A cruise line has made a change to all bookings that are done while on a cruise. This change went into effect on July 1, 2024.
From now on, all payments made for future cruises on a Cunard cruise ship will require the use of a credit card reader. This will be for all payments made via the cruise line’s Onboard Sales team.
The credit card reader will be for all payments for new future bookings, existing bookings and upgrades that are purchased while on a cruise ship.
The card readers will replace making payments directly through POLAR Online. Guests will be required to insert their credit card into readers for payments.
With this new payment process, the initial booking confirmation will indicate a payment of $0 once a booking is made. The payment will be applied to the booking, but this may take up to seven days.
Once the payment is applied, a revised booking confirmation will be issued, reflecting the onboard payment made by the guest.
Cunard is also asking travel agents to forward both copies of the confirmation to their clients.
The cruise line included the following statement in their booking confirmations:
“If you booked your next cruise while on board one of our ships, please allow up to 7 days for the deposit to be applied to your booking. You will receive another confirmation once the deposit has been successfully processed.”
Also, the cruise line is no longer able to process payments onboard for Future Cruise Deposits and therefore, from July 1, 2024, will remove the ability for guests to purchase a Future Cruise Deposit only.
This means that guests will only receive the onboard booking benefits when booking a future voyage.
Cunard is not making any changes to cancellation policies.
Cunard Line is one of nine cruise lines from Carnival Corporation and they currently have four ships in their fleet.
