[X]
Write ReviewJump to 
25
Helpful
Votes
Votes
Cruise.com Complaint - My Nightmare began with Cruise.com - Unethical business practice
Unethical business practice - Complaint
I recently booked a 7 day Caribbean cruise through an agent with cruise.com. I asked the agent to give me the total price quotation, including all port charges, taxes and fuel surcharge. I was quoted a great price, at least that's what I thought. The Agent advised me that he would be able to hold the rooms for us for that price for 24 hours and he would email me the detailed information right away. I didn't receive the promised email. Based on the information I was quoted and compared cruise.com price to other curise agencies, I decided to go with cruise.com. I called the agent back the following morning to confirm the booking (within 24 hours) and asked that he emailed the confirmation to me once the booking was complete. I didn't receive any emails that day. I called the next day to ask for the confirmation. The agent gave reasons that the cruise lines was supposed to send me the confirmation and he's surprised I had not received the confirmation. He proceeded to say he would personally ask the cruise line to send the confirmation to him so that he in turn could forward it to us.
However, I waited for 2 days and did not receive nothing. I started to get worried. I left 3 phone messges for the agent but he didn't return my calls. I decided to speak to another agent. I was shocked to find out that my rooms were put on hold but not paid for. I told that agent that I gave my credit card to the first agent and he should have secured the rooms for us immediately. After speaking with his supervisor, the 2nd agent told me that he would get all paper work done and we were guaranteed the price quoted by the first agent. I received the booking confirmation via email within 10 minutes.
To my surprise, I was charged $250 more than the promised price. The real nightmare began, I went through 2 sales agents, 3 client support agents and 1 supervisor and I still get a run around. I heard many excuses such as the price quoted did not include taxes as they have no control of the gov't taxes, but they could not explain to me after factoring in all these extra charges, they still could not explain why the first agent quoted me the original price. The most recent reason they gave me today is that the holding period for my room expired 4 minutes before the Agent went on the cruise line to pay for my room. When I asked the time the Agent went on line to confirm my bookings, it was half an hour after I gave my credit card to him.
I was very upset about the whole incident. I received quotes from other cruise agencies for this trip and some of them told me to be careful about the low price cruise.com quoted me as they were suspicious about the price cruise.com offered me.
hroughout this incident, I have never received an apology from any staff or managers of cruise.com All they have told me are excuses to cover their unethical and unprofessional behavior. I believe that:
1) I have acted in good faith by booking my cruise trip within 24 hours after I requested the Agent to put the two rooms on hold. If he, the agent, couldn't secure the room with the guarantee price quote, either he had made a mistake in pricing or he is just incompetent, he should have advised me so that I could made a sound decison of choosing an alternate travel agent for booking. But I was not given that choice. Basically, the agent at cruise.com forced me into booking my cruise trip with him and charged me a higher price without my consent.
2) Cruise.com agent did not initiate nor return phone calls regarding price change. I was the one who had to contact them. It is not sound business practice and very poor customer service.
3) When I received my invoice, I was charged $250 over the quoted price. Once again, no one from cruise.com had a decency of notifying me of the price change and asked if I still wanted to book. I immediately emailed back to the second Agent and asked him to explain the charges. Guess what, he did not return my call as well.
4) Cruise.com has given excuse after excuse of why I was charged more on my bookings but cruise.com has not acted in good faith from their end to honour the original quote even if their agent has made a mistake. I would have accepted if they would have apologized and offered some kind of solution to resolve this matter. In fact, it has dragged into the 7 days from the first day of contact and I am still waiting for someone over cruise.com to call me back. Every time they told me someone would be calling me back but none happened. I am the one who has to contact them.
If you don't want a frustrated and cheated experience before you go on your dream cruise trip, don't book through cruise.com I will certainly tell my friends who tell their friends tonever book or trust the agents at this agency. They are a disgrace in the cruise industry. I have booked my previous cruise trips from other cruise and travel agencies and I received great service from them, until this time.
Tickoff
Alberta, Canada
However, I waited for 2 days and did not receive nothing. I started to get worried. I left 3 phone messges for the agent but he didn't return my calls. I decided to speak to another agent. I was shocked to find out that my rooms were put on hold but not paid for. I told that agent that I gave my credit card to the first agent and he should have secured the rooms for us immediately. After speaking with his supervisor, the 2nd agent told me that he would get all paper work done and we were guaranteed the price quoted by the first agent. I received the booking confirmation via email within 10 minutes.
To my surprise, I was charged $250 more than the promised price. The real nightmare began, I went through 2 sales agents, 3 client support agents and 1 supervisor and I still get a run around. I heard many excuses such as the price quoted did not include taxes as they have no control of the gov't taxes, but they could not explain to me after factoring in all these extra charges, they still could not explain why the first agent quoted me the original price. The most recent reason they gave me today is that the holding period for my room expired 4 minutes before the Agent went on the cruise line to pay for my room. When I asked the time the Agent went on line to confirm my bookings, it was half an hour after I gave my credit card to him.
I was very upset about the whole incident. I received quotes from other cruise agencies for this trip and some of them told me to be careful about the low price cruise.com quoted me as they were suspicious about the price cruise.com offered me.
hroughout this incident, I have never received an apology from any staff or managers of cruise.com All they have told me are excuses to cover their unethical and unprofessional behavior. I believe that:
1) I have acted in good faith by booking my cruise trip within 24 hours after I requested the Agent to put the two rooms on hold. If he, the agent, couldn't secure the room with the guarantee price quote, either he had made a mistake in pricing or he is just incompetent, he should have advised me so that I could made a sound decison of choosing an alternate travel agent for booking. But I was not given that choice. Basically, the agent at cruise.com forced me into booking my cruise trip with him and charged me a higher price without my consent.
2) Cruise.com agent did not initiate nor return phone calls regarding price change. I was the one who had to contact them. It is not sound business practice and very poor customer service.
3) When I received my invoice, I was charged $250 over the quoted price. Once again, no one from cruise.com had a decency of notifying me of the price change and asked if I still wanted to book. I immediately emailed back to the second Agent and asked him to explain the charges. Guess what, he did not return my call as well.
4) Cruise.com has given excuse after excuse of why I was charged more on my bookings but cruise.com has not acted in good faith from their end to honour the original quote even if their agent has made a mistake. I would have accepted if they would have apologized and offered some kind of solution to resolve this matter. In fact, it has dragged into the 7 days from the first day of contact and I am still waiting for someone over cruise.com to call me back. Every time they told me someone would be calling me back but none happened. I am the one who has to contact them.
If you don't want a frustrated and cheated experience before you go on your dream cruise trip, don't book through cruise.com I will certainly tell my friends who tell their friends tonever book or trust the agents at this agency. They are a disgrace in the cruise industry. I have booked my previous cruise trips from other cruise and travel agencies and I received great service from them, until this time.
Tickoff
Alberta, Canada
Comments:
Posted by Ultimate QueenB on 2008-09-16:
I am sorry you had such a nightmare and wished that I read your story before booking my cruise with them. OMG if I would have known what a headache this would have been I would have gone directly through the cruiseline.
First off this was my first cruise so I was clueless as to what to do and figured if you are booking a trip through a travel agency they would do everything for you BOY WAS I WRONG!!!
To start when my best friend and I decided to choose them it was on the basis that they offer a coupon book and a 25 dollar mastercard giftcard rebate...keep these two things in mind.
We called to get a price quote on thursday and had it held for 24 hours. After decided to go with them I called to give my card information to the agent and she took everything down and sent an itinerary to me. It included the price of the cabin, the insurance, the taxes and the booking number plus all the little advices. She had to wait for my best friend to call in order to run both through. My friend called 5 min after I hung up and couldnt get in touch with the agent. My friend was getting upset and I advised her to calm down and just wait a few hours (keep this in mind also). After a few hours she was not able to get in touch with the girl so she called another agent who had taken her payment and put my friend on hold to find out why the other agent hadn't process the payment..she was told the girl forgot.
So now that both payments are processed and the insurance portion actual came out before the cruise portion on both cards which we found interesting. After booking the cruise about a week later I recieved insurance papers at my home (everything was to come to my house)for my friend but not for me. I call them and couldnt get in touch with my booking agent so I talked to customer service. The girl tried to tell me that I was not charged for insurance. I stayed on the phone with her for almost an hour going back and forth yelling about the insurance how it was taken out and I was charged. She basically told me it was my responsiblity to make sure I had insurance. I told her if that was the case I wouldnt be going through them.
I left a vm with the booking agent after being so frustrated with them and told her to call me back and this better be on my ticket. She called back apologizing and made sure I had insurance (I still dont have my insurance papers and I took my cruise a month ago).
Anyway, thinking that this was either going to be the end of the beginning or the beginning to a long end I let it be. So after reviewing the itinerary we discovered that our dinner reservations were in correct. Now this may seem very small but when you book your reservation and you tell them 8:15 and they repeat it back to you how is it the docs show 5pm from Cruise.com not the cruiseline. We had to call again on this....not one time but twice because we waited a day to check and see if it was right and of course it wasn't. Now this was three weeks before our vacation in August 25-28 on Carnival Cruiseline.
Every week to the day it was something different. We were finally able to print our docs on Carnivals site and again lol we noticed the dining wasn't correct so we had to call again to get it updated. We noticed about one week before the day that we didn't get our coupon book as promised. So I call and was told that we will get it before we leave they were out and they are going to overnight them to the customers for the cruise. My friend calls and was told that we didnt book in the 4 week time frame so we wont get it. I call back and asked them what do they mean and the girl said that since we were 1 day ..one day...out of the 4 week time frame that we wouldnt get a book. I told them they need to make a way because this was the deciding factor in order to go with them so they need to make sure we get one. The lady got snoody upset with me and said they cant do anything about it so I asked for a manager...after getting pissed off with the response from the manager I hung up on them. I called back and got someone really nice who told me Carnival ran out of books and they werent able to fufill all the orders and didnt know when they were coming in. I believed her because she was nice and patient. But I still wasn't happy...they weren't able to fulfill what they promised and the price was more than another site because of these offers.
Day of embarkation...GUESS WHAT THE DINNER RESERVATIONS WERE STILL WRONG!!!!
Now I just recieved the rebate..No mastercard gift card it was a check...and it was suppose to be 25 dollars for each person they split the 25 dollars between us...lol ...I told my best friend she is going to have to go off this time because I am done!
If you ever have to book a cruise go through the cruise line they offer the same discounts sometimes a few dollars more but at least the cruiseline is more apt to helping you and getting the credit you deserve.
To this day I have not recieved a letter of apology or even a freakin thank you for going through them. Now that I am a past guest with Carnival I get better discounts and will never go through Cruise.com again.
First off this was my first cruise so I was clueless as to what to do and figured if you are booking a trip through a travel agency they would do everything for you BOY WAS I WRONG!!!
To start when my best friend and I decided to choose them it was on the basis that they offer a coupon book and a 25 dollar mastercard giftcard rebate...keep these two things in mind.
We called to get a price quote on thursday and had it held for 24 hours. After decided to go with them I called to give my card information to the agent and she took everything down and sent an itinerary to me. It included the price of the cabin, the insurance, the taxes and the booking number plus all the little advices. She had to wait for my best friend to call in order to run both through. My friend called 5 min after I hung up and couldnt get in touch with the agent. My friend was getting upset and I advised her to calm down and just wait a few hours (keep this in mind also). After a few hours she was not able to get in touch with the girl so she called another agent who had taken her payment and put my friend on hold to find out why the other agent hadn't process the payment..she was told the girl forgot.
So now that both payments are processed and the insurance portion actual came out before the cruise portion on both cards which we found interesting. After booking the cruise about a week later I recieved insurance papers at my home (everything was to come to my house)for my friend but not for me. I call them and couldnt get in touch with my booking agent so I talked to customer service. The girl tried to tell me that I was not charged for insurance. I stayed on the phone with her for almost an hour going back and forth yelling about the insurance how it was taken out and I was charged. She basically told me it was my responsiblity to make sure I had insurance. I told her if that was the case I wouldnt be going through them.
I left a vm with the booking agent after being so frustrated with them and told her to call me back and this better be on my ticket. She called back apologizing and made sure I had insurance (I still dont have my insurance papers and I took my cruise a month ago).
Anyway, thinking that this was either going to be the end of the beginning or the beginning to a long end I let it be. So after reviewing the itinerary we discovered that our dinner reservations were in correct. Now this may seem very small but when you book your reservation and you tell them 8:15 and they repeat it back to you how is it the docs show 5pm from Cruise.com not the cruiseline. We had to call again on this....not one time but twice because we waited a day to check and see if it was right and of course it wasn't. Now this was three weeks before our vacation in August 25-28 on Carnival Cruiseline.
Every week to the day it was something different. We were finally able to print our docs on Carnivals site and again lol we noticed the dining wasn't correct so we had to call again to get it updated. We noticed about one week before the day that we didn't get our coupon book as promised. So I call and was told that we will get it before we leave they were out and they are going to overnight them to the customers for the cruise. My friend calls and was told that we didnt book in the 4 week time frame so we wont get it. I call back and asked them what do they mean and the girl said that since we were 1 day ..one day...out of the 4 week time frame that we wouldnt get a book. I told them they need to make a way because this was the deciding factor in order to go with them so they need to make sure we get one. The lady got snoody upset with me and said they cant do anything about it so I asked for a manager...after getting pissed off with the response from the manager I hung up on them. I called back and got someone really nice who told me Carnival ran out of books and they werent able to fufill all the orders and didnt know when they were coming in. I believed her because she was nice and patient. But I still wasn't happy...they weren't able to fulfill what they promised and the price was more than another site because of these offers.
Day of embarkation...GUESS WHAT THE DINNER RESERVATIONS WERE STILL WRONG!!!!
Now I just recieved the rebate..No mastercard gift card it was a check...and it was suppose to be 25 dollars for each person they split the 25 dollars between us...lol ...I told my best friend she is going to have to go off this time because I am done!
If you ever have to book a cruise go through the cruise line they offer the same discounts sometimes a few dollars more but at least the cruiseline is more apt to helping you and getting the credit you deserve.
To this day I have not recieved a letter of apology or even a freakin thank you for going through them. Now that I am a past guest with Carnival I get better discounts and will never go through Cruise.com again.
Note: All comments are reviewed by a moderator before being published. Please be sure to read our guidelines before commenting.
Company Reps: Post your company response!
Recently Discussed:
- Good news - service
- F- Do Not Book With Cruise.com Will Be Scammed For $750 - Cruise On Norweigein Lines
- Prepaid Gratuities NOT - Cruise package
- Cruise.com did not provide Shipboard credit that was confirmed during my booking - Cruise
- No post-sale customer service - Failure to deliver on promises or respond to any questions