Carnival Gift cards at Grocery Stores

[lyannea]

One used to be able to buy Carnival Cruise Gift cards at grocery stores and I remember buying them years ago at Kroger/Fred Meyers when they were having a 4x points promotion.

The 4x points promotion is on this week, however, there were no Carnival gift cards listed- only Princess- at the store or online.

They used to have Carnival and Royal Caribbean.

Maybe I've been out of the loop, but anyone else notice  ? 

[lasvegascruising]

I've always wondered about purchasing these cards at the supermarket.  How do you use them?

[ninjacat123]

I buy my Carnival gift cards through AARP or Allstate Insurance to get 10% off.  I use my Carnival Barclay card to purchase them so I get Carnival points.

[Buffalobills]

They don’t sell them at Target anymore either. 

[CruiseAdict218]

I work for a supermarket chain and we used to carry them as well but I think they were dropped around the beginning times of covid, probably for a fear if they had actually filed for bankruptcy. Now all I see is Walmart or Best Buy having $100 ones but digital only through their website.

[LUVMYGSDOG]

They still have them at my Kroger (Myrtle Beach).  Bought one a couple weeks ago during the 4x gas points.

 

Kim

[Calnev1]

1 hour ago, LUVMYGSDOG said:

They still have them at my Kroger (Myrtle Beach).  Bought one a couple weeks ago during the 4x gas points.

 

Kim

Out of curiosity, how much is a Kroger gas point worth? 

 

I presume that 4x gas points means you would get 4 gas points per dollar spent, so that on a $100 Carnival gift card purchase you would earn 400 Kroger gas points.  So if hypothetically a Kroger gas point was worth one penny, you would be getting about 4 dollars back in gas on your $100 Carnival gift card purchase.  That would then be about a four percent discount on the Carnival GC purchase.  But I am sure someone has actually figured this out.

[Calnev1]

4 hours ago, lasvegascruising said:

I've always wondered about purchasing these cards at the supermarket.  How do you use them?

You can use Carnival Gift Cards on your cruise fare, port taxes and fees, and all your onboard expenses.   Pretty much anything you pay Carnival for with cash or a credit card you can use a Carnival gift card instead.

[AFS1970]

My local Target has them, as does my super market. What is this 4X points promotion?

[CruizinSusan70]

3 hours ago, AFS1970 said:

My local Target has them, as does my super market. What is this 4X points promotion?

As the OP mentioned in the initial post, it's a Kroger Supermarket promotion.  If you have no Krogers in your area, it would be a moot point. 

 

The best promotion as pointed out by Ninjacat123 in post #3 is by purchasing the cards through AARP or Allstate (when available), you get them at a 10% discount.  This is good for 100% of your purchases including cruise fare, excursions, Cheers, gratuities, on board purchases and air fare if booked through Carnival.  Have saved thousands of dollars over the past close to 10 years that the program has been around.  The same deal is good on Princess cards with all expenses covered at a 10% discount.   A two week Alaska cruise that's 8000-9000 saves you 800-900 bucks.

[pe4all]

Our local mall has them at a gift card stand next to their guest services kiosk. (Roosevelt Field). I buy them there - $100 ones only.  Bed, Bath and Beyond also sold them near us - sadly, they are closing shortly.

[wrightkj]

12 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

I buy my Carnival gift cards through AARP or Allstate Insurance to get 10% off.  I use my Carnival Barclay card to purchase them so I get Carnival points.

I'm shiny new to cruising and really appreciate this savings tip!

[Drazil65]

We can still purchase CCL gift cards here in NC at Harris Teeter (parent company Kroger) and we also have the 4x's fuel point for HT gas stations.  I have purchased many over the years living here and CCL has always been included.  Actually, the fuel points are worth more these days then the 10% discount at AARP especially if purchasing a $500 GC.  

[ninjacat123]

23 minutes ago, wrightkj said:

I'm shiny new to cruising and really appreciate this savings tip!

Welcome to cruising and Cruise Critic wrightkj! You don't have to have insurance through Allstate (although I do) to set up an account for rewards.  I get notified through a Cruise Critic thread that a promo code is available so I can accrue points that are needed to buy gift cards through Allstate.  10,000 points are needed to buy a $1,000 gift card for $900.  Right now Allstate only has $100 and $500 gift cards available and since they are not ecards they charge to mail them therefore reducing the percentage off.

AARP has Carnival ecards (no charge for emailing) but you need a membership (which I have since I am old😁) and there is a limit to how many you can buy per month.  I haven't had an issue with the number per month.  I like the ecards because you can save them to your Apple wallet.  

Here's the link to the CC thread about gift cards:

Hope that helps!!

[odis]

We purchase Carnival gift cards from Kroger all the time, and usually during the 4x points promotions. For a $500 gift card, you get 2000 points. 1000 points gets you $1 off a gallon of gas up to 35 gallons.  The promotion is going on now in our area. We then redeem the card on the Carnival website to pay for the cruise, drink packages, etc. You can also use them on board at Guest Services.  Very easy.

Edited May 5, 2023 by odis

[d-train]

Our local Lowes and Giant Eagle stores have CCL gift cards too.

[ProvoAggie]

Raise.com also allows you to get 8% back and you can purchase any exact amount you want up to $1000 at a time I think. So you can buy a $1000 one and get $80 back...and then you can immediately use the $80 towards another one. It's nice because when you have $293 left on your balance you can just buy a card for $293 and not have any extra.

[Calnev1]

33 minutes ago, odis said:

We purchase Carnival gift cards from Kroger all the time, and usually during the 4x points promotions. For a $500 gift card, you get 2000 points. 1000 points gets you $1 off a gallon of gas up to 35 gallons.  The promotion is going on now in our area. 

OK, I can see that if you use 1000 fuel points and can max out your gas purchase by buying 35 gallons on one fill up  you will potentially save $35.  Since you get 2000 fuel points on a $500 Carnival gift card you can potentially fill up twice and save $70.   Saving $70 on a $500 GC purchase is a discount of about 14%.  So, potentially better than buying the same $500 Carnival GC on Allstate or AARP where you get a 10% discount.

 

Still, for me the Kroger fuel points program would be a problem.   I have a smallish car with a gas tank that holds only about 16 gallons.   If you only buy 16 gallons of gas at a time the value of the gas points drops about in half, making the discount worth only about 7%.  I guess if you have a pickup truck or RV you can always get 35 gallons every fill up.  Or you can bring a gas can to the station or have a neighbor bring their car to get the full 35 gallons.  But that is a hassle.

 

 I dug a bit deeper into the Kroger gas program on the internet and see there are further restrictions that could make it difficult to get full value.  It appears you can only use the fuel points at Shell gas stations or Kroger gas stations.  And at Shell gas stations you can’t use more than 100 Kroger fuel points each fill up for a max discount of only ten cents a gallon.

 

Well, where I live there are gas stations (ARCO and Costco, for example) that always have gas that is at least ten cents cheaper per gallon  than our local Shell stations,   So Kroger points would be pretty much worthless at our local Shell stations. Which then leaves open the question:  do Kroger gas stations that allow you to use the full 1000 points per fill up  offer good starting gas prices compared to all the other gas stations in the area you live in?  I think this could ultimately determine whether you actually get a good deal (e.g., at least a 10% discount when using the 4x Kroger points promotion).

 

Some may wonder why I went through these machinations.  My wife certainly did when I mentioned it to her.  But it could come in useful, because we have other supermarkets where we live, like Albertsons, that offer similar fuel points programs.  But I haven’t used any of those fuel points programs.

[ninjacat123]

We have Harris Teeter here in South Carolina that offers a 10 cents off for every 100 dollars spent within a month.  We usually average 500 to 600 dollars per month.  At the end of the month we would drive both of our cars to the BP that was honoring the discount, filling up my tank then DH's tank on the same gas pump. If you stop the pump, the discount ends.  A bit of a hassle but we would save around $15.  Then we would go out to eat and spend the savings plus some on dinner🤣.

[ultrafighter]

They've got them in my small town Texas Brookshire's but not at my local Walmart or in some of the larger grocery stores closer to Dallas.  I've never figured out a rhyme or reason.

[Calnev1]

13 minutes ago, ProvoAggie said:

Raise.com also allows you to get 8% back and you can purchase any exact amount you want up to $1000 at a time I think. So you can buy a $1000 one and get $80 back...and then you can immediately use the $80 towards another one. It's nice because when you have $293 left on your balance you can just buy a card for $293 and not have any extra.

This is interesting.  Raise.com is a third party reseller of gift cards, which means that someone else had that gift card before you bought it and so has the gift card code and pin.  Are you concerned that you might buy a gift card from raise that someone else might use before you do?  That would concern me.  But raise probably has protections in place against this,

[Calnev1]

5 minutes ago, ninjacat123 said:

We have Harris Teeter here in South Carolina that offers a 10 cents off for every 100 dollars spent within a month.  We usually average 500 to 600 dollars per month.  At the end of the month we would drive both of our cars to the BP that was honoring the discount, filling up my tank then DH's tank on the same gas pump. If you stop the pump, the discount ends.  A bit of a hassle but we would save around $15.  Then we would go out to eat and spend the savings plus some on dinner🤣.

One of our local supermarkets occasionally puts gift cards on sale where they will give you 1000 rewards points for every $50 gift card you buy.  The rewards points are worth one cent apiece in future grocery purchases.  That works out to a 20% easy peasy discount on the gift cards!  Unfortunately, the sale will only cover certain gift cards, not every gift card they sell and never Carnival gift cards.  The last sale included Apple gift cards, so we got several of those.

[latebloomer56]

Very interesting, I think we have seen these at Lowes near us. So if I purchase gift cards I can use these to pay my on board charges at the end of the cruise instead of having the full amount on our credit card? We generally use whatever cash we still have the last day to pay on or even pay off on board charges would like having this option. It will only be drinks and lattes for me and soda at meals for hubby, maybe a little extra goodie. Not sure what's available on Carnival ships for extra others than casino and bingo.

Great info thanks.

[ultrafighter]

13 minutes ago, latebloomer56 said:

Very interesting, I think we have seen these at Lowes near us. So if I purchase gift cards I can use these to pay my on board charges at the end of the cruise instead of having the full amount on our credit card? We generally use whatever cash we still have the last day to pay on or even pay off on board charges would like having this option. It will only be drinks and lattes for me and soda at meals for hubby, maybe a little extra goodie. Not sure what's available on Carnival ships for extra others than casino and bingo.

Great info thanks.

Yep!  They can be used on board for your account or to purchase things ahead of time on the website (wi-fi, cheers, etc).  Or even to pay for your booking.

[CruizinSusan70]

2 hours ago, odis said:

We purchase Carnival gift cards from Kroger all the time, and usually during the 4x points promotions.

Edited May 5, 2023 by CruizinSusan70