DOB mistake and Customer Service...

[mshaines]

So I booked our first MSC cruise a couple of weeks ago.  Apparently when I did it, I mis-entered my birthdate by a couple of days.  (Normally, I'm really careful about this stuff so this is a first and I'm a bit embarrassed.)  After booking, I proceeded to match my Marriott status for the Voyagers Club.  I couldn't figure out why, but the reservation and the club number couldn't be linked online.  I called the MSC number and was told they couldn't help and to reach out to the club people.  So I emailed the club email and asked if they could help.  At this point, I have no idea my DOB on the reservation is wrong.  Today, the club people email me back to say they have found the problem - the discrepancy in DOB.  Instead of asking which was correct, they decided to change the club DOB to the wrong one.  So I called what I thought was the club number (it's the one on their bounce back) but somehow got connected to the reservation line folks.  Where I was again told that I needed to contact the club people.  I've emailed them, but it takes a few days to get a response.  The reservation/regular line guy (who was very pleasant, not knocking him) told me that the DOB on the reservation can be fixed, but that he'd have to delete my voyagers status off the reservation (which frankly I'd be fine with if it were necessary in the end).  

 

So two things for feedback here.  First, has anyone had to fix their DOB on their reservation before?  If so, please assure me my very stupid mistake isn't going to cost me a vacation.  Second, gotta say I'm not a fan of the divided customer service and being bounced within the same company.  Any know why they do it this way?  

 

 

[perakcruiser]

If the reservation/regular line guy offers me to change the DOB on the reservation free of charge, I would happily tell him to do this immediately and not care about the voyagers status at all. Who knows, what the next guy you call will say, maybe "I can do, the fee for this is 100 USD"😉 

 

And I would contact the VC after the cruise, the risk that they damage something on the reservation would be too high for me 😄

[Tierun]

I would unlink the VC from the res to fix your DOB. Send proof of the correct DOB to the VC email address (copy of ID) and then once they things on that end, call the regular line to ensure that you get the discount applied. How far out is your booking?

[mshaines]

Seems like y'all are willing to accept a pretty low standard of customer service here.  I should call the res line again after they told me to do it through VC and then have VC separately fix the VC date because either VC might screw it up or I might get charged to fix a clerical error on my part?  (FWIW, obviously I will take this route if necessary.)  Man, does this not make me feel at all good about the decision to try MSC.  The sailing is mid-December so there is some time to figure it out, thankfully.  FWIW, it's a YC booking so I'm sorta expecting at least better-than average for MSC help from MSC here, though I might be being naive that paying 2x for the cruise matters to them.  

[JamieLogical]

MSC's shoreside customer service is notoriously bad. There are thousands of posts on these boards about that. I myself avoided sailing with MSC for a few years after my first attempt to book with them because of the incredibly frustrating experiences I had with the reservation number and the Voyager's Club email. What I will say is, if you can actually make it onboard, the ship experience is MUCH better. I did eventually make it onboard in April and now I am sailing with MSC again this month, next month, in February, and I'm planning to book a cruise for April when next onboard. The trick really seems to be to try to set things up in such a way to not have to deal with shoreside customer service at all if you can avoid it. Fortunately, the few times I have had to deal with customer service and Voyager's Club since giving MSC another chance last April have gone pretty smoothly. Just have to be patient.

 

I had a similar situation to yours after booking a sailing onboard when I booked my October sailing in April. The future cruise people managed to add my middle name as part of my first name to that booking AND update my Voyager's Club account to match that. That unlinked my other two previously booked sailings from my Voyager's Club, because the info no longer matched. First step was to call the main customer service number and update that one booking to remove my middle name. Now NONE of my three future bookings showed on my account. Second step was to email Voyager's Club and have them remove my middle name from my account. Last step was to log into the MSC website with my Voyager's Club info and re-link all three sailings to my account using the "Link a booking number to your account" link in the upper right corner of the screen once logged in. As long as the full name and DOB on the bookings now match what is on your Voyager's Club account, you should have no issues linking.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

1 hour ago, mshaines said:

Seems like y'all are willing to accept a pretty low standard of customer service here.

that's because we know how BAD MSC customer service is. If they do the bare minimum correctly, the whole board rejoices. I am not trying to be funny here.

[mshaines]

2 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

MSC's shoreside customer service is notoriously bad. There are thousands of posts on these boards about that. I myself avoided sailing with MSC for a few years after my first attempt to book with them because of the incredibly frustrating experiences I had with the reservation number and the Voyager's Club email. What I will say is, if you can actually make it onboard, the ship experience is MUCH better. I did eventually make it onboard in April and now I am sailing with MSC again this month, next month, in February, and I'm planning to book a cruise for April when next onboard. The trick really seems to be to try to set things up in such a way to not have to deal with shoreside customer service at all if you can avoid it. Fortunately, the few times I have had to deal with customer service and Voyager's Club since giving MSC another chance last April have gone pretty smoothly. Just have to be patient.

 

I had a similar situation to yours after booking a sailing onboard when I booked my October sailing in April. The future cruise people managed to add my middle name as part of my first name to that booking AND update my Voyager's Club account to match that. That unlinked my other two previously booked sailings from my Voyager's Club, because the info no longer matched. First step was to call the main customer service number and update that one booking to remove my middle name. Now NONE of my three future bookings showed on my account. Second step was to email Voyager's Club and have them remove my middle name from my account. Last step was to log into the MSC website with my Voyager's Club info and re-link all three sailings to my account using the "Link a booking number to your account" link in the upper right corner of the screen once logged in. As long as the full name and DOB on the bookings now match what is on your Voyager's Club account, you should have no issues linking.

Well, I can't say I wasn't aware of the stories.  I just hoped it had improved based upon some more recent reports.  TBH, everyone has been very pleasant, but the system seems to be set up to cause frustration.  It's rather nuts to me that you need three steps to fix one problem caused by a simple failure to ask me what the correct date was!  (If I made my life this hard for clients, I would have none... but that comparison is an especially bad one these days.)  

 

That said, I'm really appreciative to hear, Jamie, that you had the same issue and fixed it.  Also, appreciate your reviews and posts for info on your experiences.  It's part of what made us decide to take the plunge.  (Dear NCL, the Haven prices really have gotten absurd.)  

 

Obviously, I'm not interested in losing a 5k vacation over what is admittedly my own mistake!  I'm going to wait until tomorrow to see what I hear back from the VC group, if anything.  If they don't fix it by then, I'll go as everyone has instructed and triple check next time!  

[mshaines]

2 minutes ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

that's because we know how BAD MSC customer service is. If they do the bare minimum correctly, the whole board rejoices. I am not trying to be funny here.

 Oh boy!  But thanks for the warning!  Best to set reasonable expectations, I guess.  And granted the price differences, there is a degree to which I think it's unfair to expect some things.  

[JamieLogical]

2 minutes ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

that's because we know how BAD MSC customer service is. If they do the bare minimum correctly, the whole board rejoices. I am not trying to be funny here.

 

Right? I have posted here to celebrate the huge accomplishments of getting my Voyager's Club status match right, actually getting a refund for a deposit on a canceled cruise in a reasonable amount of time, and calling in to change my room number (same deck and category) without breaking my reservation or having my booking completely repriced. None of those things should have felt like a big deal, but all of them did because the bar is SOOOOOO low.

[perakcruiser]

3 hours ago, mshaines said:

Seems like y'all are willing to accept a pretty low standard of customer service here.

Nobody chooses MSC because of their shoreside customer service.

 

Actually nobody deals with an Italian company because of their customer service.

 

No, let me say it in this way, nobody deals with European companies because of their customer service 😄

 

Yeah, it is about expectations, I am still surprised that they offered you to change the DOB for free 😉 

 

But your cruise will be great and you will book again, no matter what happens now before departure. And MSC knows this.

 

Edited September 14, 2023 by perakcruiser

[mshaines]

Well, thank you all for the feedback.  Jamie, you can throw a party - the VC people fixed the DOB issue for both (confirmed in the app)!   So, I guess this is just a system I need to get used to.

[JamieLogical]

2 minutes ago, mshaines said:

Well, thank you all for the feedback.  Jamie, you can throw a party - the VC people fixed the DOB issue for both (confirmed in the app)!   So, I guess this is just a system I need to get used to.

 

You should make a separate thread to celebrate. 😋

[mshaines]

18 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

You should make a separate thread to celebrate. 😋

I don't know that my American customer service expectations can go that far lol.  But it was MUCH less painful that I had been expecting based upon this chain, so I'll take it

 

Very excited and will let people know how the cruise goes!

[JamieLogical]

1 minute ago, mshaines said:

I don't know that my American customer service expectations can go that far lol.  But it was MUCH less painful that I had been expecting based upon this chain, so I'll take it

 

Very excited and will let people know how the cruise goes!

 

Hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here!

 

*See what I did there?*

[Best Cat Mom]

On 9/14/2023 at 10:22 AM, perakcruiser said:

Actually nobody deals with an Italian company because of their customer service.

Exactly! Our experiences with MSC mirror what we've experienced on land holidays in Italia -- including bringing face cloths/wash cloths for our first MSC cruise. (We were in Yacht Club so we did not need them, but brought them just in case. They are always in our "to go" bag anyways.) MSC meets our expectations for an Italian company but exceed sour expectations for a cruise. 🙂

[perakcruiser]

8 hours ago, Best Cat Mom said:

MSC meets our expectations for an Italian company but exceed sour expectations for a cruise. 🙂

I should be mandatory for all new MSC customers to first deal for example with Alitalia (now ITA Airways) or any government agency. Then all with give MSC sure 10 out of 10 for CS 😄

 

Italian hotels are another story, paying them a lot of money and being treated as a stranger who wants to stay in a private home for free is absolutely amazing. But part of the experience😉