Another Reason to use Cruise Planners /American Express

A big time discounter who had steadily been giving us all the chills has finally done the right thing and closed its doors.  Unfortunately it left customers hanging, and many cheated. 

Two reasons why you need to serious avoid "quote discounters".  All the cruise lines have serious policies against what they call rebating but what consumers see as "discounts"  The cruise lines have specials, promotions, and agencies who book well in advance of price increases have great rates, but not discounts off present rates.  The cruise lines try to strictly enforce this.

The story below reflects why you should use not only a bonafide CLIA agency, but with the credibility, duration and association with American Express that we have, and why you always want to know who you are dealing with. 

 

If you are one of those who made a booking, contact us and we will try to assist you with whatever we can do with the cruise lines.  They know and trust us.

 

 

eCruiseStore.com in Heathrow, FL, has gone bankrupt. The agency said in a telephone recording that it has closed its doors on October 25 “with regret” due to financial problems.  Clients with reservations were urged to contact the cruise lines for more information. No name was given in the announcement. The website  was down.

The agency appears to be a cruise discount agency operating on referrals from other agents. At press time, it was unclear if the agency had a host agency affiliation. eCruiseStore.com appears not to be a CLIA member.

Internet websites are reflecting the concerns of clients.

“I was just notified by eCruisestore.com that the agency went bankrupt and closed its doors as of Sunday, October 25," read one post at CruiseCritic.com. "It is unclear what the status of my payments are to RCCL, since I paid the travel agent in full for two upcoming sailings. They advise me to dispute the credit card charges to get my money back. I assume that means they never forwarded my payments to RCCL. I'm sure anyone else who has booked passage with them will want to check with RCCL as well.” 

“Headsup, something smells fishy at ecruisestore," reads a post at FlyerTalk.com. "We have used Cruisecompete.com several times without problem until we bought a cruise through ecruisestore.com. It appears that they often double charge credit cards under their name or Galaxy Cruises instead of getting the cruise line to charge.

“There are several threads starting up on fodor, cruisecritic and tripadvisor from other disgruntled customers with similar problems," the post continued. "We had a lot of hassle with  cruisestore.com and finally our credit card company sorted it out (months later). We also had to have our cards canceled and reissued. I wonder how many people do not notice the double billing that goes on. cruisecompete should not allow ecruisestore to provide quotes.”