I am a Travel Agent just starting out in the business. I booked several cabins on Carnival's Paradise Cruise Ship, a 3-day Baja, Mexico cruise.
The first unsatisfactory business practice of Carnival Cruise was the Fuel surcharge that was charged after prices were quoted and deposits/payments were made. Carnival imposed a fuel surcharge after the fact. I mean you would to have been living under a rock not to know that fuel has been going up almost everyday since the war started. I had to inform my clients that they would have to pay this or cancel their trip. My clients agreed to pay the fuel surcharge.
Next unsatisfactory area of business was on one of the several cabins that were booked, one of the cabins was booked with an actual passenger name then the second passenger was TBA (to be announced) Carnival accepted payment and said this was fine until the date of travel. The initial passenger fell and broke his leg and was not going to be able to go on the cruise but he decided to sell the cruise to his brother and his brother's friend since it was already paid in full. My client's had already contacted Carnival on their own to see what were their options and was told they could switch the name with no problem but since they had booked through my travel agency they would need to contact the agency and have them do it. I called Carnival to change the initial passengers name and add the TBA name to the reservation, and was told that I could change the initial passenger's name but not the second name. I informed the rep that there was never a second passenger's name on the reservation just a TBA. They refused to change the name and said that the only option was for my clients was to cancel the initial reservation and book and pay again using the new passengers names. I spoke with my clients about this, they agreed that they would cancel the initial reservation, and re-book. I called Carnival to do all of this and was told that we were past one of their many types of penalties and my client would lose $200.00 from the initial payment. I asked Carnival could there possibly be an exception made because it wasn't like we were just canceling the reservation, we would also be re-booking the same cabin as soon as we canceled the initial reservation. Carnival would not budge on this. They insisted on their policy and would refund everything except $200.00 even with re-booking for the same cruise and the same cabin! Still my clients agreed to the penalty and still booked the reservation anyway even after all this. Carnival said that the money would be refunded back to the client's card within 10 business days. It has been almost 60 days and Carnival has yet to refund the credit card the amount of the cruise minus the $200.00. The cruise has come and gone and still no refund. I contacted Carnival's refund department and was told that they had not refunded the approximate amount of $1000.00 to the credit card because their commission of $130.13 had not been returned to them. I informed Carnival that I had not received the commission, and what does a travel agency commission of $130.13 have to do with them refunding this passenger back his $1000.00 after 60 days for a cabin that was never used, but also re-booked for other passengers. The commission dispute should have to do with the Travel Agency and Carnival not with the customer who has nothing to do with commissions. My client has still not received his money back on a cruise and cabin that he never even took and still had to pay them $200.00 to create a reservation then cancel it. Even though the canceled reservation was immediately replaced with a new one.
So not only has Carnival basically gotten over on this fuel surcharge thing, by charging people even after the payment was made in full, but also they get over on their cancelation policies. Carnival made approximately $4332.00 from one party booking together on a 3-day excursion, and won't refund $1000.00 to a customer that never even took the cruise all over a commission discrepancy of $130.13. How petty can Carnival be when the make millions of dollars.
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