Brits and final payment?

[little britain]

Our final payment is due next month for Christmas, but currently the FCO say Brits can’t cruise. 
What are others doing?

As this is totally out of our hands will MSC offer price protection to move the cruise to a different date?

[emmas gran]

Are you covered by your own travel insurance as ours will not cover a booking made against FCO advice . So we cannot make a booking or go on a cruise.

We are insured for a transfer of cruise if the booking was made prior to FCO advice against cruising. So as I said initially please check.

 

Liz

[sidari]

LB ... Call MSC and ask is the best way to find out.

[little britain]

FCO ruling came in 9th July.

Cruise booked 27th May.

 

[emmas gran]

Our November cruise (now cancelled by Princess) would not be covered by our insurance had we gone as FCO says don't cruise

[Sancho_proudfoot]

Our final payment date to the TA was, strictly speaking, 1 August. The TA has been quite helpful in delaying demanding payment while they haggle with MSC, since our booking on the Seaview was arbitrarily changed to the Fantasia.

Ultimately, MSC doubled their compensation offer to OBC of €400. However they needed payment by this Friday, or they would cancel due to non-payment (so a forfeiture by us).  

MSC admit there is only a 50/50 chance of us sailing. The 'Schengen only' policy may still apply the FCO are still saying"don't cruise" and "don't go to Spain" ( departure is from Barcelona).

They did offer a no fee ' lift and shift' to next year, but we would lose the money on our already booked, paid for and now ticketed flights, which is c£1100.

In the end, we paid up last night, a shade under £6000. Our TA says if MSC cancel, we will get a total refund, flights and all, but warned it may take until the end of March 2021 to actually get the money back.

For caution, we paid by credit card ( as soon as the sum appeared on the cc account we cleared it from the savings a/c).

We really were caught between a rock and a hard place here, so now we sit and wait.

[mickey89]

Don’t trust MSC, they ride roughshod over their customers.  You will be lucky to get your money back when they cancel your cruise and your credit card protection will be of little use.  Section 75 does not apply if you paid MSC via a travel agency as that is regarded as third party involvement.  We had a similar situation MSC changed our ship from Splendida to Poesia and said no refund were being offered and we booked Yacht Club and Poesia has no YC, still no refund.   We issued legal action against MSC.co.uk last week and if they ignore the courts the Sheriff will follow.

 

Best advice to everyone is too AVOID MSC as they are the totally untrustworthy and a disgrace to the cruise industry.