IMHO if IHG Gold = MSC Silver, then IHG Platinum = MSC Gold and IGH Spire = MSC Black...

I will hope so. Seeing as MSC sails a ship out of Miami, I decided that we can try them next Spring if they will give me a decent status match. I applied yesterday with my Spire card.

I am just a little concerned about their staffing practices, however. The crew to passenger ratio is 3:1 and I have read reviews criticizing the line for poor service as a result.

A friend has just tried to status match his IHG platinum and has only been matched to silver. He called them to query it and was told that MSC match IHG gold and platinum just to silver status with them. The match was done today.

Black would be nice but I would probably be willing to try them out for Gold. I wonder what it takes to get to Black from Gold - I'm guessing you start at the minimum number of points for the matched status.

I submitted my request yesterday. Hopefully I'll hear by Monday.

Are there any other cruise lines offering status match apart from MSC?

Too bad they don't match airline status.

I almost missed it in my Spam folder this afternoon.

My IHG Spire was matched to MSC Gold. Not what I'd hoped for but maybe enough to consider sailing them out of Miami come next Spring.

Yes. I received 10K points for my status match to Black (which is the exactly what is needed to reach Black.)

Gold status starts at 4300 points. So you would need 5700 points to get to Black.

MSC Voyagers Club details out the benefits of each level, the requirements to achieve and even how many points you accrue per cruise.

Accor Platinum = MSC Black, but Hilton Diamond = MSC Gold ??

Go Figure. Since when has Accor Platinum been more valued than Hilton Diamond. Accor is normal always dismissed for status matches where others are recognised. Very strange

I have also status matched my own Le Club Accor and also got Black with MSC.
They do have an odd match criteria re IHG Spire only being matched to gold and IHG gold and platinum both being matched to MSC sliver.
Just a thought could the fact that MSC is a European cruise line have anything to do with giving the better match to Le Club Accor? Wonder what they are doing for Club Carlson and Melia etc?

I am hoping we get at least some of the black benefits as we got the match after we had booked and paid for the cruise. The letter we got confirming the match did say with immediate effect. I can understand totally why the people who regularly cruise with MSC are not happy about all the new Black status people who have got this without having set foot on board an MSC ship!

You can check your actual status by logging in to your online account. Also, if you made the reservation before your status, it might not hurt to call MSC and have them make sure your cruise reservation correctly shows your new status.

I have no inside information to why they match to the levels they do, but I do have a guess. I'm wondering if they could be worried about the possible numbers of persons with top level IHG, Hilton, and Marriott elite statuses. And maybe to address some concerns over having too many people with Black, they decided not to match those top levels to Black because of the size of each of those programs. Just a thought.

I do have black against our reservation in the MSC site.

Well I booked MSC's 2X1 Balcony fare: $1150 total for 2 on the MSC Divina, 7 night Eastern Caribbean. Sept. 10th, 2016.

I can't wait to see what the Black Card gets me!

We look forward to hearing what you think about the benefits of the Black tier in real life experience

I'm on the RCL Oasis of the Seas now and the service for C&R Diamonds is outstanding!