On board credit and gift card question

[zorky12]

Right now I have my cruise and excursions 100% paid. We have $250 of on board credit also and I was able to snag up a $500 gift card for $450. I think the OBC is probably not refundable. Should I not enter my gift card until I know I need it in case I only spend no more than $250 on board? Would I get back a refund on the difference of the gift card not used? I don't want to run into a issue where my gift card would be charged before the OBC was used if I went ahead and entered it. 

[pe4all]

I would save the gift card until you go through the $250 obc.  You would get a refund back on the gift card if the whole amount was not used.  We usually go down to Guest Services the night before the cruise ends and they give us cash back, or we go to the casino, add it into a slot machine from our onboard account, and cash it out there, instead of waiting for a refund check, which could take weeks to get.

[jc4me]

28 minutes ago, pe4all said:

I would save the gift card until you go through the $250 obc.  You would get a refund back on the gift card if the whole amount was not used.  We usually go down to Guest Services the night before the cruise ends and they give us cash back, or we go to the casino, add it into a slot machine from our onboard account, and cash it out there, instead of waiting for a refund check, which could take weeks to get.

I agree with pe4all.  If you have funds left on your account from the gift card in excess of $10 (I think that's the cutoff) they will actually send you a gift card with that balance.  

[Schoifmom]

Non-refundable OBC will be used before any other form of payment.  If you want to go ahead and load your gift card, OBC will still be used up first.

 

If you have anything left at the end of the cruise that was funded by GC, it will be refunded to you in the form of a new gift card OR you can use the casino trick to cash it out (see @pe4all post above, except they will not cash out a GC at Guest services, you have to use the casino trick).

[Joe817]

3 hours ago, Schoifmom said:

Non-refundable OBC will be used before any other form of payment.  If you want to go ahead and load your gift card, OBC will still be used up first.

 

If you have anything left at the end of the cruise that was funded by GC, it will be refunded to you in the form of a new gift card OR you can use the casino trick to cash it out (see @pe4all post above, except they will not cash out a GC at Guest services, you have to use the casino trick).

^^^^^^This. That is exactly what happened to us. I walked on board the Dream with $150 OBC(which turned out to be Cruise cash). I immediately went to Guest Services to add our 2, $100 gift cards. The $150 was used up first. At the end of the cruise we had a balance left on the G.C.'s of $71.68 which was refunded back to us in the form of another G.C. the week after we got home. And we're using that to add to our S&S card on our next cruise. It worked out well for us. 

[Ellaleah]

Has anyone used their Executive member cc from big box club store?  I am curious if you would get the 3% rebate instead of 1% because it is travel.  I’m thinking that it is invoiced as a purchase from Allstate.

[cruisegus]

10 hours ago, jc4me said:

I agree with pe4all.  If you have funds left on your account from the gift card in excess of $10 (I think that's the cutoff) they will actually send you a gift card with that balance.  

 

and I could not believe it but the refunded gift card was at our house by Wednesday the week we returned.  I expected to wait a couple of weeks for it