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Why are cancelled cruise refunds taking so long? What can you do to make the cruise refunds process faster, less stressful and easier? I explore the 5 key reasons that cruise refunds for cancel cruises is taking so long. I then look at the 5 things that I have been doing to make getting my cruise refunds faster and easier. The topic of cancelled cruise refunds has been hotly debated and a source of much upsets fro cruise passengers and, hopefully, this will help you understand the challenges, issues and process better - and make getting your refund simpler.
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Gary Bembridge's Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and 77 cruises at time of making this video.
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0:00
I'm Gary Bembridge this is another of my
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cruising tips for Travis I want to take
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a look at why cash refunds and the
0:07
allocation of future cruise credits is
0:09
taking so long and some of the things
0:11
that you can do to make things go
0:13
quicker easier and reduce a lot of the
0:16
stress let's take a look of five things
0:19
that you need to Reno about why refunds
0:21
are taking so long the first time most
0:23
obvious of them is volume if you
0:25
consider there's around about 600,000
0:29
people on cruise ships every single week
0:32
of the year when they're selling so
0:33
that's let's see most people travel as a
0:35
couple that's around about 300,000
0:37
bookings what the cruise lines are
0:39
telling us is between sort of 40% and
0:42
50% off cruises are asking for cash
0:45
refunds so that's around a hundred and
0:47
fifty thousand bookings every single
0:51
week that has canceled that have to be
0:53
processed so if you consider cruise
0:55
lines are cancelling roughly about a
0:56
month of cruises at a time
0:58
that means there's up to half a million
1:01
of cash refunds that need to be
1:03
processed so the volume is absolutely
1:06
enormous and that of course takes a lot
1:08
of time to work through process and
1:10
raise the refund which then gets charged
1:12
back to your credit card
1:13
the second thing though that's also
1:15
creating a huge amount of work is even
1:19
if you take the future cruise credit
1:20
option in many cases and for most cruise
1:23
lines there's also a nother refund that
1:25
has to happen so you'll find for example
1:27
you get port fees will be refunded in
1:30
cash or if you've done things like you
1:32
bought Wi-Fi in advance paid gratuities
1:34
in advance
1:35
drinks packages excursions or you've
1:39
bought any other kind of things like
1:40
that those are cash refunded so even if
1:43
you're taking future cruise credit
1:44
someone has to work through and cash
1:47
refund all those elements that you get
1:49
cash refunds for so if you take for
1:51
example a couple of my experiences so
1:53
for example I had a Royal Caribbean
1:54
cruise cancelled I decided to take the
1:57
cash but actually got back six different
1:59
refunds which cause got the fare the
2:02
gratuities so that meant for that actual
2:04
one booking there were six actual
2:06
transactions that had to be processed so
2:08
the volume is absolutely enormous the
2:11
third thing to note is that the cruise
2:14
lines themselves are reducing the number
2:17
of stars so a lot of people have been
2:18
laid off or furloughed and there are
2:20
some of them were working shorter hours
2:22
and most of the call center people
2:24
because of social distancing and
2:26
lockdowns are working from home so
2:28
they're actually working with less
2:29
resources out of the office so for them
2:31
it's a much more complicated process
2:32
because it's reliant on the hours they
2:34
can work the time they can work the
2:36
situation at home connections to Wi-Fi
2:38
etc etc so actually their whole process
2:41
is not as simple and easy you've got
2:43
this huge big volume and you've got
2:44
people trying to cope with just the
2:46
volume to be processed the fourth thing
2:49
to understand is that when they cancel
2:51
they're cancelling five weeks or four
2:54
weeks or whatever at a time so they're
2:56
generating millions of transactions that
2:58
have to be processed and what they're
3:00
then doing is they're tending to work
3:02
for them first-come first-served or
3:04
cruise by cruise so depending on the
3:06
cruise line some of them are saying what
3:07
they'll do is their works with
3:08
cancellations in the days order that
3:10
cruises come so if your cruise happen to
3:12
be at the end of that batch that's
3:14
cancelled you're probably going to be at
3:16
the end of they start processing some of
3:18
the cruise lines or doing a slightly
3:19
differently it's based on the order that
3:21
they get the request but there is a
3:24
sequencing process that will off course
3:26
add more time to the whole process of
3:28
getting your refund the fifth and one of
3:32
the things that concerns people perhaps
3:34
the most is of course the cruise lines
3:36
are managing cash Cruise Lines have a
3:38
big cash flow issue they are not getting
3:42
any revenue in or getting very limited
3:44
revenue in but if huge costs going out
3:47
so we know that it costs between a
3:48
hundred million and a hundred and fifty
3:50
million dollars per ship to keep that
3:52
ticking over now they've gone into cold
3:54
layout which means they've reduced the
3:55
costs quite significantly but they are
3:57
spending literally billions every single
4:01
month to keep things ticking over at the
4:04
same time they then have to have the
4:06
cash flow going out for refunds so
4:08
without a shadow of a doubt there will
4:09
be some cash flow management going on to
4:13
keep the way of this cash draining out
4:16
of the system much more manageable the
4:18
cruise lines are bring a lot of money in
4:20
billions of dollars in to help tie them
4:22
over but they are going to be managing
4:24
cash which is why you'll hear thing
4:26
like some of the cruise line saying it's
4:27
going to take 90 days a combination of
4:29
the volume staff just being able to cope
4:31
with it and also to manage the cash so
4:34
what are the five things that I think
4:35
you should do to try make this process
4:37
less stressful easier and hopefully
4:39
speed up the whole process of getting a
4:41
refund well first of all and absolutely
4:43
really really importantly is keep up to
4:45
date with your specific Cruise Lines
4:48
rules regulations and processes as this
4:50
has been going on the rules and
4:53
regulations have changed the time frames
4:55
have changed the percentage that they're
4:57
giving you incentives in terms of future
4:58
cruise credits have been tweaked over
5:00
time so make sure you really understand
5:02
what the current terms and conditions
5:04
are particularly if you're waiting for a
5:05
cruise to be cancelled so for example
5:07
I've had five cruises cancelled so far I
5:09
have two more that I'm expecting and so
5:11
I'm keeping an eye on those two cruise
5:12
lines to understand what they're
5:13
currently doing what the rules are
5:15
are they automatically refunding future
5:17
cruise credit are they giving a specific
5:19
window of time where I'm gonna have to
5:20
apply and what are the actual
5:21
regulations and rules and expiry dates
5:23
so make sure that you absolutely
5:24
understand for your cruise line what the
5:26
rules and regulations are so you know
5:28
when your cruise gets cancelled as your
5:30
cruise get cancelled which option is
5:32
gonna work best for you and which
5:33
process you want to go with personally
5:36
I'm taking mostly cash refunds because I
5:38
have so many cruises as I've already
5:40
mentioned I've had all those cruise
5:41
canceled I have a whole bunch of for the
5:43
rest of the year so I actually want to
5:44
have the cash to maintain flexibility as
5:47
I look at next year I don't want all the
5:49
future cruise credits piling up and
5:50
locking me into having to go to a
5:52
certain route so that is my second point
5:54
you need to decide do you want the
5:56
future cruise credit or do you want the
5:58
cash and I've told you why I'm taking
5:59
cash why should you consider taking
6:01
future cruise credit well if you know
6:02
already that you're going to be booking
6:04
on that cruise line immediately that you
6:06
get your future cruise credits then of
6:08
course take the future cruise credit
6:10
because you're gonna get that bonus and
6:11
then you can go straight in and use that
6:13
to make your next booking generally
6:16
speaking the futures cruise credits are
6:17
coming through really really quickly for
6:19
most cruise lines the third really
6:22
important thing and the summer that I
6:23
found is work quite well for me is dire
6:25
eyes everything so when you know that
6:28
your cruises cancelled
6:29
dier eyes some specific dates so for
6:32
example using the Norwegian Cruise Line
6:34
example again as they were going to give
6:36
a very specific window of time when they
6:38
would open
6:39
making the claim now that was like two
6:40
weeks ahead of once they announced that
6:42
cruisers have been canceled so I put in
6:44
my diary when I got up that morning I
6:46
logged on it was available to make the
6:49
claim and I put the claim in hopefully
6:50
that would mean that I'm at the
6:52
beginning of the queue for processing so
6:54
make sure you you know the exact date
6:56
between if you have a window of time you
6:57
have to do something some of them then
6:59
also give you an expiry date so you have
7:01
to have submitted a claim by a certain
7:03
date so make sure you understand when
7:05
that is dire eyes when you should be
7:07
getting that refund so for example I put
7:09
in my in my diary all the dates that I
7:11
should have a refund the latest date so
7:13
that just reminds me at what point I can
7:15
start chasing in that way although it
7:17
does mean you're waiting for a long time
7:19
it takes out some of the stress so
7:20
instead of me checking every day in my
7:22
bank have I got the refund hell ago the
7:23
refund I knew that I had a certain date
7:25
to check and it certainly took a lot of
7:27
stress out the process the good news is
7:28
that I've found so far all the cruise
7:31
lines that I've had cancelled I've
7:32
actually been paid before that date has
7:34
come up if you do take feature cruise
7:36
credit make sure you've put in your
7:38
diary when it expires and perhaps have
7:40
little mind is every couple of months if
7:42
you haven't decided what to do so you
7:43
don't debt those future cruise credits
7:45
expire my next point is be kind
7:49
especially to the cruise line agents
7:52
that you may be talking to emailing with
7:53
communicating with this is a very
7:55
stressful difficult time for everybody
7:56
bear in mind the cruise lines are under
7:58
enormous pressure lots of it
7:59
colleagues have been laid off furloughed
8:01
there's a lot of uncertainty it's a very
8:03
stressful and difficult time for them
8:04
they have a lot of work on their plate
8:06
and actually getting really angry and
8:09
difficult with them is not actually
8:10
going to help the firm be kind and I
8:13
think you're gonna find you generally
8:14
find that people are responding really
8:16
well to that's hopefully you've
8:17
understood a little bit why they're
8:19
taking so long to process through it's
8:21
probably less of a conspiracy and much
8:23
more just of a pure logistics and
8:26
challenging time that cruise lines have
8:28
to do deal with I have loads more videos
8:31
packed full of tips and advice about all
8:33
things cruising so why don't you watch
8:34
another one of those right now
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