Americans, how long until you received your refund?

[Até]

SirWolf: "The service rep in Escalation Department told me that the time frame for refund is 60 BUSINESS DAYS"

 

I've not been told that one yet, you were getting too close.  A new story every time you call.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Até

[OttawaTraveler]

Canadian here, but booked with a US travel agent.  Requested a full refund on March 14 (for a March 15 sailing).  Today, I received a full refund on my credit card, including the internet and games card I had pre-purchased.

Edited May 11, 2020 by OttawaTraveler

[TampaGambler]

40 minutes ago, SirWolf said:

I called MSC USA today to check on the status of the refund for my cancelled cruise (cancelled 03-05-2020 / cruise date 03-21-2020).

The customer service rep pulled up my booking but couldn’t help and transferred to Escalation Department.

The service rep in Escalation Department told me that the time frame for refund is 60 BUSINESS DAYS and not calendar days since the financial department doesn’t work on Saturday and Sundays. He explained that I am still within the time for refund and have to wait until 05-20-2020 .

What the heck ??  BUSINESS DAYS.. really ?

or just another excuse to delay the refund ?

I getting more and more frustrated.

 

Business day???? Seriously??? 

 

A refund for MSC is like a mirage, just keeps getting farther and farther away. I do not see how they possibly believe this will leave anything but a sour taste in a market they are trying to penetrate....

[Até]

So 58 days in and they are just starting refunds for the first cancelled cruises.

[Bob7]

3 hours ago, OttawaTraveler said:

Canadian here, but booked with a US travel agent.  Requested a full refund on March 14 (for a March 15 sailing).  Today, I received a full refund on my credit card, including the internet and games card I had pre-purchased.

Hey Ottawa, fellow Canuck, we also book thru a big box USA TA, can't beat the perks. So you are the first on the forum to report a post-virus refund for a March cruise cancelled in March. So for the rest that cancelled in the same time frame and cruise date as you, here comes the refund flood for Misand, SirWolf, JansArts, Rob-Bob, DexDDD, NameThatFunnel, Cullyman15, JStrutton,, and Catamo. Anyone holding their breath?

[catamo]

5 minutes ago, Bob7 said:

Hey Ottawa, fellow Canuck, we also book thru a big box USA TA, can't beat the perks. So you are the first on the forum to report a post-virus refund for a March cruise cancelled in March. So for the rest that cancelled in the same time frame and cruise date as you, here comes the refund flood for Misand, SirWolf, JansArts, Rob-Bob, DexDDD, NameThatFunnel, Cullyman15, JStrutton,, and Catamo. Anyone holding their breath?

Fellow Canadian here as well, and  booked through US TA. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[Bob7]

9 hours ago, Beardface said:

Its gong to be a while before the money comes, but you will get it.

 

I mean think about it pragmatically.  The entire fleet has basically been mothballed for 2 months now.  17 ships that have a total double occupancy (according to Wikipedia, so it could be slightly more or less) 58,156 passengers.  Every week that's the number or people who are supposed to be on their ships.  So if you factor in that we've been on this haitus for about 8 weeks now, (and factoring in that ships would not be sailing in full capacity, and some ships sail 2 week cruises) that's around 250k to 500k refunds that MSC needs to issue globally, and that number increases by 20k=50k per week.

 

Believe me, the refund department of all these cruise lines are not vast, nor has it likely been streamlined at all in the past.  And that is during a time when they were able to get all their employees into the office to collaboratively work together.  So now this entire industry is stress testing a system they intentionally did not want to ever utilize while the vast majority of their workforce is working remote.  And this is why you are seeing these kind of "where is my refund" threads pop up all over Cruise Critic.

 

It sucks, but have some patience.  The refunds will come, and the companies aren't being nefarious.  They just don't have the capacity to handle the demand for refunds they are seeing right now, which is creating a massive bottleneck of getting the requests processed and sent.

Beardface, I think most of us would agree with that, the prob is that MSC has offered various stories about how they are handling the refunds, and none of them are working out. If they had a consistent plan that was paying off within their own timelines, even the long timelines, and explained what they were doing, we would be ok waiting. But the way it's being managed no one has much faith anymore. But the new refund posted just now gives hope that they are getting on the ball.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Bob7

[ste17l]

On 5/7/2020 at 12:58 PM, DCGuy64 said:

We got a refund from Delta on our credit card for our (now cancelled) MSC cruise which was to begin 5/19. It took them less than a week. Ironically, we saw a video on TV last night featuring the cruise ship we were to take. Made me a bit sad but also excited to look to the future when we can cruise with MSC again.

Ahh dang it, now I wished I had booked with Delta at first. The only thing that turned me away was the $25 'fee' for booking, I guess I should have just went for it! 

[Cruising89143]

8 hours ago, Até said:

SirWolf: "The service rep in Escalation Department told me that the time frame for refund is 60 BUSINESS DAYS"

 

I've not been told that one yet, you were getting too close.  A new story every time you call.

Same story for me. MSC cannot give enough information for their CS reps to at least be consistent. Yesterday I disputed my charges. This morning I had an email from my cc company. They issued me credits for the disputed amounts and will be going after MSC. If MSC decides to ban me it’s their loss and not mine. 
 

Even though most of this story is about RCI, MSC is mentioned too. Not thinking too highly of MSC right now. 
 

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/tourism-cruises/article242638061.html

 

[jstrutton]

10 hours ago, Bob7 said:

Hey Ottawa, fellow Canuck, we also book thru a big box USA TA, can't beat the perks. So you are the first on the forum to report a post-virus refund for a March cruise cancelled in March. So for the rest that cancelled in the same time frame and cruise date as you, here comes the refund flood for Misand, SirWolf, JansArts, Rob-Bob, DexDDD, NameThatFunnel, Cullyman15, JStrutton,, and Catamo. Anyone holding their breath?

Hopefully you are correct.  We requested our refund on 16 March for a 23 March Armonia cruise.  Checked this morning and nothing there.  But hopefully soon and will let people know if anything shows up.  

[dexddd]

18 hours ago, OttawaTraveler said:

Canadian here, but booked with a US travel agent.  Requested a full refund on March 14 (for a March 15 sailing).  Today, I received a full refund on my credit card, including the internet and games card I had pre-purchased.

Thanks for the update and glad to hear some progress.

[Rob-Bob]

Day 58 and still nothing.  Within 60 days is not looking good.

[aprilF]

On 5/7/2020 at 10:21 AM, Rob-Bob said:

I did log on to my MSC account yesterday and there is something new.  It shows under my reservation number of the 3/22 cruise "cancelled" and it shows my total paid - total of prepaid items = refund due.

 

 

I just tried logging into my MSC account.  I could log in but cruise details are not available.  Website looks different too.  Not sure if these are just technical difficulties or indicative that they are changing my status to showing a refund like yours showed.  I know you still havent gotten a refund but every little bit that shows they might actually refund is heartening to me.

 

12 hours ago, ste17l said:

Ahh dang it, now I wished I had booked with Delta at first. The only thing that turned me away was the $25 'fee' for booking, I guess I should have just went for it! 

 

Delta, Expedia and our Italian tour operators have been great and all refunded within a reasonable amount of time IMO.  MSC is really the only one lagging for me.

 

I was expecting Delta to be the fight and not MSC.  Disappointing for MSC but makes me happy to choose Delta in the future.

[BermudaBound2014]

20 hours ago, OttawaTraveler said:

Canadian here, but booked with a US travel agent.  Requested a full refund on March 14 (for a March 15 sailing).  Today, I received a full refund on my credit card, including the internet and games card I had pre-purchased.

 

This is FABULOUS news! I also requested a full refund on March 14th for an April 4th sailing. Anxiously awaiting.

[mafig]

2 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

This is FABULOUS news! I also requested a full refund on March 14th for an April 4th sailing. Anxiously awaiting.

 

[mafig]

Hi, BB!

I feel like I know you so I always click on your responses.

Glad you're close to getting a refund.

We were booked on Celebrity and went the credit card route.  Someone had posted (inaccurately it seems) that you had only 100 days to dispute a charge.  So I panicked and had dh dispute our charge with BOA.  So we did get our $$$ quickly.

 

Hope everything else is OK with you.

We're bored in lockdown like everyone else.  

I'm thinking of dying my hair pink.  DH likes the idea.  He must be bored too.😃

[mamaneedsavacay]

On 5/11/2020 at 2:31 PM, OttawaTraveler said:

Canadian here, but booked with a US travel agent.  Requested a full refund on March 14 (for a March 15 sailing).  Today, I received a full refund on my credit card, including the internet and games card I had pre-purchased.

 

We were also booked for the March 15 sailing and canceled ourselves the week prior for 100% FCC. Still waiting for for the taxes, fees, and pre-paid items to be refunded. Maybe it will be soon, or maybe we "reset" our clock when we opted in for the 125% FCC on March 30. (Which I now regret.) 

 

As it is, I've got May 30 as my "don't get upset until" date, but it's a little unsettling to see others who have gotten their refund portions back immediately and wondering if they've missed me and won't come back to it.

[Bob7]

On 5/11/2020 at 10:53 PM, cruisingator2 said:

Same story for me. MSC cannot give enough information for their CS reps to at least be consistent. Yesterday I disputed my charges. This morning I had an email from my cc company. They issued me credits for the disputed amounts and will be going after MSC. If MSC decides to ban me it’s their loss and not mine.

(snip)

 

Nice to be done and have that off your mind.  Thx for letting us know.

[sds]

Just a follow up I received my credit from Citi this morning just as they said it would be there. Amazingly and in true fashion of customer support this was achieved with no lies, deception or runarounds. Maybe MSC should take a page from this an learn about how customer service is suppose to work rather than breach their contracts, breach their terms of refund, and deflect and obstruct with less than helpful reps who cant keep their stories straight.  

 

For any MSC representative who may be monitoring this forum going forward you may consider sending courtesy emails giving follow up updates about status of claims also you should provide your customer service reps the tools they need to actually help the customer rather than mislead them or give them false hope. This is how these matters should be handled remember clear concise informative communication is of paramount importance in all aspect of customer service. 

Edited May 13, 2020 by sds

[NameThatFunnel]

Still nothing for me. No refund of taxes & fees, purchased massages, internet or Plusgrade and of course the cruise itself. It looks as though they made an error and have me slated to receive FCC for the cruise portion. I saw reference to this on my account. I've also called several times to get clarity, but keep getting the run around and no returned calls. My cruise was for March 21, 2020, so the 60 days is coming up soon.

[Cruisergal1208]

I have tried to send an email to the "contact us" route and it kept saying it failed to post!!.  Not sure if this a glitch in the new site or they have just shut down the email access.  We are due FCC's and/or refunds for 7 cancelled cruises for 2020.  Waiting game big time.

[Até]

MSCExistingReservations@msccruisesusa.com

 

MSCCustomerService@msccruisesusa.com

 

You will get a service request number in an auto response.  I have never received a personal answer to an MSC email in the last three years.  Well, I did once once from MSCVoyagersClub@msccruisesusa.com

Edited May 13, 2020 by Até

[Cruisin MarcnFran]

We gave up and decided to do a charge back from our CC. We only had two deposits and two charges for beverage packages for a b2b. It took only 1 day to have the funds credited to my account.

[SirWolf]

5 hours ago, NameThatFunnel said:

My cruise was for March 21, 2020, so the 60 days is coming up soon.

I have been told from a MSC Escalation Department Rep this week that the 60 days are not calendar days (see post #100).

Quote: “The service rep in Escalation Department told me that the time frame for refund is 60 BUSINESS DAYS and not calendar days since the financial department doesn’t work on Saturday and Sundays.”

[psmarkle]

Today is 60 calendar days from when I canceled our April 11th cruise back on Mar 14th. I hit "reply" to my cancellation request confirmation e-mail from MSC asking for refund status.  Will let you know what I get back...if I get anything back.

 

In my confirmation e-mail, the wording is "Your refund will be processed within 60 days." I just checked MSC's US site and here's the identical wording, "If you choose not to take a Future Cruise Credit, a refund will be issued 60 days from the date the refund is requested."

 

No mention of 60 "business days" or 60 days from sail date...hhmmm.

 

Fingers crossed?