Are the rules for changing your cruise fair?
Cunard are normally quite reasonable with their terms and conditions when transferring cruises. They will allow you to transfer your cruise to any other cruise travelling within 12months of the original departure date, just as long as you are still spending the same amount of money with them.
To me this seems pretty reasonable, they retain your same level of business and you have plenty of flexibility to swap. However – what happens if you need to change your world cruise? Similar conditions apply, you can still transfer as long as you are still spending the same amount of money,and they do allow you to spread this cost across two cruises. However both of these cruises must be within 6 months of the world cruise date. To me this doesn’t seem very flexible at all – if you need to cancel a 3 month cruise I imagine it is hard to fit in 2 long cruises (to reach the cost value) within 6 months. Which leaves you no choice but to cancel at loss of deposit.
I know they are running a business, and therefore have to have rules in place to maintain the business. It must cause all sorts of problems having customers cancel high value world cruises at a late stage. But I am sure there are better solutions for everyone. I would suggest that they cut off the transfer date earlier – ie 4 months before departure to give them plenty of time to resell the cabin, but allow customers to transfer to the following years world cruise. Or allow customers to spread the value to 2 or 3 cruises all travelling with 12 months of the cruise.
I don’t own my own business though and maybe you agree with Cunard – I’d love a few comments?
One Comment on “Are the rules for changing your cruise fair?”
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I have worked in the travel industry for over 25 years now since beginning as a holiday rep on a campsite in France and I have a real passion for travel. I've worked in all aspects of the industry including sales, marketing and management and I've specialised in most products…
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Consider that cruise lines who run World Cruises and segments are popular items and normally due to limited availability , you must book far in advance.
Now you cancel and in essence the cruise line might find someone to replace your cabin on the total cruise or its segment or perhaps not.
Whatever happened to the customer buying Travel Insurance which gives them all their monies back and provides flexibility to a renewed trip which might not be the exact same ports.
Cruise lines are not Airlines where you can get placed on the next flight out to the same spot.
My humble thoughts