Topic: Cunard loyalty and lack of customer service!

If you live near a cruise terminal rather than in another country you don't have to make flight arrangements which are rarely last minute bargains.

QUOTE:

Tomvet wrote...


Quite frankly Lizzie I don't see what point the Irish member is making.

What on earth has 'living next door to a cruise terminal' got to do with shopping around for late bargains?

Unless of course it was a late comment.

QUOTE:

This really is an old chestnut and as other members have pointed out, a regular occurrence with many cruise lines.


Speculation about cancelling and re-booking is just that at the moment because the OP does not say what date the cruise is. However, it is an option if the time frame is right and only a 10% deposit was paid.

You could now even use the price drop to one's advantage and look at it as a good way to upgrade to the Princess Grill and at the same time make a saving 'on the original' pricing structure of £890.00 per person.

In the meantime I wonder how many members would rush to offer to pay the difference when the price goes up, which incidentally it often does on the more popular cruises. I'm currently £800.00 better off on my early booking on Celebrity Infinity.

As with all things in life prices fluctuate. It remains however that a contract is a contract, no matter with whom you make it.

Absolutely we could make a 'saving' on a princess grills cabin but only if we cancel our current booking and lose our deposit of nearly £400 - which then still makes it more expensive for me as a loyal customer, to upgrade. If I was a new passenger I would pay £1429 each but instead to get the bargain price, I have to be charged £1429 plus £200 each cancellation!!! not quite right that is it?! Or I need not bother cancelling and just upgrade and pay over £2000 each!
When the cruise is on offer at that price, I simply can not understand that Cunard would not look at the early bookers and say, hey, we have all these princess grills unbooked, why don't you pay an extra £230 and upgrade?!!
Cunard are simply not interested in keeping their customers happy and having tried other companies, I shall now move around as suggested by many others on here. Sadly, I prefer Cunard ships but not their customer skills!

QUOTE:

Absolutely we could make a 'saving' on a princess grills cabin but only if we cancel our current booking and lose our deposit of nearly £400 - which then still makes it more expensive for me as a loyal customer, to upgrade. If I was a new passenger I would pay £1429 each but instead to get the bargain price, I have to be charged £1429 plus £200 each cancellation!!! not quite right that is it?! Or I need not bother cancelling and just upgrade and pay over £2000 each!
When the cruise is on offer at that price, I simply can not understand that Cunard would not look at the early bookers and say, hey, we have all these princess grills unbooked, why don't you pay an extra £230 and upgrade?!!
Cunard are simply not interested in keeping their customers happy and having tried other companies, I shall now move around as suggested by many others on here. Sadly, I prefer Cunard ships but not their customer skills!

Hi Sarah.

I may as well confess. I'm a bit of a Devil's Advocate on here. There are two of us but I'm the most persistent.

You didn't indicate which voyage this was on so I am at a disadvantage, but not to worry.

You do say you have a number of Cunard cruises to your credit and I'm pleased to hear that, I do also. Indeed, they are my favourite, but not the only cruise line I both sail with and enjoy. Each and everyone of us likes to have a rant but, if it is going to be worthwhile then it must also be realistic.

I notice you now say that you paid a deposit of £400.00: this on a booking that you say totalled £2398.00.

I have no reason to doubt your figures but surely you would have better grounds for an anti Cunard rant over this deposit matter.

I am making the valid assumption that the booking was made more than 56 days before departure otherwise you would have been required to make full payment. I mention this because on page 245 of the current brochure (Nov 2011 to April 2013) it clearly states that ...

Once you are happy with your accommodation and fare, we'll give you a booking reference number. We then ask you to pay a deposit of 10% per person.

I calculate that 10% (the deposit required) of £2398.00 is £239.80, some £160.00 less than the £400.00.

And we haven't yet got on to free parking and On Board Credit.

QUOTE:

Hi Sarah.

I may as well confess. I'm a bit of a Devil's Advocate on here. There are two of us but I'm the most persistent.

You didn't indicate which voyage this was on so I am at a disadvantage, but not to worry.

You do say you have a number of Cunard cruises to your credit and I'm pleased to hear that, I do also. Indeed, they are my favourite, but not the only cruise line I both sail with and enjoy. Each and everyone of us likes to have a rant but, if it is going to be worthwhile then it must also be realistic.

I notice you now say that you paid a deposit of £400.00: this on a booking that you say totalled £2398.00.

I have no reason to doubt your figures but surely you would have better grounds for an anti Cunard rant over this deposit matter.

I am making the valid assumption that the booking was made more than 56 days before departure otherwise you would have been required to make full payment. I mention this because on page 245 of the current brochure (Nov 2011 to April 2013) it clearly states that ...



I calculate that 10% (the deposit required) of £2398.00 is £239.80, some £160.00 less than the £400.00.

And we haven't yet got on to free parking and On Board Credit.

My god, do you work for Cunard?! Blimey, I didn't realise that I had to be exact in my figures on here as my comment was a grumble and more about loyalty etc etc etc. But just so you know, I booked in February for a cruise in August and paid an actual amount of £347 for the cost of a cruise at £2398 and no, I didn't get any free parking - not sure Cunard actually offer that anymore? I did get some on board credit and that is not now available with Cunard BUT, it is available at the same amount I received with the same cheap price for princess grills stateroom with Cruise.co.uk!

I hope this is realistic enough for you?
The fact is, Cunard do not care about loyalty and have awful customer service skills.

Apologies if this has been covered in earlier posts or if this is all old stuff anyway but, if Saga reduce fares at some later stage, they promise to reimburse anyone who has already paid the higher fare qith the difference.
Not quite sure if they operate this scheme to the limit given any really poorly booked cruises (of which there seem to be few if any) but, if Saga can do it then....

Am i right in thinking that Cunard are owned by the same conglomerate who also own Costa? They will therefore be faced with some colossal expenditure which they have to somehow recoup (ok, so upsetting loyal customers may not be wise but it's a fairly universal practice - banks etc etc).

QUOTE:

My god, do you work for Cunard?! Blimey, I didn't realise that I had to be exact in my figures on here as my comment was a grumble and more about loyalty etc etc etc. But just so you know, I booked in February for a cruise in August and paid an actual amount of £347 for the cost of a cruise at £2398 and no, I didn't get any free parking - not sure Cunard actually offer that anymore? I did get some on board credit and that is not now available with Cunard BUT, it is available at the same amount I received with the same cheap price for princess grills stateroom with Cruise.co.uk!



I hope this is realistic enough for you?
The fact is, Cunard do not care about loyalty and have awful customer service skills.

Hello Sarah, We booked over a year ago for the Cunard QV Fjords and North Cape Cruise in May this year. We thought we had a good price for an outside cabin and we did get free car parking at Southampton. We were less than thrilled to see how the prices have fallen and I have posted it on this site a few weeks ago entitled "I shouldn't have booked so early". Cunard have upgraded us to a balcony cabin which we are very pleased with but they are now selling balcony cabins for a lot less than we paid for an outside. We book early because we like a mid-ships cabin and luckily the upgrade is still midships a few decks higher so I guess we should be satisfied. It still rankles a bit though. However, we do like the Queen Victoria and I know we will have a great cruise. Will we book with Cunard again? The jury is still out at the moment.

I completely agree with you, Cunard sucks.

We have taken just 4 cruises with them, and on every occasion we found the price of the cruise radically cheaper at a later date. Our first was just a taster 4 day cruise, we paid £4,200 for a Q4 Several months later our friends decided to come with us, so they came over and we rang our TA, there were no Q4 left, but they had some Q3 for £1,800 + $600 OBC. Like you I rang and got the same response "tough" we are not willing to do anything about it. well I did, I cancelled and lost my 10% deposit I then rebooked, at first they said there were no Q4s left, so I gave them my origional suite number. I then rebooked for £1,600 and received $600 OBC.

We booked a Christmas cruise on the Queen Elizabeth in a Q5, I won't say how much we paid but it was a considerable amount. We were on the QM2 a few months after we booked the Queen Elizabeth, and went down to their future cruises only to find they were closed, but outside they had some brochures, but they were in German. My wife is fluent in German, and to cut a long story short the same cruise in the same Q5 with return flights and transfers from Heathrow worked out at £7,000 less (yes that is seven thousand pounds) than what we paid. We saw advertised a cruise on the Queen Victoria departing 24th March for 11 nights, at a very special offer for a Princess Guarantee Suite of just £4,798 When I rang to book it I was informed that because it is such a special offer then I had to pay the entire amount with the booking which I did. Just 10 days later they were selling the same Princess Guarantee Suite for just £3,200, guess what they said when I rang them - you guessed right "tough"

The first cruise line to offer their UK customers a watertight price match guarantee will make a killing on early bookings.

QUOTE:

I need to grumble so here goes....

About 2 months ago we booked our fifth cruise with Cunard. Having sailed on both QM2 and Queen Elizabeth, we wanted to try Queen Victoria and the Fjords.

We booked a balcony stateroom for £1199 each. Only 7 days later, a sale started and our exact cruise was £799!
I called to ask if anything could be done and was basically told tough .. okay, I know sales happen and thats just our bad luck. hmmmm.!

I noticed today that the princess grills were on offer, any grade and stateroom £1429!! As we were fortunate to stay in princess grills on Queen Elizabeth, I thought it would be nice to try on the Queen Victoria, and at that price .. a bargain! After all, it is only £230 more each!!
I have just called reservations, having booked direct with Cunard, and I am told that I can not have the princess grills price of £1429, instead I have to pay the price that was advertised at the time of my booking ............ wait for it ............... £2479 each!! A difference of £1050 each! I stated I was not happy as firstly, my cruise was advertised at £400 each cheaper, and now I am not allowed to pay the difference of the price I paid to todays princess grills price !!
I replied how ludicrous I think this is. After all, I could have booked the same cruise with another cruise line cheaper at the time of my booking but chose to stay loyal. I asked what incentive there is?!
The reply from passenger relations who I have just called to complain to was, 'well times are such that we need to offer the cruise cheaper to make it viable'. I replied ' yes times are such that you really should look after your loyal customers'. Somebody that has never sailed with Cunard can have a princess grills stateroom £1050 cheaper that myself?!
I asked who I could complain further to and was told that there is a senior exective but as what I have been advised is Cunard policy, I would get no different answer!!!
I am disgusted with Cunard and will now be looking at other companies.
Grumble over!

Sarah I would save the price of your stamp, try bashing your head against a brick wall you will have more effect than writing to them.
you can e mail them though concierge@carnivalukgroup.com

good luck

QUOTE:

I shall still write but I hold little hope of Cunard replying satisfactory - they do not seem to care about their customers

I have never seen any officer dine in the Queens Grill Restaurant.

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just going slightly adrift,tonight i watched mighty ships and it was showing a transatlantic voyage of the queen mary,now it showed the captain and senior officers going into dinner in the britannia restuarant,now i thought that they would have had fine dining in the grills with the posh folk or do they split their time between the two?/

jim

Phew!! What horror tales.

We didn't enjoy out Cunard experience anyway but this takes the proverbial.