I have been a Verizon wireless customer for over 16 years and I was recently charged $755 for calls I made while on a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico. I had been on a boat in the Caribbean earlier in the summer and made calls that I was not charged for because I had a Travel Pass. I had no idea that my Travel Pass was inactive while I was on the ship. I went to my local Verizon store because I was eligible for an iPhone upgrade, and I found out that I owed a total of $866 for the month of August. I have initiated the arbitration process to contest these charges, but I'm hoping to be able to speak with a supervisor who will allow me to upgrade my iPhone and put these charges on hold until the arbitration process concludes.
Can't speak for the phone upgrade, but Travel Pass doesn't work while on cruises. There is a Cruise Daily Pass which is $50/day to use while at sea. If you are someplace not considered international waters, then Travel Pass or International Service Plan kicks in assuming you've bought them, but because international waters don't belong to anyone, it's a more complicated situation than one foreign country passing on charges to Verizon.
Prepaid customers are NOT eligible for Cruise Daily Pass, but considering you mentioned being eligible for a phone upgrade promotion, I'm assuming you're a postpaid customer. Surprised you did not get some kind of notification on your phone though while at sea to either buy Cruise Daily Pass, or pay the "pay as you go" charges though.
I recently incurred almost $900 in surprise charges from 2 kids on my account who thought they were using the TravelPass while on a cruise. Verizon says they cannot take the charges off because they were legitimate charges. I do not think this acceptable - the account owner should be notified of such extreme charges. Minors can't call in and discuss the account, add new features to the account, etc., but they can incur $900 in international waters charges? Obviously if I had known, we would have turned off their cell phones.
Verizon is not even willing to add the cruise calling package to the account retroactively. This just reinforces that this is not a cost issue for them - they are looking to surprise people with these costs and profit from it. This is very frustrating.
I thought there *was* supposed to be a warning message sent to you somehow indicating high amounts of unbilled charges (see the international travel data usage alerts section here, under the tab "While you're abroad"):
https://www.verizon.com/support/international-travel-faqs/
unless maybe you have that feature shut off in your account?
Travel Pass does not apply while on a cruise ship in international waters, and WiFi usage overseas isn't free.
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