Virga

Nice catch - very interesting! It's definitely listed in my deals as only in the casino for me - but clicking on the T&C link does indeed say Drinks on Us "INCLDUED" (not my misspelling) Everywhere in the title. It also doesn't have the, 'Complimentary drinks are available to the qualified (1) guest only while actively playing in the casino and limited to casino bar menu items.' text I normally see on DoU-Casino offers. Hmmm...

That has happened to me several times - I've gotten in the habit of putting anything attractive on hold. Often, it's not that the rate code expires (they have never (technically) ended a code early on me) but they decide they've sold enough at that rate, either on a particular sailing or overall, and suddenly the code can't pull up the good rates anymore. I also would appreciate more transparency! I've tried here a few times to encourage people to post very detailed datapoints, but I think I might be more obsessively analytical than most. New offers should be coming soon, maybe you'll find a diamond in a few days!!

Unfortunately, the code itself isn't limited a certain number of times as a global setting - so the terms and conditions don't mention the limit. You have to contact Carnival to be told how many uses you get. Trust me, when I realized I'd 'wasted' my ONLY use (pre gambling) on a weekend Sunrise cruise, I was horrified and only realizing that my husband was also given a use so we could take the heavily discounted Mardi Gras cruise calmed me down. For instance, right now I have code FJ1 for $100pp rooms with $100pp OBC and free drinks in the casino - I can access the terms here: https://www.carnival.com/cruise-deals/vifp-club/past-guest-offers-FJ1/terms.aspx but only Carnival can tell me how many uses I have. I guess, technically, you can figure it out yourself, by booking one and seeing if the code still shows up in your account - but that method is not terribly useful for planning. Six months ago, I'd have encouraged you to throw a little money in the slots to try to improve your offers, but I think the days of 'lose $300, get two free cruises and free drinks' might be over. We still have some great rates (we each gave them back their $500 in OBC last cruise) but not on very many cruises where the cost is more than $500 per person to begin with. For our part, I think our gambling days are done and we'll just play enough to order a couple rounds of drinks a couple times a day. I hope that when you contact Carnival they tell you that you have at least two uses! If not, perhaps a potential sailing mate has a use of the same code, and you could have them book the following week? The sting of travel expenses is definitely softened with a B2B!

I have never been given more than two uses of the best rate codes - prices like that with $200-$500 OBC. I sometimes also get another use or two of prices like that without OBC. Sometimes I only get a single use of one. Since mine are casino offers, the casino folks can tell me how many uses of each code I get. I don't know if a normal PVP can tell if it's not a casino offer, but probably. Before I started gambling on cruises - solely to get the great offers I read about here - I didn't realize these were limited and I 'wasted' my single use on a weekend cruise, not realizing how it worked. Fortunately, my other half also had a use and we booked the Mardi Gras lady year for less than $500 total in a balcony cabin. We've given back every penny in OBC Carnival has given us, right to the slot machines, but the cruise prices themselves have saved us thousands. I'll miss them when we run out of OBC offers, because I don't want to spend our own money in the casino - I can't imagine the amazing cruise prices will stay at our gambling level once things get more back to normal.

The only upgrade offer I've ever received came in about two months BEFORE final payment is due. The offer was something like $42 to go from an inside to an oceanview. We do not value oceanview cabins at all, so we didn't take them up on it.

They turned mine into OBC, which was fine by me, so I didn't ask if there were any other options.

For our part, we treat the suggested/automatic gratuity the way we treat resort fees - as a complete fabrication that a property/brand uses to pretend that their rate is lower than it actually is, and avoid some taxes to boot. We feel it is a disservice to the crew to call this amount a tip - it is merely wages called something else to make it seem more palatable. Your complaint isn't wholly without merit - both cruisers and crew would be better off if they stopped the shady practice of decoupling some portion of wages from fares. We used to remove the automatic 'tips' and directly reward those who provided excellent service, but eventually came to feel that this wasn't fair to behind-the-scenes staff that provided services invisibly to us. Now, we leave the automatic 'tip' charges on the account and reward excellent service additionally. I would vastly prefer it if the standard service charge was rolled into quoted fares, but airlines and hotels have made it clear that this won't be done unless it is mandated. In the meantime, we've settled into a habit that works well for us.

I have gotten much better about paying attention to exactly what I have available and am booking ever since I realized this. I even ask Carnival how many uses each offer I might use is good for. For the OP, they have so many insanely good offers floating around even o people who have never spent a dime onboard or in the casino... even if yours really was an error, I can't imagine that anyone would be able to look at your account and think, 'oh, they should NOT have this offer! Rescind it!!' I think you were intended to have this offer, and don't think they want to give ANY unnecessary refund to someone who is willing to sail.

I'm even more excited now! A vintage cocktail bar and a cocktails of the world bar?? Right up my alley! Here's hoping they also expand their import beer selection for the Gateway!

Never?? I was receiving (mediocre) casino offers all through the plague, and I don't think I ever earned more than fifty points before I started gambling onboard last year. Are you sure you're opted in for casino marketing??

Heh, they don't have to purchase my data to know that I'm the one that pays for all the cruises and that it's my card that goes on the folios... It's actually silly that they'd bother to purchase marketing data from outside sources if they can't even be bothered to competently track onboard spend for analysis. Direct data on what I'm actually willing to spend money on with Carnival is incredibly rich data, and at least one other poster here thinks they don't bother to get granular with that... As I said to them, you won't catch me complaining if they're actually that dumb.

If they don't have a way to track them separately, boy, they're dumb - but I certainly won't complain! They should absolutely be tracking purchases onboard by profit margin, their analysts and algorithms can't make good predictions with worthless data! I'll happily take advantage, and artificially inflate my onboard spending like this every cruise if they're stupid enough to log that as high profit spend.

My husband has gambled about 30% more than than me on every single cruise, on the same slots, but my casino offers are more generous. I'm nearly convinced it's because I pay for everything cruise related in my name. If they indeed see gift card purchases the same way they see purchases, that would be glorious - I've seen enough datapoints to be confident that they love people who spend heavily on high profit categories like M&Me and spa services. That's basically exactly what I'm hoping to discover - it would be idiotic of them to value gift card purchases as highly as an equal amount of candy purchases, but a girl can hope! I need $1300 in gift cards, though, and I was wondering if anyone knew if that was going to be feasible on a ten day cruise.

This is not actually an OBC question - we'll be donating our OBC to the casino - but I imagine it's pertinent to those folks as well. Is there a per day / per cruise limit to how much gift card credit you can purchase? I just realized that all of our fall cruises will be due after our July cruise, and imagined the 'offer algorithm' might think kinder thoughts about me if I purchase gift cards onboard to cover those impending payments. Anyone know offhand if there are limits?

Good on them, I wonder if they'll ever get around to throwing us low-GI folks a bone...