A traveler’s $15,000 family vacation was cancelled due to identity theft days before her trip, but she shared her confirmation code online. Who is to blame for the cancellation?
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Cancelled, No Refund
A traveler had her family’s vacation cancelled without her knowledge days before her trip. According to Tiffany Banks of Kentucky, her Carnival Cruise had been cancelled 48 hours prior to her departure. The mother-of-four shared on TikTok that she believed it was a technical error and that despite working with the cruise line to restore the booking, the room had already been resold. She proceeded to her Airbnb in Miami anyway and tried to make a vacation out of that, her flights were already booked of course as well (though her return flight would have been upon her return rather than when her Airbnb stay concluded.)
Carnival indicated that inside of 15 days to sailing there is no refund for cancellations
@thathippiedoc We will never book with carnival again … #carnival #celebration #carnivalcelebration ♬ original sound – Tiffany Banks
Carnival Cruise Cancellation Policy
For non-refundable fares:
- Early Saver: The deposit is non-refundable at any time after the booking is made. All cancellations that occur prior to the final payment due date will receive a non-refundable and non-transferable future cruise credit in US dollars in the amount of the deposit less a $50 USD per person service fee. The future cruise credit must be used on a new booking made within 12 months from the date of cancellation and can only be applied to your cruise fare. Any unused portion will be forfeited.
- Super Saver: The deposit is non-refundable at any time after the booking is made.
- Pack & Go: 100% of Total Fare is non-refundable any time after the booking is made.
Policy by days to sailing:
- From the final payment date to 56 days prior to sailing, the penalty is the standard deposit amount.
- From 55 days prior to sailing to 30 days prior to sailing, the penalty is 50% of the total fare or the standard deposit amount, whichever is greater.
- From 29 to 15 days prior to sailing, the penalty is 75% of the total fare or the standard deposit amount, whichever is greater.
- From 14 days prior to sailing to the day of your cruise, the penalty is 100%* of the total fare. (emphasis mine)
- No refunds will be made if you do not show up for your cruise or if you interrupt or cancel your vacation once it has begun.
Shared Too Much
Part of the issue for Ms. Banks is that she opened the door for this to take place.
“Prior to the holiday fiasco, the mother and her husband had posted an update about their upcoming cruise vacation on Facebook and unassumingly shared their booking reference number, which should not have been disclosed.
On the same day they posted their Facebook update, someone created a fake online Carnival account with the booking number linked to their profile. Then, about 48 hours before the ship was meant to leave the port, the alleged impersonator canceled the entire cabin booking that Tiffany had made for herself and her family.” – Bored Panda
I reported earlier today that I had an account compromised (though no travel plans of my own were cancelled) and while I speculate that our cases are not the same, the message is: we all share a lot online and bad actors may use our information against us.
An Offer Of Amends
Initially, the Carnival lead stated that they only had two interior rooms available to offer as the rest of the ship was sold out. As this sailing is in the past, I can’t assess whether that was the case or not but I have no reason to doubt them. Further, if her suite was still available, I am sure she would have shopped it and mentioned this both to Carnival and her audience to expand her plight.
Her TikTok video about the ordeal tallied nearly 4,500 comments, 38,700 likes, 2,000 saves, and 2,500 shares. The reason those stats are important is because her prior video clearly got the attention of someone nefarious, and this video likely has millions of views and is on Carnival’s radar.
Carnival ultimately offered to reimburse her in the form of a future cruise credit in the amount of $10,404. It’s not clear how it arrived at that amount, though in Banks’ loose calculations she estimated the cabin itself to be $12-13,000 of her $15,000 total cost. It’s possible that her estimates were inaccurate. Carnival stated it does not comment about specific customer situations (fair enough) so we don’t have a lot of clarity on how it arrived at the number offered.
According to Banks, Carnival attached a rider to the reimbursement offer that she state on social media platforms that Carnival had positively resolved her incident. She was unwilling to agree to those terms if accurate that they were offered under those conditions.
It’s worth noting that for a better boat an experience you might want to check out John the Wanderer’s review of Royal Caribbean’s new Utopia of the Seas.
Who Is To Blame?
We only have Banks’ account and a general acknowledgement from Carnival that client confirmation numbers should never be disclosed online, we have to assume her account is accurate. Carnival’s research discovered that it was her own disclosure of her own sensitive information led to this issue. She doesn’t dispute this finding though she initially surmised it was a technical error from the cruise line.
Carnival has a clear policy and while it could override it as they see fit, they chose to stick to their policy. I question the ability for Carnival to allow someone to create an online account, attach it to an existing reservation which is likely already connected to another account with powers sufficient to cancel the reservation. That kind of wide open backdoor is suspect at best, and leaves Carnival at least somewhat to blame. Had the perpetrator simply called in and cancelled over the phone, that would at least require the person to provide sufficient personal details which could act as a better moat and protect her reservation.
Is she entirely to blame? Should Carnival have such a porous policy when it comes to online access? Shouldn’t we blame the guilty party who caused this issue with clearly nefarious intentions?
Her fault. 100 percent. She was cavalier and wanting to be a social media star to make money. She messed up and published data that she should not have.
If she put her CC number and security code online. It would have been used nefariously.
She was lucky to get a travel credit. She should have been thankful!
Any conf code with last name regardless of travel site is enough to cancel a trip. Not carnivals fault here.
If Carnival was able to resell her suite, then they received the revenue from that resale, and did not suffer a loss, and therefore should have refunded Tiffany. The purpose of making the booking non-refundable at 15 days is so that Carnival doesn’t suffer the loss of unsold inventory.
If the cabin was given to an employee (don’t know if the cruise let’s employees access unsold inventory the way airlines do) then the employee should have been cancelled instead of Tiffany.
While Tiffany shouldn’t have shared her booking reference, Carnival shouldn’t have accepted a cancellation at 48 hours prior to sailing without confirming the identity of the person cancelling. After all, it makes no sense to cancel the booking if you won’t get any refund, so this has to be an unusual situation.
@Cheryl – Carnival most likely sold the suite when cancelled as an upgrade in an automated process for those who placed a bid. They almost certainly did not sell it for the price that she paid but likely gained something from it.
This is victim blaming.
If you notice that you’re low on gas and get off the highway in, unbeknownst to you, a high crime neighborhood and are carjacked is it your fault?
As you mentioned in your article, Carnival’s site let someone attach a new account to another person’s already in use confirmation number and took no steps to verify it, then let that new account cancel the reservation. They are the only party at fault and should repay her for the total cost of the cruise, plus any prepaid expenses such as excursions. The other costs (mostly plane tickets) should be converged by her travel insurance if she had it.
I’m more concerned a Carnival Cruise is actually sold out. There truly is no future for this country when people are this stupid with their money. We are now a country of white trash complaining about minorities that are smarter than them.
Hilarious. Thanks.
Zero sympathy for her. It was due to a technical error – in the common sense lobe of her brain. Why couln’t she and her family just take their cruise without feeling compelled to “share” it with the world? And then she turned down what sounds like a fairly generous credit that the cruise line was under no obligation to offer. Crazy.
Who is to blame? The perp. Who is not to blame? Carnival. Who was stupid? The victim.
This is the equivalent of posting online that you are painting your place and have to run out to get more paint, but you are leaving your windows and doors open for ventilation. Yes, you are stupid, but the burglar is still 100% responsible for going on your property, entering your home, and taking your stuff.
P.S. Regarding whether her cabin was still available: As soon as a (desirable) cabin is vacated, there is a waiting list of passengers ready to instantly upgrade. The occupancy rate on cruise ships this year is astounding. We’ve been on three cruises this year that sailed with only 2 or 3 unsold cabins. Along the way, those ended up being used for covid isolations.
I don’t cruise and have no real knowledge of the process, but I do have this comment in general. Most of us reading (and writing) this site are decently–if not expertly–experienced travelers. We know better than to post PNRs, boarding passes without blurring the code, etc. But not everyone gets that. I see friends post these things all the time on socials. They have no clue, and that doesn’t make them stupid victims. It is scary that it’s that simple to do this, and while of course Banks should take some blame and educate herself, she’s not automatically some moron. A crime was committed by a criminal. Period. We really need to remind ourselves that not everyone spends their days traveling or dreaming of the next trip.
I do need to go finish packing now, though (seriously).
Once again, people share WAY too much information on social media. No pity for Tiffany. Live and learn.