to get all penalties waived for my particular cancellation. I will actually be getting back 100% of my fully-paid-for cruise (after 60-75 days ), for which I'm incredibly relieved. Otherwise I'd have had to take the FCC option to keep everything that had been paid, and had my money locked up with Celebrity for who knows how long before cruising actually resumes in any meaningful way.

Please make a note of this if you have already done an L&S on a cruise you had. If you have an upcoming cruise that hasn't been shifted out, you have any doubts about whether it will actually sail, and you think you would rather L&S to the following year to be safe, do it before final payment if at all possible. That should ensure you can also get a 100% refund with no questions asked, although I would still advise to have your TA get that in writing / direct from a rep in some way in case they try to finagle a way to keep some of your money.

Just to understand: If you cancelled, then the Cruise with Confidence policy doesn't apply and you get 100% FCC? I lifted and shifted  before final payment but want to understand what your experience was. Sorry if I am asking the obvious.

 

[JLMoran]

2 hours ago, Kathleen said:

Just to understand: If you cancelled, then the Cruise with Confidence policy doesn't apply and you get 100% FCC? I lifted and shifted  before final payment but want to understand what your experience was. Sorry if I am asking the obvious.

Here was my flow:

1. Booked original cruise for 2020
2. Made final payment in April of this year
3. Did a Lift & Shift to 2021 about 2 weeks later, in May, before it was officially canceled by Celebrity in late June (so I leveraged Cruise with Confidence, and I was in the 25% penalty bracket now if I had canceled instead of doing L&S)
4. Now in mid-July, I decided to completely cancel the L&S 2021 sailing and request a refund

So the way to think of this is even though the 2021 cruise had a completely new final payment date, for the purposes of the Lift & Shift the original 2020 cruise's cancellation penalty was "carried over"; it would apply to any cancellation request, up to and including 15 days after the new final payment date.

[Dad2Cue]

1 hour ago, JLMoran said:

Here was my flow:

1. Booked original cruise for 2020
2. Made final payment in April of this year
3. Did a Lift & Shift to 2021 about 2 weeks later, in May, before it was officially canceled by Celebrity in late June (so I leveraged Cruise with Confidence, and I was in the 25% penalty bracket now if I had canceled instead of doing L&S)
4. Now in mid-July, I decided to completely cancel the L&S 2021 sailing and request a refund

So the way to think of this is even though the 2021 cruise had a completely new final payment date, for the purposes of the Lift & Shift the original 2020 cruise's cancellation penalty was "carried over"; it would apply to any cancellation request, up to and including 15 days after the new final payment date.

Why did you get a cash refund?  I cancelled a cruise after the final payment date and got a 100% FCC because of cruise with confidence rules.  Had I waited another week when Royal cancelled the cruise, I could have gotten a 100% CC refund.  I applied the FCC to another previously booked cruise that was paid in full and refundable.  Applying the FCC resulted in a large overpayment so that resulted in a CC refund.

[JLMoran]

27 minutes ago, Dad2Cue said:

Why did you get a cash refund?  I cancelled a cruise after the final payment date and got a 100% FCC because of cruise with confidence rules.  Had I waited another week when Royal cancelled the cruise, I could have gotten a 100% CC refund.  I applied the FCC to another previously booked cruise that was paid in full and refundable.  Applying the FCC resulted in a large overpayment so that resulted in a CC refund.

To put it bluntly, I have zero confidence that cruising is going to resume in any meaningful way before mid-2021 at the earliest, and "boutique" cruises (which is the type I was trying to do for this particular trip) are IMO done until 2022. I refuse to keep over $10,000 of my money tied up with a company for years as a zero-interest loan to them when it can go to other uses that I need it for here and now, rather than drawing on home equity or otherwise putting myself in debt.

[Dad2Cue]

38 minutes ago, crisgold52 said:

Its by far better at times to simply make a new booking entirely and do a FUNDS MAINTENANCE TRANSFER to transfer funds out of one sailing to another assuming its before final payment. This can be done AFTER final payment as well as long as you get an agent trained in this, normally it requires an RSS consult. Over payments as a result of an FCC applied can initiate an automatic refund of the difference, but only if the agent completing the transaction knows what their doing. Often times I have to coach them with a fine tooth comb in order to make sure everything is carried over.

I got the right person because they told me what I should do with the FCC. Everything worked out because the cruise that the FCC was applied to was refundable.  I have since "rescheduled" that cruise to August 2021.  There wasn't any L&S restrictions and I could "reschedule" to any ship, any time, and any itinerary.

I like the idea of a Funds Maintenance Transfer instead of FCCs.

[JeffB]

One related add ....... I am booked on a Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale repositioning cruise aboard Celebrity Apex. It sails from Barcelona on October 22nd. My final payment is due on July 20th. I had my TA check to see if this booking was eligible for L&S to 2021. She was told by the Celebrity CSR that I could L&S but only to Apex's Barcelona to Barcelona R/Ts departing ion October 9th and just before the repositioning cruise. IOW, L&S is not always available - another one of the "ifs ands or buts" of this mess. 

I'm planning on keeping the booking and taking a refund when Celebrity cancels it - which I give a 90% chance that is going to happen. There are no FCCs applied to this booking. The only reason I'm keeping the booking on the 10% chance it will sail is because I have airline tickets one way to Lisbon, overnight accommodations there, a flight from Lisbon to Geneva, accommodations there and then Geneva to Barcelona where I plan to embark on Apex.  I can cancel all these land and air bookings but I'm not going to get refunds from the air carriers I booked with within the EU. Maybe vouchers but I'll be out some money. I do have travel insurance and the precipitating event that would trigger coverage would be the cruise line canceling the cruise. However, this is a tricky situation and not sure I'd be covered at all. Not sure how EU air carriers will handle bookings made by US citizens if the EU is still barring travel from the US and I expect they will continue to do so at least through October.  Thoughts on how I'm approaching this and my thinking. 

[Dad2Cue]

40 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

To put it bluntly, I have zero confidence that cruising is going to resume in any meaningful way before mid-2021 at the earliest, and "boutique" cruises (which is the type I was trying to do for this particular trip) are IMO done until 2022. I refuse to keep over $10,000 of my money tied up with a company for years as a zero-interest loan to them when it can go to other uses that I need it for here and now, rather than drawing on home equity or otherwise putting myself in debt.

I'm the same but only $6,000 at risk spread between 4 different cruises between January 2021 to January 2022. Two of the cruises were supposed to happen in 2020.  I just hope, things are better in 2021.  Everything seems like a gamble these days.