Carnival Gift Cards - AARP

[Joe817]

I just checked the AARP Forum for Carnival Gift cards, and saw an interesting comment from their Community Moderator:

 

"

 

Re: ANYONE EVER GET A REPLY FROM AARP on when they will fix their Rewards fiasco???

 45 Views 

Message 2 of 18

‎10-21-2019 09:16 PM

@cb3355263   We have posted in other threads that this is a BETA version and this has not gone public beyond users finding it through our community users or going on their own.  We will continue to make improvements and fixes along the way so we can deliver a great product after the BETA period.  If there additional questions, feel free to let us know.  We are listening!

AARPTeri"

[Organized Chaos]

15 hours ago, n6uqqq said:

You can count me in for the exodus! 🤣. I used to log into aarp rewards for good every day. Now, not so much other than out of curiosity to see if things have improved. They have not.

 

They had the potential to be a great new thing. The price of the $500 cards went down to $448 (yeah, only $2 less, but 2 bucks is 2 bucks). The reintroduced e-cards, which most of us have always liked. And they no loner require points to buy. Granted, making them available to members only was unexpected. I've been a member for over a year now so that move didn't affect me, but I can see how it upsets a lot of non-members who were buying them for a long time. I think they did it on purpose because the cards are so popular. They saw it as an opportunity to increase membership/revenue. But in my opinion, they ruined that great potential with the limit.

 

9 hours ago, Joe817 said:

Well, I made a comment on the AARP forum about the lack of information coming out of AARP regarding the gift cards. And I received a comment back from an AARP Forum Moderator  last night:

 

10-21-2019 09:37 PM

@jc50748700   When posting it is always helpful to use the @ symbol so the person is notified. 

 

Yes, we will be returning the e-gift cards to the site but do not have a firm date to provide yet.  We are insuring they will work properly.

AARPTeri

 

 

With this new limit, it's not going to do us much good even when they do restock them. When we're paying on a cruise balance, plus anything else that goes along with it, we normally need more than one card a month to get the job done.

 

Things worked pretty smoothly with the old Deluxe Rewards, which is still being used by Allstate. I don't know why AARP switched to a new company, but I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Joe817]

10 minutes ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

They had the potential to be a great new thing. The price of the $500 cards went down to $448 (yeah, only $2 less, but 2 bucks is 2 bucks). The reintroduced e-cards, which most of us have always liked. And they no loner require points to buy. Granted, making them available to members only was unexpected. I've been a member for over a year now so that move didn't affect me, but I can see how it upsets a lot of non-members who were buying them for a long time. I think they did it on purpose because the cards are so popular. They saw it as an opportunity to increase membership/revenue. But in my opinion, they ruined that great potential with the limit.

 

 

With this new limit, it's not going to do us much good even when they do restock them. When we're paying on a cruise balance, plus anything else that goes along with it, we normally need more than one card a month to get the job done.

 

Things worked pretty smoothly with the old Deluxe Rewards, which is still being used by Allstate. I don't know why AARP switched to a new company, but I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

You said a mouthful O.C.! Totally agree.

[Organized Chaos]

8 hours ago, 2wheelin said:

Maybe that was a problem to provide an unlimited amount. People get greedy and someone is losing money. The cards have become very popular. That doesn’t mean they need to be unlimited.

The limit may be a little low for each purchase, so maybe they could make it an annual limit so people could pay off one cruise. A mass exodus will only confirm that gift cards “are no longer popular so we should eliminate them completely”.

Yes, I know Allstate has no limit. Allstate can increase insurance rates anytime to cover losses.

 

In prior years, Deluxe Rewards would sell out regularly, then we'd have to wait a couple weeks for them to restock. I don't agree that people are greedy by wanting the option to buy multiple cards at a time (or within a month's time). Deluxe Rewards was obviously making money, otherwise they wouldn't have continued to do it. AARP was benefiting in some way. Either they were getting a cut of the gift card revenue, used it as a way to bring traffic to the site, or both. Again, if it wasn't beneficial to them, they wouldn't even have this rewards program. And now with the new program, they introduce "members-only" gift cards, with Carnival's being among them. I think they knew what they were doing there, knowing how much they were in demand. I'm sure they had data to reflect that and that's why they added them to the list of members-only cards. I don't think Allstate needs to recoup supposed losses from the rewards program because I think the rewards program is only beneficial to these two companies. Otherwise they'd just ditch them altogether.

 

I'd agree that they don't need to be unlimited, but 1 a month is ridiculous. Or 3 a month from different vendors; that is, if they even offer them from different vendors. If not, we're stuck with one/month, which I suspect is what's going to happen. Like I said in another comment, I think most people buy more than that when it comes to their cruises. For us, there may be times when we do only buy one in a month, or maybe even none, but if we average them out over the time period leading up to our cruise, it's going to come out to needing more than one/month. It's nice that they no longer require points to buy them, but that came at the price of having to now be an AARP member. I'd gladly go back to the points requirement if they'd drop the limit, or at least greatly increase it. If this new company, HelloWorld, can't meet the demand, then AARP never should've dropped a company that did.

[Organized Chaos]

3 hours ago, Joe817 said:

I just checked the AARP Forum for Carnival Gift cards, and saw an interesting comment from their Community Moderator:

 

Re: ANYONE EVER GET A REPLY FROM AARP on when they will fix their Rewards fiasco???

 45 Views 

Message 2 of 18

‎10-21-2019 09:16 PM

@cb3355263   We have posted in other threads that this is a BETA version and this has not gone public beyond users finding it through our community users or going on their own.  We will continue to make improvements and fixes along the way so we can deliver a great product after the BETA period.  If there additional questions, feel free to let us know.  We are listening!

AARPTeri"

 

They talk like the only ones using it right now are those who happened to stumble on it. They have been touting AARP Rewards since May to all of their members, as well as all the non-members who were just participating in Rewards for Good. Anyone who went to the Rewards for Good website for months leading up to this were met with web pages and banners announcing the closure of Rewards for Good and the new AARP Rewards. It was most certainly public. Maybe they mean they haven't fully advertised it yet, I don't know. Then again, I never came across advertisements for the old Rewards for Good when it was going, besides on this forum and their website. I might consider it "Beta" now, but on launch day, and maybe a day or two after, it was far from a Beta release. The points system didn't work (we couldn't accrue points), which is practically the cornerstone of the whole system. Many people couldn't even log in. The Carnival cards PIN mess. Those were some massive bugs.

 

I think they know people aren't happy and now they're in damage control  mode.

[consmarci]

Has anyone ever tried to use an AARP gift card and it was refused? I just tried to make a payment on our future cruise with one and they told me it was used (before I even got it). Now, I am in a holding pattern waiting for them to "escalate" the matter. I paid 450.00 for the card and am frustrated that I can't use it. Any experience with this? Tips for how to handle this? 

Edited October 25, 2019 by consmarci
wrong number

[mbglib]

On 9/27/2019 at 9:30 AM, shoptom said:

Twice a day after logging into AARP, I go to rewards and click "get started."  Check mark the boxes and click continue:

Something went wrong. Please refresh your browser and try again.

 

Mine still says that a month later!

[Organized Chaos]

11 hours ago, consmarci said:

Has anyone ever tried to use an AARP gift card and it was refused? I just tried to make a payment on our future cruise with one and they told me it was used (before I even got it). Now, I am in a holding pattern waiting for them to "escalate" the matter. I paid 450.00 for the card and am frustrated that I can't use it. Any experience with this? Tips for how to handle this? 

 

Could you clarify please? You haven't gotten the card yet, so how did you use it? Is this a physical gift card that you bought prior to the changeover to AARP Rewards or what?

 

I've been doing the AARP thing for 2 1/2 years and haven't seen anyone here say they got a card from there that didn't have the funds on it. The old main AARP thread had well over 100 pages, plus countless other AARP threads that have sprung up in the last few years, and I don't recall anyone having that problem. People have had that problem getting them from other sources, like ebay.

[consmarci]

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Received the gift card in March 2019 from aarp. It was rejected for use by me yrsterday. Evidently, it was used on Feb 1 by someone....not me! 

[drafterdw]

I have looked at AARP and can't find the Carnival gift cards. We have 2 months & need 2 more cards for on board acct. Where is the info on new program.

[Joe817]

4 minutes ago, drafterdw said:

I have looked at AARP and can't find the Carnival gift cards. We have 2 months & need 2 more cards for on board acct. Where is the info on new program.

They have been removed from the website. Lots of problems. For full explanation, start reading on page 6 of this thread.

[n6uqqq]

2 hours ago, drafterdw said:

I have looked at AARP and can't find the Carnival gift cards. We have 2 months & need 2 more cards for on board acct. Where is the info on new program.

 

Your best bet would be to join the free allstate rewards at this point to get your Carnival cards!

[shoptom]

16 hours ago, mbglib said:

Mine still says that a month later!

 

I posted somewhere that my error message had changed.  I went into my account and added my birthday, then it let me access rewards finally.  There was nothing worth waiting for though.

[JazzyInRI]

On 10/21/2019 at 10:07 AM, crabbdock said:

I paid for an AARP subscription when they changed over, so I could buy the Carnival gift cards. Now thatyou can only buy one a month I will use Allstate. I was a little upset at wasting 12 bucks, but it paid off. I won this $129 Echo spot in their sweepstakes. I'm happy now!!! 

Congratulations 🥳🥳🥳 I entered a ton and I wondered if anyone won too lol.

[Gypsywych]

40 minutes ago, JazzyInRI said:

Congratulations 🥳🥳🥳 I entered a ton and I wondered if anyone won too lol.

 

I supposedly won a $15 Uber gift card on one of their instant wins, but I never saw an email from them, never got a code and now the instant wins are gone from the website.  

[Organized Chaos]

On 10/26/2019 at 9:03 AM, consmarci said:

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Received the gift card in March 2019 from aarp. It was rejected for use by me yrsterday. Evidently, it was used on Feb 1 by someone....not me! 

 

That’s crazy. I’ve never seen anyone on here say they got an empty card from AARP or Allstate (both used the same gift card fulfillment company before AARP’s recent change). Did you scratch it off to reveal the PIN or was it already scratched?

 

Call it paranoia, but I always check the balance of ours as soon as we get them. Carnival has a balance checker on their gift card website: https://carnival.ourgiftcards.com/

 

I hope you get it straightened out. They should be able to see that it was used before it was even shipped to you. Good luck. These gift cards are typically a safe buy.

[Joecruiser62]

Today is the first time I've logged on Rewards for Good in a few months, and boy, what a shock.  I read through many of the recent posts on here, just trying to figure out what happened.  Anyway, I finally get to the new site, finally find the gift cards. All they had were the ecards, which is fine with me. I put one in my cart and it's full price, $500. I  wasn't logged in on the gift card site and my regular AARP login wouldn't work. Yes, I am an AARP member. I created a new account for the gift card site and the cards are still full price.  What am I missing? 

[canes20]

26 minutes ago, Joecruiser62 said:

Today is the first time I've logged on Rewards for Good in a few months, and boy, what a shock.  I read through many of the recent posts on here, just trying to figure out what happened.  Anyway, I finally get to the new site, finally find the gift cards. All they had were the ecards, which is fine with me. I put one in my cart and it's full price, $500. I  wasn't logged in on the gift card site and my regular AARP login wouldn't work. Yes, I am an AARP member. I created a new account for the gift card site and the cards are still full price.  What am I missing? 

I logged in today and never found the Carnival gift cards. Where did you find them?

[Joecruiser62]

So after I posted this, I was still looking trying to figure something out. I’m thinking the link I clicked on in AARP actually took me to a completely different website. That would explain why my login wouldn’t work and no discount. 

[Organized Chaos]

55 minutes ago, Joecruiser62 said:

So after I posted this, I was still looking trying to figure something out. I’m thinking the link I clicked on in AARP actually took me to a completely different website. That would explain why my login wouldn’t work and no discount. 

 

They launched their new rewards program, AARP Rewards, in late September. But on launch day, a bunch of people bought Carnival gift cards (e-cards) and they didn't come with PIN's. So AARP pulled them from the website and it took them a few weeks just to get that straight and get those people their new gift cards. In the meantime, they gift cards haven't been back yet. They say they'll be back, but they won't say when.

 

The new rewards program is garbage, in my opinion. Many of the gift cards are being sold for $1 to a few dollars less than face value. How's that a deal? Carnival cards now require an AARP membership, which I already had beforehand, but it's still a low blow to all the others who used to buy them without being members. I think it's just an underhanded move to gain more members because they know the Carnival cards are in such high demand. The good news is, when they return, they are the e-cards so we don't have to wait for them to be shipped or pay shipping. And they don't require points, or at least they didn't on launch day before they were removed. The bad news is, they're only allowing us to purchase 1 per month, or up to 3 per month from different retailers. I still haven't figured out what that means. Does it mean, even though we're getting the cards from AARP Rewards, those cards might be sold different vendors? I don't know, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't work out like that. So we'll be stuck with 1/month, which is absolutely ridiculous.

[richfret]

Got an E-mail from AARP as in the past and did a search of the gift cards with great difficulty.   I tied every thing including being a member and I could find very few gift card offers.  Gift cards like Carnival, Cracker Barrel and Dennys were none existent.  Sure hope they come back in the future but at the moment I have my doubts.  I have purchased many gift cards in the past but it looks like times have changed.

 

I am going to give AARP some more time and a chance to recover.  Time will tell. 

[keywest1]

I won a $10 Shell gift card in the daily instant win and got an email that it would be shipped in a few days.  We will use that for sure, but I still want the Carnival cards back 😞

[I_AM_GROOT]

FYI Carnival gift cards are back!

[Ak4n3]

$100 ones if one is so inclined...sucks that we can only buy one per month.  I'll pass until I see the $500 ones available

 

[I_AM_GROOT]

At least its a sign its coming hopefully soon.