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Balance Due E-mail....just to add to my stress level!


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As an Update:

The Good:

  • Reservations are not Cancelled at this moment
  • Have been assured at least 4 times they will not be
  • My Cruise Planner Purchases are still there and I printed them out
  • The App still has my check-in information there and correct, including Vax uploads
  • I have boarding passes for everyone printed and on my phone
  • I have a cruise purchase receipt for one reservation showing zero balance due. But even this one now shows a balance due 'in the system'....balance due on each reservation changes daily it seems
  • The balance due on the other reservation shows pay-by date of the 27th (the day of cruise) where I am certain before it said May 6th (the day I booked)
  • Calling the Casino Royale number, I generally get through to someone fast.

The Bad:

  • I am 6 days out from boarding
  • I get e-mails every single night at about 1:00 am stating I have a balance due or risk cancellation. Not a nice way to start the day.
  • I have to assume since I am getting these daily e-mails, something in the Royal Caribbean system is showing a balance due, and I fear at some point this will trigger a cancellation
  • Only answer I can get at this point is 'system glitch'/resolution team is working on it and we will call you back on "xxxday" after the system updates
  • I am not receiving those promised call-backs.  I have to call them at the end of those days
  • While a balance due is shown on one reservation, I am actually owed ~$50.  I am not too worried about this and would gladly 'forfeit' it if it meant an end to this saga

So that's where I stand as of today.  I wish they would get this resolved. 

 

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My take away from all of this:  I will take extra care when deciding what to purchase (if anything) from Cruise Planner.  Unless there is a price drop on a planner purchase I have to take advantage of, I will never cancel and re-book.  A few dollars in savings isn't worth the angst trying resolve the result of software bugs RC knows are in their system. 

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13 minutes ago, Toby said:

My take away from all of this:  I will take extra care when deciding what to purchase (if anything) from Cruise Planner.  Unless there is a price drop on a planner purchase I have to take advantage of, I will never cancel and re-book.  A few dollars in savings isn't worth the angst trying resolve the result of software bugs RC knows are in their system. 

You can say that again!  I am convinced this has to do with OBC.  I made many, many cancel and re-bookings in cruise planner over the last month.  All went just fine, with refunds coming to my credit card right at 7 days.  Then I received the RCL shareholder OBC.  Once that hit one stateroom, the next cancel re-book (to save $32 dang dollars!!) sent everything into absolute Chaos.  But I am speculating about that of course.

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When do people generally receive notification of their shareholder OBCs?  I sent in the forms for that about 4 months ago now.  I initially never heard anything back then asked for a status update at which point I was asked to resend some info but then never got a response from that.  Our cruise is on the 24th of next month.  At this point if I had to resend the info all over again with an updated statement I would need to rebuy the shares since I dumped them once the stock started tanking...

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Btw, I also had a similar issue with the balance due email.  It is interesting that of the 3 reservations in our group that the room for my wife, son and I was the only one that got the email and we were also the only ones that requested the shareholder OBC and also rebooked a few of the excursions when sales came across.

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If I recall correctly, the 'instructions' I read said to submit request for shareholder OBC no more than 2-3 weeks out.  So that's what I did.  So it must have been about 2 weeks ago.  I did not receive any sort of notification that the credit was there....it just showed up.

 

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Aha thanks.  Yeah, I did see that in the instructions but thought that I had read elsewhere on the forum that folks had been successfully submitting well in advance of that 2-3 week window and that RC was actually having some issues with processing everything inside that advised window.  I'll just look for it in the next few weeks and cross my fingers.

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2 hours ago, OrlandoDad said:

You can say that again!  I am convinced this has to do with OBC.  I made many, many cancel and re-bookings in cruise planner over the last month.  All went just fine, with refunds coming to my credit card right at 7 days.  Then I received the RCL shareholder OBC.  Once that hit one stateroom, the next cancel re-book (to save $32 dang dollars!!) sent everything into absolute Chaos.  But I am speculating about that of course.

Here may be the issue, your stock OBC cannot be used for pre-purchased activities per the 2019 shareholder benefit rules. "Onboard credit may not be used for onboard service charges or pre-purchased activities."

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18 minutes ago, Shari said:

Here may be the issue, your stock OBC cannot be used for pre-purchased activities per the 2019 shareholder benefit rules. "Onboard credit may not be used for onboard service charges or pre-purchased activities."

Pretty sure you are right.  When I did the rebooking, I think it did use the OBC.  Then I cancelled that and the OBC showed back up...it is still there...and rebooked again.

But if this is the case, there is no way in heck Royals system should have let me use the OBC for the purchase in the first place.

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And just a brief update, I did confirm that they moved the Payment Due date to 6-27-2022, the day of the cruise.  E-mail/website still says due date of 5-6-2022, the day I booked the cruise, but when I 'go to pay' link it shows 6-27-2022. So as long as 'the system' doesn't cancel me between 12:01 and the time I board on 6-27-2022 I guess I'll be good.  And I'll have all my printed material for arrival time, drink packages, excursions, Key, etc if they disappear.

I'll just be out a few bucks at that point.  I'll just steal a $799.00 list price  Invicta at the 95% off sale to get my $50 back.....KIDDING!!!!

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9 hours ago, OrlandoDad said:

I get e-mails every single night at about 1:00 am stating I have a balance due or risk cancellation. Not a nice way to start the day.

Better to be getting emails so you know to follow up. We only learned about a wonky charge when we called about something else, only to be told that there was a balance due on a cruise. NEVER received any communication from Royal on that one (and it happened THREE times in less than two weeks).

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1 hour ago, dodgestang said:

Well it's been 8 days for me....and I just got the emails again saying I owe money.  At least I haven't been getting them everyday.  The email text says I owe money in the title, the email body says I owe $0, the email invoice attachment shows a balance due, the website shows no balance due.

Wow. Come on RC.

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1 hour ago, cruisellama said:

When ever I pay off, I call RCL and ask for a 0 balance folio.  They've alway's been good about it.

Ohh I have those.  Then they sent me a new one 8 days ago that said I owed money.  It's a weird bug on their side.  I've got it all documented, if I show in Vancouver in August and don't have my rooms.....my lawyer will take over.

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At least you have some time.  I sail Monday and this issue is still not resolved.  I received another balance due email last night. I guess I will call them one more time tonight when I get home, then just hope for the best Monday morning.  
Didn't I read somewhere the reservations are transferred to the ship two days before sailing?  That would be tomorrow. 
This has been a terrible experience.  I imagine I will book again with Royal, the casino offers are too good to pass up, but this has put a bad taste in my mouth that will likely linger for quite a while 

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@OrlandoDad noticed in your other thread that you had called RC yesterday. Were you able to make any headway on your accounting issue? We sail the following week and also still getting the emails. Spoken to them now on numerous occasions with the promise of this getting fixed to no avail.

Interested to hear what happens on Monday when you board; and also if your final invoice at the end of the cruise was correct.

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I had the same issue and here is my update 7 business days and still no refund so I spent yesterday morning on the phone trying to get a resolution. The solution was to extend my final payment to two days before the cruise departs this was not acceptable. So I did the only thing I could think of I sent a Facebook message to M. Bailey someone from the executive resolutions called me confirmed the refund has been processed and will be reflected on my CC next week but more importantly the system finally allows me to make the payment to get the balance back to $0, I was also given some onboard credit which was not the reason I contacted them but was a nice gesture. I did make it known that whoever decided this was the way to handle the situation picked the absolute worst way to make things right and they need to find a way to make those back end adjustments without involving the customer, she confirmed the issue is tied to the new cruise planner system they implemented and that IT is aware of it and trying to figure out the issue but they have seen an uptick of funky stuff happening to reservations once you cancel something on the cruise planner. For reference I cruise 7/10 and had originally been paid in full in Jan 3,2022.

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1 hour ago, CaliCraig said:

@OrlandoDad noticed in your other thread that you had called RC yesterday. Were you able to make any headway on your accounting issue? We sail the following week and also still getting the emails. Spoken to them now on numerous occasions with the promise of this getting fixed to no avail.

Interested to hear what happens on Monday when you board; and also if your final invoice at the end of the cruise was correct.

No.  Issue(s) are not resolved.  Current bottom line is Royal owes me ~$58.  I am not going to die on that sword.  Not worth the effort or aggravation to me.  The e-mail I received Thursday night was actually for my other reservation.  So they moved the payment due date on that reservation to Monday as well.  Just to stop the e-mails.  I get continued promises to resolve this but time is very short and I don't expect any results from them at this point.

They assure me there will be no problem Monday getting on the ship.  If the reservations are 'cancelled' Monday night I guess I will not be able to use the App on board for reservations and such.  I will not be happy about that, but not going to worry about it too much.

I will probably call them once more, either tomorrow or Monday before I drive over to the port just to have them tell me one more time there is no balance due and the reservations will not be cancelled...will mean nothing, but I have the time.

They really need to get a handle on this.  Whatever part of 'the system' that is showing a balance and not agreeing with what the representatives are seeing needs to be addressed.  It is something they should be ashamed of.

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8 minutes ago, OrlandoDad said:

In the terminal all checked in.  Waiting for the suite folks to be called then I guess we are up next.  Getting close. 

Love the play by play @OrlandoDad. Glad it was a non issue. Enjoy your cruise!!

Make sure you check your invoice folio on the last day to see if it somehow pops up again. 

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Final Outcome for those that may be having this issue...

The cruise went fine and we enjoyed ourselves.

When I returned home, the ~$58 I insisted they owed me (I can add) was refunded to my card.  That was a nice surprise, as I had no intention of spending one more minute on the phone with them to try to get it resolved, and would have just let it go.

In the future, I will not apply for Royal Caribbean stockholder OBC even though I am entitled to it, as I am convinced this triggered my issues after it was applied and I subsequently cancelled and rebooked a Cruise Planner item to save a few bucks.  Just not worth the hassle and stress I endured for two weeks leading up to the cruise.  Also, I instantly regretted sending a brokerage statement, even a heavily redacted one, to a cruise line who obviously does not have the best IT department, to say the least.

Advice to those finding themselves in this situation....insist that they change the final payment due date to the day of the cruise for all reservations the moment you get your first e-mail.  They did this for me, they can do it for you.  Alleviates at least a little of the stress and stops the daily e-mails.  

To Royal Caribbean....fix this!!  Devote whatever resources are required to make it happen yesterday.  It is ridiculous to be told by multiple employees on the phone that this is a 'known issue' and 'not to worry about it'.  That's a big ask when your customer is not sure they will be able to board the ship on the sailing date for a cruise they paid in full the day it was booked.  If you know about it, fix it.

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11 minutes ago, OrlandoDad said:

The cruise went fine and we enjoyed ourselves.

Glad to hear you enjoyed the cruise and things mostly got worked out in the end.

I was following along even though I don't think I posted anything and felt awful that you had to deal with such stress. You handled it better than I could.

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9 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

Glad to hear you enjoyed the cruise and things mostly got worked out in the end.

I was following along even though I don't think I posted anything and felt awful that you had to deal with such stress. You handled it better than I could.

Thank You.  I must say that looking back I am proud of myself for never once getting upset or nasty with a representative during the apprx. 10-12 hours I spent on the phone with them over this two week saga.  Guess I am mellowing out as I get older.  😀

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1 hour ago, OrlandoDad said:

Thank You.  I must say that looking back I am proud of myself for never once getting upset or nasty with a representative during the apprx. 10-12 hours I spent on the phone with them over this two week saga.  Guess I am mellowing out as I get older.  😀

Good for you! Haha. So glad your cruise went well. Thanks for posting the outcome, hopefully it will help others in this situation. 

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6 hours ago, OrlandoDad said:

 

In the future, I will not apply for Royal Caribbean stockholder OBC even though I am entitled to it, as I am convinced this triggered my issues after it was applied and I subsequently cancelled and rebooked a Cruise Planner item to save a few bucks.  Just not worth the hassle and stress I endured for two weeks leading up to the cruise.  Also, I instantly regretted sending a brokerage statement, even a heavily redacted one, to a cruise line who obviously does not have the best IT department, to say the least.

Don’t give up on this benefit.  Just don’t use the OBC for cruise planner purchases.  You can take it out via the slot machines onboard, or, dont prepay gratuities and it can be used to pay those on your onboard bill.

I’ve no concern over sending a heavily redacted brokerage statement.  I brought I nice heavy duty sharpie for this purpose.  
 

I’ve had issues with using OBC for cruise planner, the biggest of which has to do with repricing and them wanting to remove items OBC was used on and I would have to repurchase at the new price.  I had saved substantial $$on excursions and used OBC, in the end it did not pay to reprice the cruise due to the savings I would have lost on the excursions.  Lesson learned.

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