On board Cruise payment Card or Cash

freya18th

We are going on a cruise and to pay the on board bill in Dollars would it be better to pay it by credit card or cash.I belive that if you pay by card you hand these details in at the begining of the cruise and you leave a deposit of cash if paying by cash.

colmil

I have been on four cruises and have always settled by credit card as it easier and less risky than takng a lot of cash.

However, I do know that you can do it that way if you wish as some friends we made preferred to budget their holiday this way.

Just send an e mail to your cruise line and ask them, either way, they will love to take your money!

whitts

depending on the cruise company and the duration of your cruise, what i have done is secured my on board spend with my credit card ( i used to check everynight for a statement to ensure it was correct) then i have paid on the last night with us$ traveller cheques. What you need to be careful of is you will not know what the us$ rate is doing, so with the travellers cheques they are at a set rate and you do not have a surprise bill with charges on when you come home. Have a lovely cruise, I am sure you will be hooked once you have done one

youngatheart_2

Be careful when settling your final bill by credit card that you ensure that your card company works out the exchange rate for you. We went on a cruise in February and despite signing a form saying that we wanted our card company to do the conversion and not the cruise line we were billed in Sterling. The cruise lines make quite a bit of money this way on British passengers. We complained at the time and when we got home and eventually they refunded us the money but I'm sure that a lot of people would have just let it go. Depends on how big your bar bill is I suppose!!

freya18th

I have just found out that they want 75 dollars each per day deposit so it is going to be a credit card. Thanks to everyone who answered.

whitts

freya18th wrote: »

I have just found out that they want 35 dollars each per day deposit so it is going to be a credit card. Thanks to everyone who answered.

out of interest, which cruise company requires a deposit

alesanamurphy

Get yourself the AMEX cashback credit card, you'll get 5% back every time you use it (if you're going on your cruise in the next 3 months)

freya18th

We are going on holiday next week. The deposit was not 35 dollars but 75 dollars a day per person. This is with NCL.

dzug1

In terms of transaction costs, most credit cards charge 2.75% on the exchange rate.

Most UK BdeC (there are exceptions but not on the average High Street) charge at least 5% on the exchange rate.

So the card (insist on being charged in $$ as suggested above) wins

freya18th

We have just come back from our cruise with NCL and having some dollars left we paid these off our on board account and the rest was left on our Nationwide credit card we have just check our ballance and the exchange rate was 197.

hansi

freya18th wrote: »

We are going on holiday next week. The deposit was not 35 dollars but 75 dollars a day per person. This is with NCL.

What is this deposit of $75 per day for?