Unfairness by Royal Caribbean on amending bookings

All cruise lines have different rules with regards to changing a booking, some are fair and will just charge an admin fee and then happy to re-book you at the current days prices and availability, or if you are looking at upgrading others will go back to the prices on the day you originally booked, and then there are others which are just ridiculous and will let you have the current days price but you will lose the promotion you had and not be entitled to the current one, even if it happens to be the same one at the time you booked.

A good example of this is a customer I have been looking after who had originally booked direct with Royal Caribbean on launch day back in February 2014 for the Anthem of the Seas. Then in August Royal Caribbean, introduced the All Inclusive drinks and free gratuities promo so he went to Royal Caribbean as he thought this was a much better offering from when he had booked, and was advised no he couldn’t have this promotion but if he cancelled and re-booked then yes he could as it is only applicable to new bookings. After some thought and discussion with myself he decided to cancel his direct booking, lose the deposit of £300 and then re-booked the same cruise and cabin, as he had worked out he would still be saving money with having the complimentary Select drinks package

Last week he called to say he wanted to amend this booking again and just to sail on the 3 day cruise departing at the end of April. He was happy to pay the admin fee Royal Caribbean charge,so after picking a cabin number etc I called through to the contact centre for Royal Caribbean to be advised yes he could change the booking however he would lose the All inclusive promotion he currently had on his existing booking.  Now this promotion also happens to be the current promotion for them so technically we were only changing the sail date, and you would have thought we should have be able to keep the promotion as we were not booking any new promotion as he already had it. However this was not the case in Royal Caribbean’s terms and conditions and apparently if you amend a sailing you then lose the promotion you had on the original booking and are not entitled to the new one running. To get the one running at the time of change you have to cancel – lose your £300 deposit and then re-book. Apparently the all inclusive package is only applicable to new bookings and not amendments.

Myself and the customer both could not see how this was fair – he had the all inclusive on the original booking, and if he could cancel and re-book to get the same promotion why could he not get it if he amended the booking. The booking reference would have been the same just the sail date would have been different and he wasn’t asking for a completely different promotion to be applied, just the same that he already had.

In the end the customer chose to cancel the booking and not to re-book, and will probably never travel with Royal Caribbean again so they have now lost a repeat customer of theirs who is also Diamond plus tier in there loyalty club (which is the second highest tier)

So if you want to change your booking with Royal Caribbean you can do but do not expect to get any promotions on your booking and you will end up missing out unless you can afford to lose your deposits.

What are your thoughts on the above – do you think Royal Caribbean’s was unfair in this instance?