AARP Rewards eGift Cards

[Ellipooh]

1 minute ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Try this link.

 

https://www.aarp.org/rewards/redeem/#sort-by=default&type=filter_travel
 

BINGO!
many thanks

[cruzsnooze]

It sounds like perhaps the bonus gift cards you get through Princess on Holidays like Mothers day would be non refundable NOT the cards you paid for. Those bonus cards also have expiration dates which paid for cards do not. 

[HaveDogWillTravel]

Last December I had to cancel a cruise for a covered reason 7 days before sailing.  I use an annual insurance plan from Allianz. They paid all the non-refunded costs in about 2 weeks. They never asked how I originally paid for anything. Gift cards did not matter. 

The fine print of my Chase sapphire card says my trip is covered as long as I pay a portion of the costs with that card. Only rental cars require full payment with the sapphire card to be covered. 

Edited July 1, 2023 by HaveDogWillTravel

[theloo]

18 minutes ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

Last December I had to cancel a cruise for a covered reason 7 days before sailing.  I use an annual insurance plan from Allianz. They paid all the non-refunded costs in about 2 weeks. They never asked how I originally paid for anything. Gift cards did not matter. 

The fine print of my Chase sapphire card says my trip is covered as long as I pay a portion of the costs with that card. Only rental cars require full payment with the sapphire card to be covered. 

Thanks for your answer.  I will look into Allianz!

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

It sounds like perhaps the bonus gift cards you get through Princess on Holidays like Mothers day would be non refundable NOT the cards you paid for. Those bonus cards also have expiration dates which paid for cards do not. 

Correct - they all had expiry dates.  PCL has not offered these for a couple of years now - or close to it. 

[pompeii]

I just refared EZAir on a booking I had paid in full, largely with aarp gift cards, resulting in a small overpayment.  I'd be happy to just transfer the extra to obc, but I'm not sure that's an option.  Do I have to contact Princess to get that back on one of my gift cards, or should it happen automatically?    

[Thrak]

On 6/30/2023 at 5:00 PM, cruzsnooze said:

It sounds like perhaps the bonus gift cards you get through Princess on Holidays like Mothers day would be non refundable NOT the cards you paid for. Those bonus cards also have expiration dates which paid for cards do not. 

 

The ones I purchased a few years ago on those sales did indeed come with "bonus" $250 cards (rather than a discounted price) and the bonus cards did have expiration dates. Due to cancellations by Princess due to C19 I was going to lose out on 3 of those bonus cards. After a loooooooooooooooong call to Princess I was able to get 2 of them extended and was eventually able to use them. The third one was a loss. I was really surprised they extended two of them but, after all, it was their own cancellations that caused the delays. Even if I had lost all 3 of the bonus cards I wouldn't have been out any actual money because they were just "extra" and I hadn't actually paid any money for them.

[HBDave]

This is the verbiage from my CoverMore Travel Policy (Costco Travel Insurance).

 

"Payments and Deposits or portions of Payments and Deposits satisfied by non-paid vouchers, non-paid certificates or discounts are not considered Payments and Deposits under this Policy."

 

This sounds like if I paid for the Certificate / Gift Card it would be covered. At least I hope so, since I paid $9,000 towards my final payment using AARP Gift Cards. 🙂

Edited July 4, 2023 by HBDave

[beg3yrs]

5 hours ago, HBDave said:

This is the verbiage from my CoverMore Travel Policy (Costco Travel Insurance).

 

"Payments and Deposits or portions of Payments and Deposits satisfied by non-paid vouchers, non-paid certificates or discounts are not considered Payments and Deposits under this Policy."

 

This sounds like if I paid for the Certificate / Gift Card it would be covered. At least I hope so, since I paid $9,000 towards my final payment using AARP Gift Cards. 🙂

Seems you paid for the gift cards so IMHO that paragraph doesn't apply. That said, I do think they'd only cover the amount you actually paid for the gift card, not the extra 10%.

[jwattle]

21 minutes ago, beg3yrs said:

Seems you paid for the gift cards so IMHO that paragraph doesn't apply. That said, I do think they'd only cover the amount you actually paid for the gift card, not the extra 10%.

They have no way of knowing that you paid ten percent less 😁🍾

[Californian]

Can't find any Princess gift cards on the Rewards site today.  Wonder if there will be more to come....

[Californian]

OK.  Some just popped up.

[Bgwest]

Just ordered 5 today. Order confirmed. 

[Thrak]

Just bought 5 more today and, of course, went to the Princess site and verified the $500 value on each of them. Called my TA and he said he was going to be in and out of the office today and he would just swing by my house to pick up the last 10 cards to finish paying off our 32 day B2B2B this fall. I call that good service! 😃

 

He came by and I gave him the last 10 cards. In total, using these cards has now saved me $2,200 on these cruises. I'm quite happy about that. 😍

[PacnGoNow]

23 minutes ago, Thrak said:

Just bought 5 more today and, of course, went to the Princess site and verified the $500 value on each of them. Called my TA and he said he was going to be in and out of the office today and he would just swing by my house to pick up the last 10 cards to finish paying off our 32 day B2B2B this fall. I call that good service! 😃

 

He came by and I gave him the last 10 cards. In total, using these cards has now saved me $2,200 on these cruises. I'm quite happy about that. 😍

Very good service!  Just a warning: Tell him not to enter more than about 5 at a time. 

 

I just gave my TA 13 cards and the 10th one showed 0 balance.  So she stopped and waited about 5 mins. Then added no 11, 12, 13 and they all worked.  So, luckily, I had another GC to give her in place of no 10.

 

She thinks it may need a chance to reset after adding a lot of GC’s, a security measure.

 

And, yes, I checked the balance on all of them before I gave them to the TA.

 

So, I checked the balance myself and it was 0.  Called Aarp rewards phone. He said call PCL and they will take care of you. 😝  I said no, they will have no clue what to do and the GC dept. won’t either.

 

So, Aarp took the information and corrected it and by the next day it was reinstated again. So, now it’s good to go!

🤙

[bladerunner6]

On 6/30/2023 at 8:08 PM, HaveDogWillTravel said:

Last December I had to cancel a cruise for a covered reason 7 days before sailing.  I use an annual insurance plan from Allianz. They paid all the non-refunded costs in about 2 weeks. They never asked how I originally paid for anything. Gift cards did not matter. 

The fine print of my Chase sapphire card says my trip is covered as long as I pay a portion of the costs with that card. Only rental cars require full payment with the sapphire card to be covered. 

How much does that annual cost, please?

 

Thanks.

[MTNestr]

Can I use Princess Gift Cards to pay for a cruise that was purchased thru a Big Box Store?

[Ken the cruiser]

Just now, MTNestr said:

Can I use Princess Gift Cards to pay for a cruise that was purchased thru a Big Box Store?

Yes. In our case we email pictures of our GCs to our TA, and then they post them for us. 

[MTNestr]

3 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Yes. In our case we email pictures of our GCs to our TA, and then they post them for us. 

Did you TA work at a Big Box Store?

[Ken the cruiser]

4 minutes ago, MTNestr said:

Did you TA work at a Big Box Store?

Nope. But it’s large enough where our TA past off loading the GCs to their Guest Relations department for them to do the grunt work of adding them to the booking. Did your Big Box TA say they wouldn’t do it?

[MTNestr]

Just now, Ken the cruiser said:

Nope. But it’s large enough where our TA past off loading the GCs to their Guest Relations department for them to do the grunt work of adding them to the booking. Did your Big Box TA say they wouldn’t do it?

I haven’t asked them yet.  The Cruise is March 2024 so I’m thinking ahead.  I need about $9000 worth and I don’t want them to tell me that they won’t use them when payment comes do.  

[Ken the cruiser]

Just now, MTNestr said:

I haven’t asked them yet.  The Cruise is March 2024 so I’m thinking ahead.  I need about $9000 worth and I don’t want them to tell me that they won’t use them when payment comes do.  

The first time we decided to purchase them, we first contacted our TA just to make sure what the process was. She confirmed there would not be an issue and to just email her the photos of the purchased cards, each of which contains a unique number and 4-digit pin, and they would upload them into the designated booking.
 

We then purchased one just as a test, sent it to her, and all went fine. We then bought nine more that month, as we each could purchase 5 with our separate AARP Rewards accounts, and it’s been a very smooth process since.

[MTNestr]

1 minute ago, Ken the cruiser said:

The first time we decided to purchase them, we first contacted our TA just to make sure what the process was. She confirmed there would not be an issue and to just email her the photos of the purchased cards, each of which contains a unique number and 4-digit pin, and they would upload them into the designated booking.
 

We then purchased one just as a test, sent it to her, and all went fine. We then bought nine more that month, as we each could purchase 5 with our separate AARP Rewards accounts, and it’s been a very smooth process since.

Sounds Good.  Thanks for all your help - I appreciate it!!

[Thrak]

6 hours ago, MTNestr said:

I haven’t asked them yet.  The Cruise is March 2024 so I’m thinking ahead.  I need about $9000 worth and I don’t want them to tell me that they won’t use them when payment comes do.  

 

With flights I needed about $22,000 worth. Normally 10% isn't really a big deal but, for these cruises, it was wonderful! People have been told that one can't use the cards for EZair flights but my flights were included in the total fare on the bookings and Princess had absolutely no problem taking the cards in payment of  what was owed.

 

Now I need to buy a few more for our Total Eclipse cruise next April. I have plenty of time so I think I'll give my credit card (and bank balance) a break for a while.

[Rick&Jeannie]

FYI...there's a bit of controversy over on the Celebrity board over the use of GCs.  We have a future booking on Celebrity, so I was following the topic.  Apparently, Celebrity has policies that if you use GCs and *you* cancel your cruise...there is NO REFUND back to the cards.  More than one person has called and supposedly been given the same info.  So...I guess we should count our blessings here on the Princess side!