Carnival refunds passengers $40 million

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If you booked a Carnival cruise before November 7 and then were hit with that additional $5-a-day fuel surcharge, here’s some good news: You’ll see that money again, and not in the form of fuel.

Jeanne Leblanc over at Courant.com reports Carnival will refund $40 million in fuel surcharges to customers who booked before the fee was announced on November 7. Sadly, passengers who booked after the announcement won’t get that extra money back.

That $5-a-day surcharge can be significant when you factor in longer cruises and multiple passengers. And that extra chunk of change can mean a few more drinks over the course of the cruise, a spa treatment, shore excursion, or something else to make that cruise feel more like vacation.

Over at Cruise Critic, the message boards are all aflutter with the news. One poster cites a statistic that 1.1 million bookings will be eligible for a refund. Over one million instead of one in a million? I like the sound of those odds.

(Editor’s Note: SmarterTravel.com is published by Smarter Travel Media LLC, a member of the TripAdvisor Media Network, which also owns CruiseCritic.com.)

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