Gift Card Limit - Ever heard of this?

[wemjam]

Ok, so this is a new one on me.  Just got off the Miracle for our extended 8 day cruise (was supposed to be a 7 day and we sailed out a day early on Saturday night to avoid the hurricane - PS:  Great cruise with great weather the whole time!).

 

Anyway, I had made a pretty substantial purchase while on board and wanted to apply the Carnival Gift Cards I had to help cover it (had 12 - $100 ones from AARP).  Went down to the Diamond/Platinum line and handed them the 12 cards and said I want to apply them to my account.  Lady looked at me cross ways and said just a moment, then went over and mumbled something to another desk agent.  She then said, just a moment longer and went to the back room.  When she came back out she said OK, I just had to check with my manager as there is a limit to how many cards we can apply to your account.  She said she thought it was $500 worth, but it was actually $2000.

 

Has anyone else every heard of that one?  A limit to the amount of gift cards they can apply?  Just curious because I normally have around $500-$1000 with me, but sometime purchase larger, expensive items and may have more.  $1200 has been the max I have had, but in the future I could have had more if I knew I planned on spending more.

 

Is this a "written policy" somewhere I am not aware of?

[leela8]

Probably not. You get 7 different answers from guest services. If your bill is 3000.00 they sure will take the gift cards for payment to settle your account. Gift cards are currency.

[tw67]

I have never heard of a limit.  If someone was worried they could buy cruise cash with their gift cards.  Just make sure that you use it all up.  

[bury me at sea]

There is a limit on cruise cash.  I think it's 500. per cabin but am not sure.

 

I vaguely remember a post many months ago from someone who reported there was some limit on the dollar amount in gift cards that guest services would accept from him.  I can't recall that anyone else has ever mentioned it.  I figured if it was an issue, we would see more instances reported here.

[drafterdw]

We used $2000 worth of AARP gift cards with no question. we did not apply them all at same time. we applied $1000, when account hit about 1400 we applied second $1000. I will say I felt it was labor intensive for person who waited on us and tied up the line.....right now we have $2000 for next cruise but we are planning on buying Cheers before we leave. 

[Organized Chaos]

I couldn't find anything in the FAQ's about there being a limit, but I guess that doesn't mean there isn't one. I wonder if she just didn't want to enter in 12 cards. It shouldn't matter, in my opinion, as long as the accounted is funded.

[coevan]

I bought $1600  of AARP gift cards for $1440 for B2B Cheers. No one said a word.

[duhwitt]

I feel like on my last Carnival cruise (which was 3 years ago) I got a little grief, but I just went back the next day and finished applying them.  This was after I tried applying them via the kiosks...which never worked.  

[Tiger0613]

10 hours ago, bury me at sea said:

I vaguely remember a post many months ago from someone who reported there was some limit on the dollar amount in gift cards that guest services would accept from him.  I can't recall that anyone else has ever mentioned it.  I figured if it was an issue, we would see more instances reported here.

In late 2017/early 2018 there were issues with e-gift cards.  Some didn't have a PIN.  There was a thread that said Carnival was limiting people to three gift cards of any kind without having to contact shoreside to get approval for more.  It wasn't always enforced.  At least one person had issues applying two cards at once.  It sometimes took two or three days to get approval for the extra gift cards.

 

I didn't have any problems applying three e-gift cards with PINs in January/February 2018.  I applied two cards on the first day and the third card later when I needed it.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Tiger0613

[Are.we.there.yet?]

YES!  We had a problem applying all of our gift cards last month on the Splendor.  In the end, they accepted all of them but I was told it used to be a $2000 limit but they have changed it to $1000.  They had to e-mail corporate for approval and we had to come back the next day.  It could also depend on who you get because the Officer behind the desk the following day wasn’t phased but the others seemed worried about taking too many. 

 

This was definitely a new one for us!

 

 

[coevan]

as Oliver Hardy would say "that's the silliest thing I ever heard" Why would Carnival not want prepaid gift cards, even if they are discounted 10%, it's a business no brainer.  I love selling gift cards, guarantees people will come back to my business

[Squadleader]

I've never used the gift cards on the ship itself, since I usually don't spend much on the ship, but I did use $4,700 worth of gift cards, all at once, to pay for the cruise and gratuities, over the phone with a Carnival rep for final payment. It took awhile to read off all the card numbers and pins, and apply them, since there were so many cards, but we eventually got through them all.

[Organized Chaos]

6 hours ago, Tiger0613 said:

In late 2017/early 2018 there were issues with e-gift cards.  Some didn't have a PIN.  There was a thread that said Carnival was limiting people to three gift cards of any kind without having to contact shoreside to get approval for more.  It wasn't always enforced.  At least one person had issues applying two cards at once.  It sometimes took two or three days to get approval for the extra gift cards.

 

I don’t remember the problem being that they didn’t have PIN’s. I remember that there were some bogus e-cards circulating around and Carnival wanted to verify them first. Saying that the process took at least 24 hours, which I never understood because we can go to Carnival’s own gift card site and check the balance in a matter of seconds.

 

I wonder if that’s why AARP & Allstate stopped selling the e-cards as much as they used to. Carnival might limit them after that issue.

[Organized Chaos]

5 hours ago, Are.we.there.yet? said:

YES!  We had a problem applying all of our gift cards last month on the Splendor.  In the end, they accepted all of them but I was told it used to be a $2000 limit but they have changed it to $1000.  They had to e-mail corporate for approval and we had to come back the next day.  It could also depend on who you get because the Officer behind the desk the following day wasn’t phased but the others seemed worried about taking too many. 

 

This was definitely a new one for us!

 

Yet another example of Carnival policy not being consistent throughout the company by the very people who should be well aware of it. The OP was told $2,000...you’re told 1,000. All in the span of about a month. 

 

At some point, Carnival gets paid full face value for these gift cards. They get their money so it doesn’t make sense to give people a hard time. I’m sure they even get paid face value for the discounted gift cards. Those are sold by third parties, not Carnival, who more than likely pay full price. Even if they do get some kind of discount from Carnival at the time they purchase them, we’ll then, that’s Carnival’s choice. 

 

It kind of sounds like they don’t want to take the time to enter a bunch of cards at once, so they come up with some arbitrary amount. They don’t mind if we enter them ourselves online, of course.

[Tiger0613]

7 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

I don’t remember the problem being that they didn’t have PIN’s. I remember that there were some bogus e-cards circulating around and Carnival wanted to verify them first.

I remember that e-cards from one site(not AARP or Allstate) didn't have a PIN for some reason.  Carnival stopped accepting cards without a PIN.  I don't remember if the cards without a PIN were the bogus ones.

[amypintx]

I tried to apply $1500 at one time on our last cruise in August. They did $1000 and said they'd have to email corporate for approval for more than that. I went back the next day and applied the other $500 with no problem. 

[ray98]

My bet is it's a response to some sort of fraud.

[richfret]

I have 13 gift cards purchased from AARP and all of them have a Pin Number on the back so that should not be a problem.  I ordered a final $500 card this week.  I really don't want to buy more but I will be losing several thousand points with the September 24 change.  I do not expect them to make it more lucrative for us but rather more restrictions being applied.  Hard to say.  I doubt AARP will do any thing that will be losing more money for them.  Oh well, another gamble just like in the Casino.

[Elaine5715]

Yes, the limit has to do with them not being able to verify  some types and too much at one time.  I usually just apply $500 at a time and I have only hard cards.  

[jdemps]

$500 gift cards are typically available so those are the ones I buy to save time entering.