Overbooking

Hello,

We are booked on the Lirica sailing from FT LAUDERDALE next Thursday Jan. 13.

Last Saturday (Jan 8) we have been informed by our travel agent that the Lirica is overbooked.

The have received the following message from MSC:

**********************************************************

This client's sailing is over sold. MSC has made the following

announcement. Please contact your client to see if they would be interestd in

taking advantage of the options. Please note your booking once you have

contacted your client.

Here are the details:

"The Lirica is oversold for Jan 13 sailing.

The details of the compensation offer is as follows:

1) Refund 50% of the cruise fare paid

2) Replace / revise the cruise to another date ~ the choices are:

The Lirica either March 20 or April 11 sailing , both of which are

Panama Canal ( same itinerary as Jan 13 )

The Opera - back to back sailings ( offer is for 14 nights aboard the

ship ) date span is Jan 22 - Mar 19 sailings.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate anything

you can do to assist us at this time.

*********** end of message from MSC *****

How can a cruise be overbooked ??? This seems UNBELIEVABLE !!! Could this be deliberate ? Most people have organized their holidays and booked their flight weeks or months ago. It would be a serious prejudice if some of the passengers were told at the last minute they cannot board the ship as planned. :mad:

Thanks for your comments !

Overbooking happens fairly frequently. Princess and Carnival are especially prone to it, but it has happened to most cruise lines over time.

It is a general everyday practice for cruise lines to overbook, just as airlines do. Computers or yield management personnel factor in a cancellation percentage based on historical data. No cruise line wants to be left with excess berths to fill at the last minute. Sometimes it backfires and they don't receive the cancellations they had predicted. They don't do it on purpose, as no cruise line likes to deal with the expense and bad publicity of an over-sell. When they end up with more passengers than cabins after the final payment period and within a couple weeks of sailing, it's called an "over-sell".

Most recently Carnival miscalculated yields on *all* of it's sailings out of Baltimore on the CARNIVAL MIRACLE. Baltimore was a new home port for them so they used historical data based on other home ports. As it turns out, the locals from Baltimore don't cancel in the same proportion as cruises from other ports. Carnival was left with a huge over-sell situation on several sailings and had to involuntarily remove passengers. It made the news in cruising circles and just about everywhere not to mention local papers. Large family groups were told just days before sailing that they were no longer cruising. They were not given a choice. At least for now MSC is giving you the *option* to move to other sailings.

If MSC doesn't get enough people to voluntarily move to anther sailing, then their next step is to involuntarily move passengers ... most likely based on booking date.

An over-sell is never a good thing. But as I said earlier it's happened to all major cruise lines over time, even those with the most advance yield management systems. Same with most major airlines who take volunteers at the last minute (with compensation) on some flights where the "no-show factor" was miscalculated.

Ernie

So Ernie or anyone else. If you are on an overbooked cruise, and get to the port and have no cabin, Is the Cruise Line obligated to book you on another line if they have availability ala Airlines Rule 240. Would be nice to be booked on a Carnival that is overbooked and have Carnival rebook me on Crystal or Seabourne.

:) :)

So Ernie or anyone else. If you are on an overbooked cruise, and get to the port and have no cabin, Is the Cruise Line obligated to book you on another line if they have availability ala Airlines Rule 240. Would be nice to be booked on a Carnival that is overbooked and have Carnival rebook me on Crystal or Seabourne.

 

:) :)

That would be nice wouldn't it! Too bad it doesn't work that way.

If you get to the pier you will have a cabin. An overbooked sailing is addressed before the day of embarkation. The cruise line will do what it takes to reduce the ship's capacity back to normal levels prior to the day of sailing (whether by voluntary or involuntary offers). Any passengers bumped off the sailing will notified beforehand so they don't actually show up at the pier or fly to the port of embarkation.

Ernie

Today I telephoned the USA office of MSC concerning this. I have had my cabin number since June 2004 and paid in full in July.

I am absolutely assured that NO FARE PAYING PASSENGER will be "bumped".

Some cruises are overbooked as a result of Travel Agents taking space and it is these non fare paying travel Agents who will not sail if passengers do not accept the alternatives offered.

Offers are made to accomodate passengers in the event that some are willing to make other arrangements.

Seems a bit weird to me that MSC are prepared to pick up the compensation tab for passengers who accept akternative dates so that travel agents can travel without paying a fare.

Wanderer91 can sympathise with you and understand the stress that you felt. Hope that all goes well for you on the cruise - assuming that you did not accept an alternative.

I have kept my mouth shut for a while now on this board about the misinformation being spewed about travel agents not having to pay a fare. Just to clear up this myth I would like to state here and now that I am a travel agent that has sailed on 34 cruises, all different lines, and have never once NOT paid a fare, it may be a discounted fare or sometimes full fare if I want confirmed space but we do pay our hard earned money also. In addition to the fare we also pay govt taxes and port fees.

Before anyone jumps all over me, and I am certain of one person who will, remember that in most service industries most big employers give their employees a discount, i.e. I have a friend who works for Ford that recently bought a Ford Explorer for $12,000 and someone who works for Sears that gets a 20% discount on their purchases. The discounts range all over the board but it is the norm in most industries.

We are the ones the cruise lines are trying to get to sell their product and being the travel agent that I am(one that is honest and caring) I will sell the heck out of a product I have experienced myself and enjoyed much more than one I havent since I will have more first hand knowledge.

Hope that clears that up, I am getting a bit tired of reading about this over and over on this board.

One more thing, and I am not claiming this to be a huge hardship by any means, however, our cruises sometimes includes work, for example, on the Opera last week we had to attend various seminars and meetings,again, not hard work and most of our time on the cruise was spent "vacationing" but there was some time when we were working for that discount we get instead of laying by the pool like the rest of the passengers.

I have kept my mouth shut for a while now on this board about the misinformation being spewed about travel agents not having to pay a fare. Just to clear up this myth I would like to state here and now that I am a travel agent that has sailed on 34 cruises, all different lines, and have never once NOT paid a fare, it may be a discounted fare or sometimes full fare if I want confirmed space but we do pay our hard earned money also. In addition to the fare we also pay govt taxes and port fees.

I hear what you are saying. For years I've taken advantage of "Interline" rates. These are rates that are offered to employees of airlines. I happen to work for a major airline in the US. I'm perfectly entitled to those rates just as a travel agent is entitled to reduced rates as well. The cruise lines wouldn't offer them if that were not the case. In fact I think both travel agents and Interliners do a service to the cruise lines in many ways. These reduced rates are usually not offered until close to sailing, so you can't really plan ahead. This is also a time when the cruise line has a hard time filling last minute space as many people can't get air at a decent rate. At this time the confirmed agent and Interline rates are offered and we help to fill the ship. We don't get any discount onboard for any of the services so the cruise line still makes quite a bit of onboard revenue off these reduced rate passengers. It's much better to have every berth filled then to go out with an empty berth. Each empty berth represents a loss of revenue for the cruise line.

I might also add that lately the general discounts offered to the public are often the same that Interliners are given. For instance on my sailing of MSC OPERA on 1/22, the lowest Interline rate is $495 and the same rate being offered to the general public. I know the travel agent rate is probably about half that or three quarters, but of course travel agents are the one's going out to hopefully promote the product where as an Interliner would not.

Bottom line, it's nobody's business what any other passenger is paying for their cruise.

Ernie

Ernie,

You just reminded me of two things I also forgot to mention in my above post regarding travel agent reduced rates. One is that my neighbor happens to have a 3rd or 4th cousin who happens to work somewhere at RCCL(reservations I think) Anyway, my neighbor pays less than I do through some kind of friends and family rate RCCL offers to supposedly to any relative or friend of an employee. This neighbor doesnt even speak to this cousin anymore but still gets to sail VERY inexpensively.

The other thing I forgot, I just got off a HAL cruise 2 months ago, met two wonderful couples who we hung out with alot during the cruise, they both paid less money than I did at the travel agent reduced rate. I never ask what someone pays, most times the info is just offered . Now, both these couples were frequent travelers with HAL and got the lower rate because of that and to be honest, I have NO problem with that, I like a line that has a good loyalty program and has passengers that will cruise with them so frequently, they deserve to have special treatment in that case(one couple had been on 28 cruises, all of them with HAL!!!!)

Antcindee if you are as outraged as it would seem please could I suggest that you take up your grievance with the MSC office who gave out the information! Stop them issuing misinformation.

My concern was/is to re-assure passengers who may have been seriously stressed by the "overbooking". Apologies if that offends you.

Like you I am 100% in favour of loyal customers being rewarded and have NO problems in that area.

Sorry that your MSC experience was not as great as could have been.

As usual I expected a aresponse from you. My post was to clear up a misconception about travel agent fares, the misconception you for the most part have been spewingabout on this board. So I am not sure what it is you feel I should complain to MSC about, was it them that told you that travel agents do not pay a fare???

Since I do not have any clients sailing with them that are affected by this overbooking situation I would have no reason to call them. Believe me, if I did I would be addressing the issue. And since you are such a saavy traveler then you would know then that overbooking occurs all the time.

Please inform me if the information you seem so knowledgeable about regarding travel agent fares was given to you by MSC, I will be happy to call them if that is the case.

Spewing? Antcindee.

If you have a chip on your shoulder that is your problem.

In your eyes it would seem to be a crime to respond to posts!! Defeats the object of the boards entirely!!

I stand by the contents of my original post and the information GIVEN TO ME during an international telephone call and sincerely hope that fare paying passengers will be re-assured and relieved of stress and worry..

Incidentally - is you want a real response - Do NOT be disingenuous. Do NOT confuse the benefits companies offer to employees in the forms of discounts etc. with the inducements rewards bonuses and "bribes" offered within certain industries.

It may well be that many supposed "savvy" travel agents give MSC bad or mediocre reviews because MSC fall short in this area! Hell - God forbid - MSC may even ask a travel agents on a cruise to pay government taxes and port fees and the alcohol they consume on board!

DISGUSTING really not good enough!

Right now Antcindee you sound like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar! LOL.

I refuse to involve myself with these confrontational chess games you play with anyone who god forbid writes something you disagree with, I am much better than that and wish you a happy and healthy life and wonderful traveling experiences.

Regarding that cookie jar, I just hope yours is filled with the ***** you so desperatly need.

I debarked Lirica today and last week had asked them if there was any availability to continue the cruise - and was told they were fully booked. You may gather that life on Lirica can't be that bad if we wanted another 11 days!

By the way there were 1438 passengers on the Transatlantic.

The passenger breakdown is as follows:

UK 498

Italy 250

USA 216

Austria 177

Germany 132

France 47

Netherlands 38

Japan 16

Canada 14

Belgium 10

Australia 9

Portugal 5

Ireland 4

Slovenia 4

Switzerland 4

Brazil 2

Hungary 2

Sweden 2

Argentina 1

Croatia 1

Czech Republic 1

Israel 1

Mexico 1

Norway 1

San Marino 1

Venezuela 1

Total Passengers 1438

What a wonderful International mix of passengers! I think that is what MSC is all about and why I look forward to sailing on them.

I hope you share more details of your transatlantic voyager ... my favorite itinerary by the way!

Ernie

Yes it certainly was a mix. Not without problems though. Without wishing to stereotype passengers by their origins we noticed that the following statements were often true.

The Italians travelled in quite large family groups with kids and were pretty noisy. Actually even 2 Italians can be quite noisy.

The Sunbeds which had towels on them all day but no bodies often also had a german language paperback book on them as well.

The smokers who smoked where they should not have did not speak English

The British passengers kept to their own company most of the time.

Hi Everyone!

I'm new to this board and fairly new to crusing with only 2 under my belt. We are booked on MSC Lirica for 2/4/05 and I just got a call from my travel agent today that they are OVERBOOKED!! It seems like this is not an isolated thing. We have heard a lot of negatives about Lirica over the last few months but have stuck it out and said we think this ship is offering the type of cruise we would like. I'm sure we won't be disappointed especially after reading the last month or so reviews.

They offered we take Opera on 2/5 to the Western Caribbean and then stay on for the Eastern for a total of 14 nights at the same rate. While it sounds like a nice offer, we have been to all those ports before and told our agent we wanted to stay on Lirica. We booked and paid for this cruise 10/04 and there were still suites left at that time. While it is never a pleasant thing getting bumped, it can be upsetting. My agent was to call MSC back today and I can only hope we will still have our berth.

Any comments and advise would be great appreciated!

Hi Everyone!

 

 

 

Any comments and advise would be great appreciated!

My guess is for now you are safe. At this point you were not involuntarily removed from the sailing, just offered the "deal" to change from one sailing to another. Hopefully enough people will take MSC up on their offer so they don't have to go to the next step, which is to involuntarily bump people from the sailing.

As you stated, this is beginning to look like a problem for MSC since it's not an isolated incident. Passengers and travel agents alike will get a bad taste early on regarding MSC if they continue to have oversell issues on what is their first "official" season marketing to North American's en mass. People will become reluctant to book if they feel MSC does not honor confirmations and bumps people on every sailing.

My theory on why this is happening is probably because MSC's reservation system is rather unsophisticated ... this is obvious just from the confirmations and documents I received (even though I loved the old fashioned documents). I also have a feeling it's not tied into the European system that the Naples head office and other General Agents around Europe use to book MSC. So what you have is multiple systems booking cabins on a single ship but the systems are not "live" or talking with each other. No doubt N. America and Europe are each given an allotment of cabins to sell, but at some point that might get blurred as allotments are changed based on demand. When the manifests from each continent are merged MSC finds themselves in an oversell. I don't know any of this for fact ... but it's just a theory as to why this might be happening. I know I read one of Sasso's press releases that states a brand new computer system is in the works for Spring of this year. Hopefully that will solve this problem, but meanwhile the damage might be done.

Ernie

Thanks for your comment Ernie! I'm going to call our agent Monday to see how she made out with them. She's very persistant and the type of person that won't take no for an answer. Hopefully she'll stick to her guns to keep us on. Funny, I was going to call her the same day and ask the capacity of the bookings. Guess I already have that answer!

Will keep in touch on how we made out.

Thanks again!

Sad how some people seem to believe that drugs solve THEIR problems and so go around spouting advice to others who have no need of such treatment.

This is even more ridiculous when one now learns the drug they prescribe can lead to aggresive behaviour!!

P.S. Anticindee - please READ my first post under this thread and my reply to your diatribe - then have the decency to apologise for yout anti-social behaviour and paranoia. The next issue - we ALL have a right to an opinion and to express that opinion and to disagree with others when you have a total different experience to that described. FREE SPEECH and the right to free speech is so precious even if some wish to deny that to the world.

I am so grateful for your good wishes and they are of course reciprocated - difference is mine are generous and honest and not laced with sarcasm and hypocrisy and each and every one of my travelling experiences has been and will continue to be wonderful. That is the great benefit of an open mind and the desire for NEW experiences and the abilty to turn potential negatives to positives. That will never die.

i was bumped on cunard. i had booked paid the blance,got my cabin number, 24hrs before sailing i was informed by my t/a that is was overbooked and was being bumbed. i found this absolutly disgisting. especailly the my t/a were not 4even interested in me booking something else. i then waited 3weeks to get my refund. alright i got a full refund and a free cruuise this year. but how i was treated by victoria travel and cunard was really bad. hope the same thing does not happed with msc

Sad how some people seem to believe that drugs solve THEIR problems and so go around spouting advice to others who have no need of such treatment.

This is even more ridiculous when one now learns the drug they prescribe can lead to aggresive behaviour!!

P.S. Anticindee - please READ my first post under this thread and my reply to your diatribe - then have the decency to apologise for yout anti-social behaviour and paranoia. The next issue - we ALL have a right to an opinion and to express that opinion and to disagree with others when you have a total different experience to that described. FREE SPEECH and the right to free speech is so precious even if some wish to deny that to the world.

I am so grateful for your good wishes and they are of course reciprocated - difference is mine are generous and honest and not laced with sarcasm and hypocrisy and each and every one of my travelling experiences has been and will continue to be wonderful. That is the great benefit of an open mind and the desire for NEW experiences and the abilty to turn potential negatives to positives. That will never die.

Get over yourself and move on. this thread is about overbooking not czechmate vs anticindee.

. this thread is about overbooking not czechmate vs anticindee.

Agree 100% .

Hence my suggestion that my first post on this thread be re-read since it was regarding "Overbooking" and passing on information given to me by MSC in a telephone call I made to their office. I dealt absolutely with the thread.

I sincerely hoped that people would be able to take some re-assurance BUT the Lilabell situation is not good. Truly wishing that all goes well there.

What is so strange is that this situation NEVER happened in the previous years of MSC in the Caribbean and each cruise was pretty well fully booked.

Lets hope that the new computer gets sorted quickly this situation is NOT GOOD for the reputation of a company.

I am always shocked to find out that people think travel agents actually do not pay for their cruise passage. I am a travel agent and although we are sometimes offered a reduced rate there are many times that I have payed the fare offered to the public because it is lower than the reduced rate offered. In addition to our fare we are still responsible for all taxes and port charges. We must also get our own transportation to and from the port. When I do take the travel agent rate it is almost always an inside cabin unless you pay a sizable upgrade fee. And applications for reduced fares are not accepted by most lines until at least 30 day ahead and are not usually confirmed until approximately 2 weeks ahead. This makes getting any kind of sale air almost impossible. And you better believe when a ship is oversold, we are the first ones to go and not with the decent offer made to full fare travelers. We are simply bumped. That is another reason I usually pay the full fare.

So please don't think the travel agent is getting a free ride. It just doesn't happen. Oh, and another myth that should be put to rest. We do not spend all of our time traveling. I go into work from 9-6 (or later if a client calls at the last minute) just like you. I take my vacation to travel, just like the rest of you.

I purchased this trip (January 22) for my husband as a Christmas gift so that he could participate in the baseball cruise.

Incidentally, the main reason that particular cruise was oversold is that they were having trouble with their computers and the booking information was not going through. Therefore, there had miscalculated had many cabins were actually sold.

Happy cruising everyone. I am looking forward to forming my own opinion of this ship. It is difficult to sell a product the a client that you don't experience for yourself.

Pedbubba

I am sure that many people will be reassured with your information regarding a broken computer and this being an isolated incident. Others were of course suggesting that it is common practise employed by all cruise companies.

NOT GOOD for the industry in general that.

Would realld be interested to learn how Lilabell has progressed.

Seabourn - There are quite a few people NOT happy with the Cunard of today - as opposed to the great Cunard which once existed.

Now sadly we will bring down the wrath of "Exbrit" as we stray from the "OVERBOOKING" thread (although I have still to see how their post addressd that issue! Another case of "Do what I say not do what i do")

Travel Agents and free fares. I have friends and former customers in the travel industry in the U.K., Austria and Netherlands and their experience is so different to that which you describe.

Of course there will be times when travel agents take holidays and pay for them no one disputes that - even if the payment is less than that available to the general public.

I also agree that it is helpful if one has personal experience - agreeing that what appeals to one individual, even a travel agent, will not suit all. I believe though that it is impossible for a travel agent to have personal knowledge of every hotel, holiday, air line and cruise line and it is the customer who must decide. I was once in a quandary between 2 hotels and accepted the advice of a travel agent who had stayed in one - it was such a bad experience! Proof that because a Travel Agent finds a product "GREAT" that not all clients will agree.