Rhea98

4 hours ago, Oxo said:

Did you put it on a Credit Card? If you did, dispute the charge with your Credit Card company. They should get a satisfactory response within 30 days. I have done this twice with MSC using my Citi CC and they suspended the charge while awaiting MSC response.

Stay Safe and Happy New Year!

Yes. I placed the insurance on a separate card so I can easily request the full amount ($426) rather than the $198. be returned.  As for charges on the other card, it doesn't seem so simple unless I simply cancel the new cruise for a full refund. I used my Chase SR. 

2 hours ago, sidari said:

Any extra 25% would be based on the cruise fare paid only and not the added taxes and port fees.

Thanks. This is what I thought until I received the voucher email.  In the event this would be correct, what happens to port taxes and fees plus any other payments made such as gratuities and insurance? In my case, those charges totalled $1450--more than half (745.29) of which I have not received. 

6 minutes ago, mmbcater said:

What was the total price of your cruise fare with out port fees, insurance and pre-paid gratuties?

 

$2981.11 + .25 = $3726.39

Seriously, I am having a difficult time comprehending my Future Cruise Credit:

Please consider this email to be your 125% Future Cruise Credit voucher equal to the amount of  $ 4431.10  which  can be used on any open sailing booked by April 30, 2022. The Future Cruise Credit can be applied at the time of booking toward your stateroom as well as items such as specialty dining, beverage packages, Wi-Fi, spa treatments and more. (It excludes government taxes & fees and prepaid items on your original booking, which will be refunded separately to the original form of payment). As an added level of comfort, if your Future Cruise Credit is unused by April 30, 2022, you will automatically receive a full refund equal to the original amount paid.

The $4431.10 is the total I'd paid to MSC [$384 prepaid gratuities+$426 insurance+$3621.10 cruise (fare $2981.10+taxes/fees $640)] The cruise fee plus gratuities was placed on credit card 1 on 7/13/21; the insurance money was put on credit card 2 on 9/29/21.

First question: 125% of what? On what part is the 125% based? 

Second question: What does this mean? 

On 10/6/21, our Seashore TA was cancelled. On 11/5/2021, we received the FCC "voucher" with the words I've copied above. On 11/10/21, I booked another cruise which came to a total (no extras paid at this time) of $3431.20. After the voucher was applied, the balance remaining was $999.90. 

Dec 13, 21, MSC refunded $801.90 to credit card 1. On Dec 13, 21, MSC refunded $198. to credit card 2. 

I assumed (yes, I know), that it was the "government taxes & fees and prepaid items on your original booking, which will be refunded separately to the original form of payment" even though the numbers didn't add up. I figured some of the taxes & fees were not refunded to MSC so they, naturally, would not refund to us. 

Today I called to have the $999.90 applied to a cruise. I was told that it had been refunded: $801.90 to credit card 1 and $198 (of $426) to credit card 2. That did add up so that all the $$ I'd given to MSC had been applied to a new cruise with a refund of the excess. No mention of calculation of the 25% bonus. Melissa said that the extra 25% could be based on the cabin fares, but that didn't add up, either. 

Back to the original questions: 125% of what, and what constitutes the gov taxes & fees and prepaid items which have not been separately refunded to an original form of payment?

I was on the phone for nearly 2 hours trying to understand. Melissa was very patient and tried to explain as best she could without having privy to the MSC financial records. I can (and will if I can't comprehend what MSC is doing) cancel the up-coming cruises and just get the refunds. Before I give it up, I'm hoping someone can explain it to me. 

Any real help is appreciated.

On 12/3/2021 at 12:38 AM, BermudaBound2014 said:

This is a nice deal if you are interested in a last minute sailing on Meraviglia. A rack rate balcony cabin is $294 pp. You can get a bit of a discount off that also if you call around. Hope someone can take advantage of this......

 

Looks great. I would seriously consider it (being in Orlando area) if I weren't on an NCL transatlantic right now we which I had to book after Seashore left us without a

 cruise. Keep posting the deals. (Seriously!) I have $4500 in the MSC coffers which I may never see again if we don't spend it on cruises.

8 hours ago, JAGR said:

I thought they avoided offering drink packages for prebooking on three-night sailings and only sold them on board.

I thought about that later after posting. My cruise is 14 days and still doesn't show the option.

2 hours ago, dobiemom said:

 

I forgot to put that in my original post. I had purchased a spa pass, and when I won my bid to a spa balcony I called NCL to cancel the spa pass. Took a week for the credit to be posted on my credit card. Good luck! 🤞

Just FYI for others, I cancelled thermal passes on Nov 13 and no refund yet. I called yesterday. The refund is listed as "pending." 

@Morgsmom,

May not be available. If you call, you may be able to get it. I called (to use my FCC) when booking on Grandiosa for May. The agent asked me if I wanted the "All In" or the balcony upgrade. The "All In" did not show on the web page, but it seemed to be available. I didn't choose it, but when I still had $1000 of my FCC left, she asked again, if I didn't want it (it would have uses about 80% of the remainder)!

Has anyone mentioned this? It may be helpful.

11 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

There is a glitch in Section 7.  Many folks have been stuck there. Here's what worked for us: go back to Step 7, and where you see the little pencil (edit) icon near your email address, just change the last character of your address, type it back in, click "submit" or whatever the button there is (I can't recall), and you should see a little green check mark appear to the left of your email address.  Until you are able to get that check mark, Section 7 will not show as complete.
 

Good luck! 

I wrote this hours ago. I guess I forgot to "submit."

Thanks. After "edit" to both email and phone, it worked. No issues when I did DH's, though. 

3 hours ago, jvsnana said:

Not winnings related, but we used to be able to use non refundable OBC to cash out in the casino using a slot machine.  Any recent updates doing this?

 

Curious myself.

I wonder if this upcoming change is why, right now, only deck 10 sorta mid/aft cabins in Fantastica show availability for May, 14 days N. Europe (Grandiosa). Bella only shows deck nine fwd. I further wonder if it isn't time to grab my canceled cruise refund and run. I'll probably just place a deposit now, see what happens on Monday, then apply FCC at final payment if I decide to give it a try. 

Perhaps you will know by doing a fake booking? I think there must be a more accurate way to know, though.🤔 Curious myself.

1 hour ago, lenquixote66 said:

We have yet found a Starbucks on a ship that would allow us to use our Gold card to buy their overpriced coffee.

Have you been on the Getaway? I think I read that the SB app was welcomed on the Encore just this past season.

I have the $125 cash deal on Blue Preferred, and reward points of 12,500 on Gold.

This is on my 2 AF cards but not on the freebie card. Exclusions ( Excludes purchases onboard, Norwegian gift cards, shore excursions and transportation to and from the ship. ) seem to allow prepaid DSC. This would be great for our cruise. Thanks. I rarely find much I can actually use in these offers.

IIRC, the cabins with the beds near the balcony ( the push out of the wave indicates bed location) have tubs. 14171; 67;  63      14118;  14; 10; 06. It also looks like NCL has reduced the number of spa club balcony cabins from 4 yrs ago. 

3 hours ago, Candy Apple 12 said:

Thank you for the informative and detailed answers. 
 

@Old & Retired Should I assume that I can wait until anytime on the second day to upgrade the package, as long as I haven’t used it all up? I may not be awake at 12:01 AM! If so, that sounds like the way to go because I can see if I’m satisfied with the regular package first (try before you buy). 
 

I'm pretty sure any time works. On my last trip (2017 13-day TA), I waited until the 3rd day and saved a lot. (the end day will vary by the number of cruise days so for a week, you may have to sign up on Day 2)  At that time, there was a sign on the desk in the internet room giving the last day to sign up for the special. 

IIRC, Don also said that, as a Canadian, he followed up with a phone call to book a before Nov 1 cruise and was told that of course he could. 

10 hours ago, hamrag said:

Yes, that is part of the posting trail I quoted above. 

I discovered 5 minutes ago that excursions are now showing for the first time, through Tenerife, on the UK website in our 'Manage my Booking' section for our sailing commencing Barcelona!

I wondered when I read that info yesterday. Things do look up for your cruise. As you were concerned about my experience/canceled cruise, I will mention that I went back to NCL (we are Plat there) and booked Getaway TA from Rome 05Dec. I had to reduce our experience as MSC still has all of our money (except the laundry purchase was refunded). We were easily able to move our AA ressies to BA flights. DH has perked up and is trying to increase his stamina for the travels. Even if it gets canceled, that's an overall positive. 

To follow up on Morgsmom post, there is a CVS not terribly far from the airport, but check this out for possible testing at MCO. There is a Walgreen's closer, but I couldn't find any info on testing there. You'd have to go through the application process to determine eligibility/cost. 

They sent emails after weeks-long barrage of inquiries from many of us after we discovered that their christening ceremony dates made our cruise impossible.

All my tests have been mailed to those requesting.

On 10/9/2021 at 6:57 PM, MichaelJess said:

I'll follow. Please let me know if either of the other two fall through. I'm still hoping that rules change soon.  We've got MSC in October and tests are required. We then have Carnival in December and they just announced they plan to continue as is no matter what the CDC changes.  

At least two tests just became available. Email ritchea9898@gmail.com. I could send out today.

MSC has honored price drops even on fully paid cruises. There was a snag this year reported by a phone agent who resubmitted a previous agent's service request on my behalf. If your current cruise was funded in any part by FCC, the agent could not run the discount but had to submit to corporate. In my case, the SR was ignored possibly because corporate knew the cruise would be canceled. I've read that some posters had been successful with the corporate golden touch.