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Being scammed on booking


UKFamily

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Booked our first cruise with RC and took a few hours choosing rooms etc. Finally popped up with an offer about a suite and let RC choose the room.  I have a screen shot showing 4 guests with suite guarantee and showing the cost,  after booking and entering the 4 names and details the email comes through missing the 3rd and 4th guest names. Now they are scamming us trying to get more money.  I know 100% it was for 4 guests not 2 but they call us a liar.

ive tried complaining but just get generic responses back so think it’s going to be an avoid RC at all costs as no customer service.  Will have to go down route of credit card reclaim and complaints to ABTA and ATOL etc.

Very disappointing for such a large company. 

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Hi, I am sorry this happened to you- it's possible you misread the confirmation or the screenshot. It can be hard to read sometimes. Did you put down money already or did you just place a hold?

You can try contacting Royal Caribbean guest services- but I'm not sure what will happen. They might ask for your screenshots. 

You can post them here and we can look but we have no pull with them.

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10 hours ago, Sharla said:

Hi, I am sorry this happened to you- it's possible you misread the confirmation or the screenshot. It can be hard to read sometimes. Did you put down money already or did you just place a hold?

You can try contacting Royal Caribbean guest services- but I'm not sure what will happen. They might ask for your screenshots. 

You can post them here and we can look but we have no pull with them.

Think it’s pretty clear, shows 4 persons guaranteed suite room.  Asked for 4 guest details. When you select that it doesn’t say for 2 people. Went straight to input 4 guest names, sat next to my 10 year old daughter joking about how old she was as we are inputting all of our names so it’s crystal clear it’s the error of RC.
 

To be honest I’m horrified at how bad Royal Caribbean are being and calling their customers liars.  All they keep offering is for us to call them and pay more to go for a quad room rather than cancel. I notified them within 24hours that their confirmation was wrong as per their terms. 

Going to take up with credit card insurance and make complaints to all the UK travel organisations like ABTA and ATOL.

As far as I’m concerned now RC are just frauds trying to take as much money as possible with no customer service. 
 

If anyone is considering booking all I would say now is avoid this company.0F81ABDB-23BC-4686-9C32-80EE81F46D01.thumb.jpeg.9868b7a9cee903257dbbab3e74895717.jpeg

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It's hard to tell without knowing the dates or anything, but you are correct that it does say 4 guests. However you should have been able to put in all names before payment- at least that's how it works on the travel agent site. 

 

I would suggest calling Royal Caribbean's guest services. Looks like you're in the UK, so I would start there, not call the US number. 

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/gbr/en/resources/contact-us?country=GBR

 

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Sail date is 8/7/21 - 8/15/21 on Anthem for 8 nights leaving out of Southampton. I did a mock booking for 4 and didn't see the same using both the uk and us sites. It did show that price for 2 for a junior suite.

 

I'm still sorry that happened you might have some luck sending the screenshot to them either via email or on social media.  I hope you get it resolved to your satisfaction.

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2 hours ago, Levi said:

Sail date is 8/7/21 - 8/15/21 on Anthem for 8 nights leaving out of Southampton. I did a mock booking for 4 and didn't see the same using both the uk and us sites. It did show that price for 2 for a junior suite.

 

I'm still sorry that happened you might have some luck sending the screenshot to them either via email or on social media.  I hope you get it resolved to your satisfaction.

Yep that’s the only way I can get that price to show now and to offer the option of the room guarantee now.  Some sort of website glitch after spent hours going through all the rooms and levels that gave the option of suite price based on 2 but displaying on the page 4 people and shows exact same price less if you exclude the add on and remove the discounts.  It did add the current discounts to the booking but didn’t apply any price change either so another part of the glitch.  Shows the 2 current codes on the booking but no reductions.  
 

If they had just been friendly we would have carried on and booked with our original plan for balcony for about £400 less than the suite guarantee. Instead they call you a liar because of their website issues and say you have to pay more. 
 

Given up trying to resolve with them direct.  They have 28 days before I can raise with ABTA now but I can raise a claw back claim with credit card. 

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1 hour ago, UKFamily said:

If they had just been friendly we would have carried on and booked with our original plan for balcony for about £400 less than the suite guarantee. Instead they call you a liar because of their website issues and say you have to pay more.

Watching with interest. I wonder if Royal uses a third party call center for these bookings. Are there travel agents in the UK who could take it and run with it for you in exchange for the booking? In the US, it doesn't cost extra...I am not sure about the UK. Regardless, I would want to take it to a supervisory level with the company directly so they know there has been a failure.

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Lots of glitches with their website...we all know that. I still cant figure out out to book the refundable option and they changed that a year ag or more?..I don't book much with Royal directly as there are WAY better deals through other travel sites to say the least!!

 

Sorry this is a tough first experience with Royal (and probably your last if what you are saying is true)......

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I’ve just replicated on video their website glitch again that isn’t possible because I’m a liar.  Booking another 4 guests against a suite with loads of different rooms available showing room numbers and then going back showing 4 guests on the selection, booking process with 4 guest names. going back in again and price then doubled.  
 

Had a call this morning from sales trying to upsell on video.

will see if I can add the video link ?

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, UKFamily said:

I’ve just replicated on video their website glitch again that isn’t possible because I’m a liar.  Booking another 4 guests against a suite with loads of different rooms available showing room numbers and then going back showing 4 guests on the selection, booking process with 4 guest names. going back in again and price then doubled.  

Sorry, I don't have time to watch your video, but by "going back" do you mean hitting the Back button in your browser?  If so, many, many websites don't work correctly when you do that.  If the website provides navigational links for moving through a process, you usually have to use those instead of the Back/Forward browser buttons or internal saved states get messed up.  If that's not what happened, then their website (which is known to have plenty of issues) has a design flaw.

Either way, the relevant question is what the price for 4 guests should be.  I don't see Royal honoring a 50 % website glitch in the middle of a cruising shutdown.  The fine print of the terms and conditions almost certainly includes their right to reject a booking like this.

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35 minutes ago, Atlantix2000 said:

Sorry, I don't have time to watch your video, but by "going back" do you mean hitting the Back button in your browser?  If so, many, many websites don't work correctly when you do that.  If the website provides navigational links for moving through a process, you usually have to use those instead of the Back/Forward browser buttons or internal saved states get messed up.  If that's not what happened, then their website (which is known to have plenty of issues) has a design flaw.

Either way, the relevant question is what the price for 4 guests should be.  I don't see Royal honoring a 50 % website glitch in the middle of a cruising shutdown.  The fine print of the terms and conditions almost certainly includes their right to reject a booking like this.

Yep that’s all I’m asking, terms state notify them within 5 days of any mistakes of the booking once confirmed which I did the same day.  They won’t admit they are wrong.  The website also has no back buttons on the page so can only use the browser back buttons. 

Large organisation being a bully trying to force me to take a future cruise credit or pay more.  Because of their arrogance I’m never using them. 

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6 hours ago, mattymay said:

It's a tickbox further on towards the end of the booking process now. Maybe they hope people wont see it.

Never have seen it..and I have done about 100 mock cruises in the past year on this site.....perhaps its not available for booking through the Canadian site. No matter what, it seems like its a sticking point as well for many new to Royal or first time bookers.

 

Perhaps someone who knows where/how it is should post a screen shot or step by step directions how to choose that option.

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1 hour ago, monctonguy said:

Never have seen it..and I have done about 100 mock cruises in the past year on this site.....perhaps its not available for booking through the Canadian site. No matter what, it seems like its a sticking point as well for many new to Royal or first time bookers.

Perhaps someone who knows where/how it is should post a screen shot or step by step directions how to choose that option.

I went on the Canadian site and the option was there for me when I used the you choose your room but it wasn't available if I tried to book a guarantee.

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On 1/7/2021 at 9:39 AM, monctonguy said:

Social media and cell phones have certainly helped out the little guy against big business, politicians, law enforcement etc

+1 to this... I would start on Facebook and Twitter. Make mention of involving the press in the post. A lot of times they will escalate the issue to someone who can actually do something. What is unfortunate in the video is the recording starting from the middle of the selection process and not the beginning (which I would encourage you to go back and replicate if possible). As others have mentioned... their website is terribly glitchy. Any use of the back button, or reload option can further compound those issues. It's no excuse since it clearly looks like you're paying for 4 people. I hope it works out for you!

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My question is more of an aside, but is $136USD/room or $133CAD/room typical upcharge for refundable deposit?  

I've read references to converting from refundable to nonrefundable deposit, is that a full rebooking or just refunding the upcharge and recharacterize remaining deposit as nonrefundable?

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1 hour ago, S0nny said:

+1 to this... I would start on Facebook and Twitter. Make mention of involving the press in the post. A lot of times they will escalate the issue to someone who can actually do something. What is unfortunate in the video is the recording starting from the middle of the selection process and not the beginning (which I would encourage you to go back and replicate if possible). As others have mentioned... their website is terribly glitchy. Any use of the back button, or reload option can further compound those issues. It's no excuse since it clearly looks like you're paying for 4 people. I hope it works out for you!

How to become a Karen 101

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5 minutes ago, CruisinForABruisin said:

How to become a Karen 101

?? Touche! 

But the sad reality is... large enterprises only respond to large statements. I worked in customer service over the phone (selling auto/home insurance for one the largest in the business)... trust me... even if UKFamily were able to get a hold of someone who cared about their circumstance... the sad thing is they probably can do nothing to fix it. Companies this large have policies in place, and they will only get attention when it's escalated to a higher authority. And nowadays, what gets an immediate response is social media (we had a policy to give people who posted to social media almost anything they wanted... sooooo ... you call it being a Karen... I call it knowing the system ?‍♀️)

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11 hours ago, Rfk said:

My question is more of an aside, but is $136USD/room or $133CAD/room typical upcharge for refundable deposit?  

I've read references to converting from refundable to nonrefundable deposit, is that a full rebooking or just refunding the upcharge and recharacterize remaining deposit as nonrefundable?

You rebook at the prevailing rates to switch from refundable to non-refundable.  

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