eGift card / Kiosk question...

[Brkintx]

Now that I'm eligible / a member of AARP - (ugh... that was not fun to type...) I'm taking advantage of the 10% savings on Carnival gift cards, and use them to pay on board activities (generally gaming charged to my S&S account, but really whatever that shapes up to be). At a max of 5 cards per month, and there being a $500 option, this is $250 in direct savings per month on my Carnival activities (not including the CC rewards for the purchase of those cards). I know you can apply them as cruise cash up to $500 in advance. Check, but that's only one card.

 

On my last cruise I chose a time where there was no line to have GS add the 9 cards I had accumulated over the previous two months to my S&S account, but the process took much more time than I anticipated. Each card was added as a payment method, then applied to the account balance / to create a credit balance, then I was able to sign the electronic signature pad, waited for a receipt to print out, only then moving on to the next card number. Total time at the counter for 9 cards was about 10 minutes, give or take a few seconds.

 

I don't / didn't mind the process, but a short line did end up forming because the one person working GS was stuck dealing with my stuff... I would prefer to avoid being the hold up to everyone else's likely more important GS needs, so the question basically boils down to:

 

I have read that you can apply gift cards to S&S at the kiosks. Is this true for eGift cards as well? (Basically, is there an option to type the # plus pin, since there's no card to swipe or barcode to scan?)

 

 

TLDR = apply gift card number + pin at kiosk without barcode or mag stripe?

[MeganGC1983]

1 minute ago, Brkintx said:

Now that I'm eligible / a member of AARP - (ugh... that was not fun to type...) I'm taking advantage of the 10% savings on Carnival gift cards, and use them to pay on board activities (generally gaming charged to my S&S account, but really whatever that shapes up to be). At a max of 5 cards per month, and there being a $500 option, this is $250 in direct savings per month on my Carnival activities (not including the CC rewards for the purchase of those cards). I know you can apply them as cruise cash up to $500 in advance. Check, but that's only one card.

 

On my last cruise I chose a time where there was no line to have GS add the 9 cards I had accumulated over the previous two months to my S&S account, but the process took much more time than I anticipated. Each card was added as a payment method, then applied to the account balance / to create a credit balance, then I was able to sign the electronic signature pad, waited for a receipt to print out, only then moving on to the next card number. Total time at the counter for 9 cards was about 10 minutes, give or take a few seconds.

 

I don't / didn't mind the process, but a short line did end up forming because the one person working GS was stuck dealing with my stuff... I would prefer to avoid being the hold up to everyone else's likely more important GS needs, so the question basically boils down to:

 

I have read that you can apply gift cards to S&S at the kiosks. Is this true for eGift cards as well? (Basically, is there an option to type the # plus pin, since there's no card to swipe or barcode to scan?)

 

 

TLDR = apply gift card number + pin at kiosk without barcode or mag stripe?

Yes… you just have to enter the number and pin. 

[knagl]

Yes, you can enter it at the kiosk. If I remember correctly it's a little clunky and it's best if you're patient and a little computer savvy, but it can be done.

 

It's been a few years since I did it, but I believe there was an icon on the screen to enable the on-screen keyboard which then allowed me to type the numbers into the appropriate fields.

[ButterflyGirly]

I have done this before on the Elation.