Gift cards from AARP

[gochina]

I saw Princess' gift cards on AARP's website yesterday.  Are they as flexible to use as carnival's?  I hope so since Carnival owns Princess.  I purchased RCL before but they are a pain to use.  Thanks!

 

 

[Tak8]

I purchased Princess gift cards from Kroger.  Easy to apply to cruise payment.  Could also use for on board credit.  Not sure what you mean by flexible, but seem easy to use and gain fuel points for me.

[Italy52]

For a Christmas present, our daughter purchased a Princess gift card for us to use during our June Alaska cruise.  Tried to use it on the cruise as OBC and was told by a Guest Services agent that we would have to wait until all of our OBC was used up and then we could apply the gift card.  Not sure if anyone else had that same problem.  What a pain.  We kept the gift card and applied it to another cruise as partial payment when we got home -- no problem using it that time.  Don't know if you would run into the same problem using an AARP Princess gift card but just wanted to pass along our experience just in case you were going to use it for OBC.

[cruzsnooze]

I know you cannot use a Carnival Gift Card on Princess, I tried to buy one and they told me it doesn't cross lines even though they are the same company.

[voljeep]

1 hour ago, Tak8 said:

I purchased Princess gift cards from Kroger.  Easy to apply to cruise payment.  Could also use for on board credit.  Not sure what you mean by flexible, but seem easy to use and gain fuel points for me.

how much fuel credit from Kroger with a purchase of $ 500 in Princess gift cards ?

[Colo Cruiser]

12 minutes ago, cruzsnooze said:

I know you cannot use a Carnival Gift Card on Princess, I tried to buy one and they told me it doesn't cross lines even though they are the same company.

They are not the same company.

[Tak8]

Voljeep:  Normally its 2x fuel points, but I wait for the 4x fuel points so that gets me 2000 points. That equals a dollar off a tank of gas 2x.

[voljeep]

1 hour ago, Tak8 said:

Voljeep:  Normally its 2x fuel points, but I wait for the 4x fuel points so that gets me 2000 points. That equals a dollar off a tank of gas 2x.

just a $ off a tank - I thought I heard somewhere before it was a $ a gallon off ...

 

not really worth it for just a $

 

anyway - thanks

[Tak8]

Sorry, that's a dollar per gallon of gas.

[neverbeenhere]

Up to one 35 gallon tank.

[pms4104]

The Princess cards are a new offer in the AARP Rewards for Good program.  The price for the gift cards is at a 10% discount ... but the actual price is a combination of dollars and AARP Rewards for Good points that one earns by taking quizzes on that site.  For instance, 5000 earned points plus $450 yields a $500 Princess giftcard.

 

A couple of years ago, I took enough quizzes to buy enough Carnival cards, at a 10% discount, to entirely pay for a 14-night Carnival cruise for 2 people in a full suite.

 

So, with Princess cards now offered, this thread reminded me to check how many points I still had available to spend.   I was pleasantly shocked to see that I had over 30,000 points ... enough to get $3000 in Princess gift cards for $2700!

 

The deal is legit ... as long as you are willing to spend time on quizzes to spend less money for the cards.

 

Thank you, OP, for this thread. 

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by pms4104

[caribill]

9 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

I know you cannot use a Carnival Gift Card on Princess, I tried to buy one and they told me it doesn't cross lines even though they are the same company.

 

9 hours ago, Colo Cruiser said:

They are not the same company.

 

A gift card from Carnival Cruise Lines can only be used on Carnival Cruise Line purchases.

 

A gift card from Carnival Corporation can be used on any of the Carnival Corporation brands including Princess.

[Colo Cruiser]

5 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Carnival Cruise lines and Princess Cruises  are 2 separate companies.

 

Never said the card could not be used on both.

 

 

[camper49]

12 hours ago, pms4104 said:

The Princess cards are a new offer in the AARP Rewards for Good program.  The price for the gift cards is at a 10% discount ... but the actual price is a combination of dollars and AARP Rewards for Good points that one earns by taking quizzes on that site.  For instance, 5000 earned points plus $450 yields a $500 Princess giftcard.

 

A couple of years ago, I took enough quizzes to buy enough Carnival cards, at a 10% discount, to entirely pay for a 14-night Carnival cruise for 2 people in a full suite.

 

So, with Princess cards now offered, this thread reminded me to check how many points I still had available to spend.   I was pleasantly shocked to see that I had over 30,000 points ... enough to get $3000 in Princess gift cards for $2700!

 

The deal is legit ... as long as you are willing to spend time on quizzes to spend less money for the cards.

 

Thank you, OP, for this thread. 

 

What would happen if you used gc’s to pay for your cruise & had to cancel your cruise? I would assume before final payment it would be refunded with a GC ? If after final payment & u had to file an insurance claim I assume they would send a check?

[Ombud]

During the DAD25 promo I wound up with $98 extra on a GC after paying off 2 upcoming cruises. I just turned it into $98 OBC with my PVP

[voljeep]

1 hour ago, camper49 said:

What would happen if you used gc’s to pay for your cruise & had to cancel your cruise? I would assume before final payment it would be refunded with a GC ? If after final payment & u had to file an insurance claim I assume they would send a check?

good question ... for me at least ... waiting for answer

[PescadoAmarillo]

2 hours ago, camper49 said:

What would happen if you used gc’s to pay for your cruise & had to cancel your cruise? I would assume before final payment it would be refunded with a GC ? If after final payment & u had to file an insurance claim I assume they would send a check?

Not an exact answer but as close as I can offer...

 

We partially paid for an upcoming cruise with a combination of FCD and Princess Visa (we had a refund we wanted to apply).  Then, during 4X gas points at Kroger, DH bought $500 in Princess gift cards and I applied those to the booking. We still had a few $100 balance left, but it was three weeks before final payment. Then the cruise fare dropped enough before final payment that we had already overpaid for the cruise. We received the refund back to our credit card, not to a gift card.

[neverbeenhere]

I suggest you keep the gift card information as “Princess” has always told me that they will refund to the gift cards themselves, if I cancel.

 

But, as we know “Princess” doesn’t know what “Princess” does and doesn’t do. 

[voljeep]

15 minutes ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

Not an exact answer but as close as I can offer...

 

We partially paid for an upcoming cruise with a combination of FCD and Princess Visa (we had a refund we wanted to apply).  Then, during 4X gas points at Kroger, DH bought $500 in Princess gift cards and I applied those to the booking. We still had a few $100 balance left, but it was three weeks before final payment. Then the cruise fare dropped enough before final payment that we had already overpaid for the cruise. We received the refund back to our credit card, not to a gift card.

I guess now I'm just thinking about buying generic visa cards from the 4x promotion ... then if we have to cancel, even if it goes back to the gift card ... well, that can be spent anywhere

 

what am I missing ?

 

side note: it is my son that has the Kroger gas card, and I will be giving him the money, of course , or going with him to purchase about 2 weeks before final is due

[richmke]

19 hours ago, Italy52 said:

Tried to use it on the cruise as OBC and was told by a Guest Services agent that we would have to wait until all of our OBC was used up and then we could apply the gift card.

 

Probably trying to save themselves some hassle of refunding any balance to the gift card.

 

On my last cruise, I put a gift card onto my folio at the Passenger Service Desk. No problem. They paid for charges in the right order:

1) Non-refundable OBC

2) Gift card

3) Refundable OBC (purchased by cruise agent)

 

If you only have non-refundable OBC, then you are better off waiting until you know the OBC is used up before you put the Gift Card onto your account.

 

FYI: Use the Gift Card to purchase Future Cruise Deposits. Note: Do this before depositing to your account, since you can't use OBC to purchase FCD.

[Italy52]

3 minutes ago, richmke said:

 

Probably trying to save themselves some hassle of refunding any balance to the gift card.

 

On my last cruise, I put a gift card onto my folio at the Passenger Service Desk. No problem. They paid for charges in the right order:

1) Non-refundable OBC

2) Gift card

3) Refundable OBC (purchased by cruise agent)

 

If you only have non-refundable OBC, then you are better off waiting until you know the OBC is used up before you put the Gift Card onto your account.

 

FYI: Use the Gift Card to purchase Future Cruise Deposits. Note: Do this before depositing to your account, since you can't use OBC to purchase FCD.

Thanks.  The information on the Princess e-gift card said to take it to Guest Services.  When I did that, the gentleman was not friendly at all and just told me since we already had OBC that we would have to use ALL  of that up first and then we could come by and apply the e-gift card.  He said the e-gift card was like applying a credit card when our funds ran out. No where did we see limitation information on the e-gift card --- I think there should be a better explanation given for the card's use.  In the future, we will probably only use the gift cards as a payment towards our cruise fare.

[caribill]

1 hour ago, Italy52 said:

Thanks.  The information on the Princess e-gift card said to take it to Guest Services.  When I did that, the gentleman was not friendly at all and just told me since we already had OBC that we would have to use ALL  of that up first and then we could come by and apply the e-gift card.  He said the e-gift card was like applying a credit card when our funds ran out. No where did we see limitation information on the e-gift card --- I think there should be a better explanation given for the card's use.  In the future, we will probably only use the gift cards as a payment towards our cruise fare.

 

The gentleman was 100% incorrect. You can add the value of a gift card anytime during the cruise, not only when OBC is used up.

[camper49]

17 hours ago, pms4104 said:

The Princess cards are a new offer in the AARP Rewards for Good program.  The price for the gift cards is at a 10% discount ... but the actual price is a combination of dollars and AARP Rewards for Good points that one earns by taking quizzes on that site.  For instance, 5000 earned points plus $450 yields a $500 Princess giftcard.

 

A couple of years ago, I took enough quizzes to buy enough Carnival cards, at a 10% discount, to entirely pay for a 14-night Carnival cruise for 2 people in a full suite.

 

So, with Princess cards now offered, this thread reminded me to check how many points I still had available to spend.   I was pleasantly shocked to see that I had over 30,000 points ... enough to get $3000 in Princess gift cards for $2700!

 

The deal is legit ... as long as you are willing to spend time on quizzes to spend less money for the cards.

 

Thank you, OP, for this thread. 

 

Just checked my points,hoping to do a few quizzes and add to the points I have and then order Princess Gift cards. As of July 15 one can no longer earn more points,however you can still redeem points until September. At that time they will have a new program. So if you want to use your points now is the time!

[Italy52]

46 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

The gentleman was 100% incorrect. You can add the value of a gift card anytime during the cruise, not only when OBC is used up.

Thanks for the post, I appreciate it.

[Italy52]

22 minutes ago, camper49 said:

Just checked my points,hoping to do a few quizzes and add to the points I have and then order Princess Gift cards. As of July 15 one can no longer earn more points,however you can still redeem points until September. At that time they will have a new program. So if you want to use your points now is the time!

Thanks for the "heads up."