American Queen Steamboat Company cheats clients
 

Don't know if the title should have a ? or a !.

Took a 22 days river cruise on the Mississippi with the American Queen Steamboat Company. They failed to make one of the ports, without explaining why (reason does not matter). Missing a port, while
disappointing, is not uncommon. What is uncommon is for the cruise line to keep the port fees collected and not refunding them! No replacement port was added.

Further this is a cruise that includes tours and entry fees to venues. No repayment was offered for these either!

So I wrote them a letter. They were consistent, they have not responded. I have held up my trip report (mixed), hoping I would have an outcome first, so it would not taint my report.

The port fees alone would be likely $50+ times 150 passengers times the number of times this has happened before time the number of ships time the number of years operating...a tidy sum for some attorney!

What has been your experience? We have always been reimbursed on our bill (not cruise credit, but money) when this has happened with foreign carriers!

Seabourn is scrupulous about refunding port fees if a port is missed

Send them a note advising that you will initiate a chargeback for the port and venue fees if a refund is not issued within 7 business days. On the 8th day, initiate a chargeback for that amount. Make certain that the chargeback specifies the fees. Not worth your time chasing stuff. Make one ask and then follow-up.

Remember that while most card issuers now permit chargebacks well after 60 days, the law only allows you 60 days. So time is not on your side.

Do not know how much to tell cc company. The $50 is the port fees charged divided by the number of ports.

You said that it was $50 x 150 passengers. But, the cruise only skipped one port out of how many?

That would make your calculation entirely incorrect.

If there were 5 stops and the port fees are the same, we are talking about $10 per passenger. Not sure that really equates to "cheats" customers.

Sorry that I was not clear. Price I paid for port fees ($100's) divided by the number of ports was about $50. I paid the same for my wife. So we are out approximately $100, if fees for each port are approximately the same.

They missed a major port and did not return the port fees collected. That's the issue.

My further analysis is the WHY I believe they are not responding, and likely will not. While it is only $100 for us, it is $75,000 for this one cruise. They have a lot cruises and boats, how many and long have they done this. So it could be millions for them? or not. Also they may have to come thru with a like sum or more for the entry fees, and labor cost of tours they did not have to perform.

Have you researched this, for example, on CruiseCritic, at all?

agree with last post, could go up to class action lawsuit re history of charging port fees and not delivering (typical for class actions) so less to get back $50 or whatever, but to get them to stop and have to take a hit for past behavior

when things (tours) are bundled rather than a la carte and supplements, usually terms say they can 'change' as well, more 'service' issue

class action are usually everyone who has ever done it, thats what i was referring to

OP said something about them frequently skipping ports, thats all i was going by

I searched CruiseCritic and there are thousands of complaints about missed ports and about port fees not being refunded, across multiple cruise lines. There may or may not be any such complaints about this one specific cruise line (or cruise) on CC, but missing ports is not rare; neither are things like bad weather and mechanical problems, which can lead to missed ports.

hmm, seems there is something preventing liabiltiy

however, AQSC presumably not giant corporation, may be liable