Has anyone received an email from Princess regarding a refund of incorrectly calculated port charges from a previous Ruby sailing to a Mexican port? If so, what has been your experience regarding the collection of the money? The email I received is shown below.

August 19, 2009

Dear XXXX XXXX,

We enjoyed having you onboard Ruby Princess® and hope you have wonderful memories of your Caribbean voyage.

We are contacting you at this time because you have been identified as a past passenger who sailed on Ruby Princess® to Mexican ports last winter.

During a recent review we have identified an administrative error in the calculation of the Government Fees and Taxes on your recent Mexico voyage. The result of this review was an over charge to your account of approximately $10 USD per person.

As a gesture of goodwill we have credited your Captain’s Circle account with a Future Cruise Credit of $25 USD per person. This credit will be available for you to use onboard any future Princess Cruise® booked by September 31, 2011.

If this offer does not meet your needs, in lieu of the future cruise credit, you may request a refund of the over charge of approximately $10 per person by writing to us at the address below before September 31, 2009:

Princess Cruises
Customer Relations
24844 Ave. Rockefeller
Santa Clarita, CA 91355

Please provide your full name and booking number.

We sincerely apologize for this error on our part and look forward to hosting you again on a future Princess cruise.

Sincerely,


Eric Findon,
Vice President Customer Service
Princess Cruises



PZ09MS058

For questions, please contact us at 1-800-PRINCESS (1-800-774-6237).

Seems pretty cut and dry. If you will cruise before Sep 30, 2011 (note September doesn't have 31 days), you will get it as onboard credit. I would print out the email and carry it with you on your next cruise.

Since the email was just sent on August 19th there's barely been enough time for Princess to respond if anyone did request the refund in lieu of the onboard credit.

It seems that even though we have another cruise booked for Nov (and haven't made final payment) our TA wasn't willing to get us the $50 without taking a commission of $10. Other people have run into this same situation & I was curious if anyone on this board has had a similar experience.

I guess I'm missing something here. I don't see where PCL giving you back a refund on taxes affects your next booking. If you requested the refund in cash they should either send you a check or credit your CC. If you take the onboard credit for you next cruise it should just be there on your onboard account. Taxes are not something TA's get paid commission on. If you've asked you TA if you could get that refund applied to your next booking as part of the payment, then yes, it very may be that PCL wants to take it off the top which would affect her commission. It would be much easier for you to just take the onboard credit for your next cruise.

We've booked a cruise for Nov and final payment has not yet been billed to my CC. I called my TA & thought I could apply the $50 deduction before she billed it but she's telling me that it will be discounted by $10 because of her commission.
I thought it strange because it wasn't yet final billed.
Princess is saying I should tell them upfront when booking. I'm not sure what the difference is but it looks as though I'll just hold it until I book another cruise for next year to get the whole amount.

Ahh, it says "future cruise credit". I thought it was an on-board credit. I guess the issue is it needs to be for a new booking and not an existing one.

But then it says, "This credit will be available for you TO USE ONBOARD any future Princess Cruise. . ."; confusing, to say the least.

I suppose they can say that we booked the cruise prior to receiving the email.
1 was fully paid for, 1 wasn't until Aug 31.
They've always got something in their ad's or emails that seems to limit my plans to some degree. Not that $10 is going to keep me from going, but it's the way they do thinks some times that gets annoying. Oh well, next cruise.

quote:

As a gesture of goodwill we have credited your Captain’s Circle account with a Future Cruise Credit of $25 USD per person. This credit will be available for you to use onboard any future Princess Cruise® booked by September 31, 2011.

Yes, this statement is very contradicting. Future cruise credit, and onboard credit two separate things. I think it's money credited for onboard use. I would call the number provided though and ask them to clarify the statement.

This reminds me of a memo I once got while working for the TVA, which touted a new policy at the plant. "This revised policy is the same as the one it replaces, except that it is different in several ways". I still laugh when I think about it.

What kills me is that people with degrees and fat salaries come up with that crap!

It's like Rich's letter from Princess -- if the suit who wrote it had taken the time to have someone else read it for correctness they'd not have to answer questions about the credit. I once had a manager who looked at anyone lower in the food chain as chess pieces that he was there to move around. We were not capable of thought. Of course his secretaries (more than one...they couldn't stand him) would gleefully type up "exactly" what he wrote even though they knew what he was really trying to say. There was no point in telling him his words were incorrect, so they just typed it. They always kept his scrawled drafts as evidence of his grammatical shortcomings.

Wow! I did the same thing when I worked security; I was berated one time for respectfully suggesting a change that would have made a memo much clearer. From that point on I just passed 'em through the way I got 'em, and took great delight in watching certain events turn to chaos.

It seems to me Princess could have made this simpler on themselves by just sending out checks for $10 and not complicating things with a choice. My goodness, it was a relatively small number of passengers and should have been quickly resolved. Instead they just had to make it a marketing opportunity - and apparently a poorly designed one that has at least irritated one loyal cruiser (Rich), and no doubt many others.

Definitely a poorly written email. I agree with Cruise Fanatic on this. It looks like an on board credit to me as well. I think Rich's TA maybe missed a memo some where. I've never heard of Tax refund FC's or OBC's being subject to commission by a TA either.

Rich, Log in to your Captain's Circle account here and verify that it has been credited to your Circle Savings first. Then call the number as Cruise Fanatic also suggested and ask how it can be used is my best advice.

Wow! Subject to a 20% commission huh?

Dwayne

quote:

Originally posted by IslandCruz:
Definitely a poorly written email. I agree with Cruise Fanatic on this. It looks like an on board credit to me as well. I think Rich's TA maybe missed a memo some where. I've never heard of Tax refund FC's or OBC's being subject to commission by a TA either.

Rich, Log in to your Captain's Circle account here and verify that it has been credited to your Circle Savings first. Then call the number as Cruise Fanatic also suggested and ask how it can be used is my best advice.

Wow! Subject to a 20% commission huh?

Dwayne

Thanks Dwayne.
My account & my wife's both show,

Credit ID Description Earned Expires Status Amount
01882330 Voyage Goodwill 08/12/09 Book By 09/30/11 ACTIVE $25 (USD)


We both have FUTURE credit but it doesn't appear to have been applied to our current bookings in Nov.
I can live with that since we're probably taking another cruise in Jan & March.
It's just not worth the aggravation for $10 to fight about it but I did think it a strange way of taking a commission.
We've booked about 10 cruises with her since 2007 but & now realize just how much value our online TA puts in our future business.