FCC Frustrations!

[DisneyCowgirl]

We had FCC. I applied some to a cruise we just took last month, and the rest to an Alaska cruise later this year. We have decided to cancel the Alaska cruise and will try again for that one in 2023. But now my FCCs are tied up in there. We will not be cruising again on Disney before the September deadline to use those credits. The person I just spoke to told me the FCC would not be refunded because it would have been converted to a non-refundable onboard credit. I will be calling back tomorrow to see if this is really the case.

I understand the extra 25% is not refundable, but the amount I actually paid? This seems outrageous. Somehow the act of splitting the credit to different sailings changed this to be non-refundable?

Hoping for a better answer tomorrow!

 

[sjuncfan]

Interesting. I asked a very similar hypothetical question a couple months ago. Was wondering what would happen if we had two cruises booked with an FCC and cancelled the second one after we'd sailed on the first. My hope was that they'd refund the rest but it sounds like you were told that would not be the case.

Please report back! Can you book like a 3 day on the Wish this summer just to use some of the FCC?

 

[cvjw]

This is what I was told also. But I have also read of people who were the squeaky wheel and got a refund. Can’t hurt to keep calling. You might get the right CM who will give you a refund.

 

[KantLose]

I guess the question would be how much of your personal payment went to the cruise you’ve already taken. It’s possible that by splitting it between 2 cruises what they did was apply all of your original funds to the first cruise and then any of the bonus 25% to cover the balance and any remaining bonus 25% to Alaska, which would mean you have none of your own money in the Alaska cruise. Now if there is some of your own money applied to the Alaska cruise, then that should be refunded to you.

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

I guess the question would be how much of your personal payment went to the cruise you’ve already taken. It’s possible that by splitting it between 2 cruises what they did was apply all of your original funds to the first cruise and then any of the bonus 25% to cover the balance and any remaining bonus 25% to Alaska, which would mean you have none of your own money in the Alaska cruise. Now if there is some of your own money applied to the Alaska cruise, then that should be refunded to you.

I hope this is the case. I don't expect any of the 25% "bonus," but there's a lot of my own money tied up in that Alaska cruise. The December cruise was a 4-night from Galveston in an inside cabin, pretty cheap by comparison.

 

[DCLCrazy64622]

People don’t read the fine print which basically says once you agree to an FCC and not a monetary refund, all of your money becomes credit and cannot be undone. It’s the same for every cruise line.

 

[StlZNF]

People don’t read the fine print which basically says once you agree to an FCC and not a monetary refund, all of your money becomes credit and cannot be undone. It’s the same for every cruise line.

Is this definitely the policy for DCL? I don't share much here, but this concerns me... We were told when our cruise was cancelled in March 2020 (very first sailing canceled) that if we chose the cruise credit and could not use it, we would received a refund for our paid portion. I don't think we would have chosen credit otherwise. We were so early in the pandemic cancelations that it was a nightmare for CMs and travel agents to sort through. Email excerpt from March 13, 2020:



Of course, we have now been kicking this credit down the road for almost two years, DCL changed our reservation numbers, and we just split the credit into two cruises. I think I would definitely be that squeaky wheel calling for a refund of our money if something happens and we cannot sail by Sept 30, 2022. I know exactly how much we put into that original cruise that was never refunded.

 

[cvjw]

Is this definitely the policy for DCL? I don't share much here, but this concerns me... We were told when our cruise was cancelled in March 2020 (very first sailing canceled) that if we chose the cruise credit and could not use it, we would received a refund for our paid portion. I don't think we would have chosen credit otherwise. We were so early in the pandemic cancelations that it was a nightmare for CMs and travel agents to sort through. Email excerpt from March 13, 2020:

View attachment 638954

Of course, we have now been kicking this credit down the road for almost two years, DCL changed our reservation numbers, and we just split the credit into two cruises. I think I would definitely be that squeaky wheel calling for a refund of our money if something happens and we cannot sail by Sept 30, 2022. I know exactly how much we put into that original cruise that was never refunded.

You can get a refund of your original cruise fare if you didn‘t use any FCC that you were given. The problem comes in when you use part of the FCC/refunded cruise fare and then want a refund for the other, unused part of the original cruise fare.

I have gotten a refund of my original cruise fare on a canceled cruise where I originally chose FCC. No issues whatsoever.

But, when I moved money from a cancelled cruise with FCC to a cheaper cruise, I was told upfront - once you use part of this FCC, all your original cruise fare stays FCC. No refunds.

 

[Sykes]

People don’t read the fine print which basically says once you agree to an FCC and not a monetary refund, all of your money becomes credit and cannot be undone. It’s the same for every cruise line.

This is absolutely not true. On Disney, ordinarily the portion of the FCC that you originally paid for your cruise is refundable even once it becomes FCC. (Fully refundable if the FCC is because Disney canceled the cruise, but subject to the relaxed cancellation penalties if the cancellation is voluntary.) The issue here is that once you actually use any portion of the FCC then the remainder becomes nonrefundable.

 

[sjuncfan]

At one point I had booked one cruise with a FCC and I was going to have an insane amount of onboard credit with the leftover FCC - more than we would ever spend. Rather than lose that money, I had wondered if a workaround was to book a second cruise, so the FCC wouldn't convert to OBC, and then cancel the second cruise after I'd taken the first. I had asked this very question here as to whether the remaining FCC would be refunded... no one was really sure but it sounds like the answer is no...

So current plan is to just go on both cruises

 

[MomOTwins]

This is absolutely not true. On Disney, ordinarily the portion of the FCC that you originally paid for your cruise is refundable even once it becomes FCC. (Fully refundable if the FCC is because Disney canceled the cruise, but subject to the relaxed cancellation penalties if the cancellation is voluntary.) The issue here is that once you actually use any portion of the FCC then the remainder becomes nonrefundable.

Agree with all this, but I would add there are so many different kinds of FCC these days. While at the start thebpolicy was wholly unused FCC could be refunded. But for example we recently used the flexible rebooking policy on a cruise that was booked with 2020 FCC and the CM was very clear about how that would make our FCC nonrefundable. Then there are people who are taking FCC rather than a refund if denied boarding the port and while that hasn’t happened to us, one poster’s account sounded like that would be nonrefundable if not used by the deadline.

I do think it sounds like the problem here is the FCC was partially used and yes, we were told back in 2020 that would make it non-refundable.

If OP has the DCL travel insurance, I would think they’d be able to get 75% back in credits through cancel for any reason. That’s partly why we’ve kept DCL insurance even though it seems pretty useless for Covid-related claims.

 

[Elsa75]

Has anyone any further info on this? The same thing has just happened to me - we had booked a second cruise but one person in our party has been in an accident and cannot travel - I tried cancelling and am getting a big run-around.