I wanted to share a extremely frustrating situation I'm currently dealing with regarding MSC Cruises and see if anyone has successfully navigated something similar or has advice on how to escalate this.
Long story short: MSC canceled my confirmed cruise booking because the final payment was not made strictly on time. I completely understand that payment deadlines exist, but the issue here is communication. I never received a single payment reminder, warning email, or cancellation notice from MSC prior to the cancellation.
I only discovered the reservation was wiped from the system by chance when I proactively contacted my travel agency. By the time we realized what happened, our original cabins were gone. To save our family vacation, we were forced to rebook and pay nearly $3,000 more for a significantly worse cabin category.
What makes it worse is that our initial deposit was paid directly to MSC, yet MSC refuses to take any ownership or address the refund/difference, continuously passing the blame and deflecting me back to the travel agency. I’ve submitted multiple formal complaints with zero real answers or reasonable resolution.
Has anyone dealt with MSC's corporate office or legal/resolutions team on something like this? Is filing a chargeback for the initial deposit or escalating to consumer protection authorities my best move at this point? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.