I know this is an older thread but I suspect that over the past few months NCL's shareholder benefit policy has changed. It certainly has for us. We haven't had this problem before until our 2024 cruises. These are not on Norwegian Cruise Line but are on NCL's other two lines, Oceania and Regent.
Our two Regent cruises were in January and February 2024, and we have three upcoming Oceania cruises in March and November, 2024. They are All booked through TA's. All rejected with the reason given being that the fare was a "sale" fare. For the two Regent cruises I applied to the listed shareholder benefit email and at least received a reply that they didn't qualify. For the March Oceania, I have now sent the initial and two reminder emails and didn't receive the basic courtesy of any reply at all. I Just got off the phone with Oceania customer service and the very helpful lady (on another issue) looked up all three cruises and said none of them will qualify as they are "sale" fares. I said that the last two were exactly priced at the Oceania website fares, not some special TA fare and she said it doesn't matter, as the Oceania website fare is usually a sale fare! I asked, so unless you are paying full fare you aren't getting the benefit, and she said yes. Does anyone actually pay the "full fare"? There is always some sale or other on a cruise.
I don't know if this suspected new policy will apply to Norwegian cruise line as well, but it does to the two sister cruise lines.
This was disappointing and I think a very poor corporate move. We will be selling our NCL stock; at least it stock jumped about 20% today after their latest earnings report, which will make it easier to do.
Not looking to get into an argument, just wanted to report what happened to us.