holmes96 Posted May 13, 2020 #1 Share Posted May 13, 2020 Hi, for those of you still looking for a 'pre-paid' items refund, here's our experience so far. It's a lot of detail to get to the latest status, just beware. We cancelled our 3/1 Meraviglia cruise due to a medical issue with a family member on 2/28. It was completely unrelated to Coronavirus and prior to MSC halting cruises. We had purchased cruise insurance and was able to obtain a 'cruise fare' refund in late April. I have been calling and emailing MSC directly since the 1st week of March to obtain a refund (or a status on) on our prepaid items (OBC, excursions, gratuities, internet, and show costs), which was around 2K. We are also trying to get back the port fees/taxes. I called on 3/8, then again on 3/9, and then emailed mscexistingreservations@msccruisesusa.com on 3/10 to request statuses. On the first call (3/8), I apparently called 'Reservations', but needed to speak with 'Customer Service' which is only available M-F, thus the 3/9 call. They asked to me to sum up everything in an email, which I did on 3/10. I didn't receive any response to that email until I did a follow-up to the original email on 3/29. On 3/29 I received a relatively generic response back saying it would take 60 days for refunds to be processed. I also noticed they put a 13 digit SR # (service request, I guess) in the subject line of my email. I sent another email follow-up on 5/5 to ask the refund status. Calling MSC to get a status had not yielded any success, but much frustration, so I was trying the email route, but enough was enough so I called today, 5/13, to see what was up. I hadn't received any response to my 5/5 email, BUT apparently someone looked at it and submitted my pre-paid refund request to 'Finance' on 5/8. The representative I spoke with today said they would pay the port fees/taxes first and then the rest of the refund would be paid out in 60 days from 5/8 (truly 130 days from cancellation, though). She acknowledged that my initial refund request was just dropped. Had I not emailed/called again, the refund would never have made it into the right hands, which I guess is finance. So...my lesson learned, just because you have a SR #, or were told 60 days, that doesn't mean anything apparently. I am an American for those that are interested how I booked. Hopefully everyone has better luck than we did so far. I am trying to be patient because these are unprecedented times. It would help if I felt confident that MSC was doing what they actually said they were going to do, i.e. 60 day refunds, as opposed to requests just going into a black hole. On the plus side, I was able to connect right away to a representative today so that was nice. I haven't let this experience deter me as we have another MSC cruise booked for Nov, which we are eagerly awaiting. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare travelberlin Posted May 14, 2020 #2 Share Posted May 14, 2020 Thanks for sharing. We are also waiting for a refund for prepaid internet package and for a canceled cruise. After reading your post, we will keep an eye on it and not just wait that it happens. Ivi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
golferwife Posted May 14, 2020 #3 Share Posted May 14, 2020 Keep on them. I called every Monday and asked to speak to a Supervisor. I finally told them if it was not resolved by May 15th, a few months after initial request, I was going to file a dispute with my credit card company. I received the credit on my May 10th credit card statement. A pain in the butt, but I truly believe I would not have received the credit if I did not continue to call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aprilF Posted May 17, 2020 #4 Share Posted May 17, 2020 On 5/14/2020 at 6:41 PM, golferwife said: Keep on them. I called every Monday and asked to speak to a Supervisor. I finally told them if it was not resolved by May 15th, a few months after initial request, I was going to file a dispute with my credit card company. I received the credit on my May 10th credit card statement. A pain in the butt, but I truly believe I would not have received the credit if I did not continue to call. Glad you got your refund. I am unwilling to call weekly for months on end so I went the CC dispute route. What were the circumstances of your refund request? Cruise fare, add-ons, they cancelled you cancelled and when? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
golferwife Posted May 18, 2020 #5 Share Posted May 18, 2020 15 hours ago, aprilF said: Glad you got your refund. I am unwilling to call weekly for months on end so I went the CC dispute route. What were the circumstances of your refund request? Cruise fare, add-ons, they cancelled you cancelled and when? Prepaid spa and shore excursions. They gave me a 50% refund immediately and at first told me I wasn’t entitled to the other 50%. I kept pushing and finally got to someone that actually had the authority to do something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holmes96 Posted May 19, 2020 Author #6 Share Posted May 19, 2020 On 5/17/2020 at 5:18 PM, aprilF said: Glad you got your refund. I am unwilling to call weekly for months on end so I went the CC dispute route. What were the circumstances of your refund request? Cruise fare, add-ons, they cancelled you cancelled and when? Hi, we received a cruise fare refund in late April via our travel insurance due to a family medical situation in late Feb (unrelated to COVID). Our cruise was to depart on 3/1. Now we're seeking a refund from MSC directly on the prepaid items and it's been a very painful process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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