Q: I recently booked a seven-day Caribbean cruise on Holland America. I paid $650 for a veranda stateroom, courtesy of an MGM casino certificate.
An agent verbally confirmed the booking and I got a zero-balance invoice. Then Holland America changed the price to $1,450 and told me to pay $800 more or lose my cabin.
I’ve begged supervisors to call me; all I get are form letters blaming MGM. I’ve already booked nonrefundable airline tickets from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale for $850. I’ve also lost two days of sleep. Help!
— Greg Rothman, West Hills, Calif.
A: Once Holland America issued an invoice showing a paid-in-full stateroom, it created a binding contract under federal maritime law and California’s consumer-protection statutes. The company can’t unilaterally rewrite the deal by citing an internal mix-up with MGM. If the agent miskeyed the certificate level, that’s on Holland America — not you.
You followed the script to resolve this. You accepted a quoted price, paid in full, received written confirmation, then made downstream plans. Holland America, meanwhile, followed a different script: blame the casino partner, change the terms, and dare the customer to walk away. That’s not customer service. It’s a shakedown.
I’ve seen this kind of thing before. It usually happens when someone pays a too-good-to-be-true price, like a zero fare. But your initial $650 fare was not a decimal point error, and since you received it in conjunction with a special offer from MGM, you couldn’t have known that Holland America would kick it back to you.
What could you have done differently? In hindsight, just a little. You could have taken a screenshot of the confirmation page as proof of your purchase. And you could have roped MGM into this, to get the company to pressure Holland America to do the right thing.
When the stonewalling started, you escalated — exactly as I recommend. You asked for supervisors, kept every email, and finally copied the cruise line’s chief commercial officer, its senior VP of guest services and its president. You’ll find the direct contacts for all the Holland America executives on my consumer-advocacy site, Elliott.org.
I also reached out to Holland America for you. A representative called you, apologized, and reinstated your original obstructed-view veranda for the $650 you already paid. Holland America also threw in a $200 in shipboard credit.
I’m happy this is resolved, but it shouldn’t have taken all of these escalations for Holland America to help you. But in an age of increasing automation, apparently that’s what it takes.
Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him on his site.
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