Does Carnival Have a Loyalty Program Anymore?

[Elaine5715]

50 minutes ago, cantw82cruise said:

My wife and I are both Diamond and we both get an invitation to the Diamond party. Sometimes it states you and a guest are invited and sometimes it doesn't. If it does and we are cruising with friends we will ask them to come along. That may be why you see some people there that are not Diamond. It also varies from cruise to cruise if they have a lunch or a gathering. I'm not sure if this is based on the quantity of eligible people or the schedule of the captain and staff. We do not attend the P/D (past sailings) parties because there are too many people in there. 

The invites when they include "a guest" does not mean 10 guests  If as you stated you brought 2 guests that was within the invitation but if you brought more, not.   At the Diamond events that require an RSVP, I have yet to see more than one "plus one".  At the D/P, seeing full tables of a dozen B/R/G cards are not "a guest". 

[Elaine5715]

19 minutes ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

So...other than the free drinks (which for anyone with Cheers is a moot point), what is the "value" in attending the Platinum and/or Diamond parties?  Rubbing shoulders with all your fellow P&Ders?  Does the Captain come out and mingle, or just give a 3 minute spiel (in garbled Italian-English) and disappear?

 

Sorry to veer off-topic-ish, but just curious.  We won't be Platinum for a while, based on current vacation plans (i.e. not cruising), so I'm sure the VIFP program will alter before we hit it, and we'll be stuck in Gold Limbo land for yonks.

Depending on the ship, the P/D can be a free full bar with unlimited drinks that do not count against your 15.  Some have better food than others.  Some have ice tubs full of unopened beers and people are free to walk out with what they can carry.  The Officers flash by on stage.

[Lee Cruiser]

28 minutes ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

For the most part, we skip those parties now. It's, basically, a waste of good cruise ship time !!

 

Tom

Same.  We went a couple of times and it was certainly a waste of time for us. We don't drink, so we actually like getting the free drink added to our accounts so we can get milkshakes or other non-alcoholic drinks with it.  Plus, it's usually held around 5 pm, which is usually when we are getting ready to go to dinner.  We always choose YTD and go as soon as the dining room opens at 5:30.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

7 minutes ago, Lee Cruiser said:

Same.  We went a couple of times and it was certainly a waste of time for us. We don't drink, so we actually like getting the free drink added to our accounts so we can get milkshakes or other non-alcoholic drinks with it.  Plus, it's usually held around 5 pm, which is usually when we are getting ready to go to dinner.  We always choose YTD and go as soon as the dining room opens at 5:30.

 

Since it was a new ship (to us) we went to the one on the Celebration last month. The hors d'oeuvres they were bringing around were quite impressive (variety and quality). Though we had 5:30 reservations (steakhouse or Rudi's), so it was more just temptation!

 

Tom

[Purvis1231]

6 hours ago, staceyglow said:

It's more than "a few hundred". 

But it is not a few thousand. If a ship has 3000 passengers, it would be 750. 

[canes20]

10 minutes ago, Purvis1231 said:

But it is not a few thousand. If a ship has 3000 passengers, it would be 750. 

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

47 minutes ago, canes20 said:

 

Funny guy - favorite line from him:

 

Oh, this your wife, huh? A lovely lady. Hey baby, you must've been something before electricity.

[gkbiiii]

Black Diamond on MSC, gets you a Comped dinner for 2, every cruise.  Royal Diamond/Diamond+/Pinnacle  gets 4/5/6 drinks daily.  Celebrity, Elite gets you 3 hours daily Comped drinks, plus daily Coffee House Breakfast, with drinks too!

[gkbiiii]

Holland does have an "Invitation Only, Presidents Club," which requires 4 years of sailing.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

4 minutes ago, gkbiiii said:

Holland does have an "Invitation Only, Presidents Club," which requires 4 years of sailing.

 

LOL - I'm probably more likely to get an invite for MGM Noir (and I have not been to an MGM property in several years)!

 

Tom

[Squirreladd]

Diamond and Platinum statistically spend less money, however they are the most likely to tell a friend and thus encourage a new customer. Customer retention is just as important as getting new customers in that your loyal customers tend to tell a friend.

 

I think Carnival would benefit by allowing it's loyalty to cross their brands. This could allow their customers to change lines as their taste mature. Not a full 1 for 1 but something close to it like 2 nights equals 1 rounding down.

 

Additionally, after looking at the way FTTF is sold* it seems that Carnival has a calculated allotment of "priority" space on a ship. It looks like after Diamond and platinums are booked and calculated, the remainder is sold off as FTTF. As a share holder this seems a rather smart way to gain more money. 

 

Remember, FTTF boards after Diamond and platinums, and most ports do not have tender this point, many cruises don't have a tender port, so thats moot, and the only other perk they can infringe on is customer service line. 

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Squirreladd

[jimbo5544]

On 6/27/2023 at 8:54 PM, Elaine5715 said:

It is most certainly the unqualified also in attendance invited by the invited or just in the know.  I as a solo can't find a place to sit because there are huge groups with dangling blue/red/gold cards with a token or two Tin or white cards

Yeah...token white cards....OH wait and a handful of silver cards....it's all those darned blue and reg cards that sneak in with the invites from the token white card holders... I deal with facts, I see how many plats and and how many Diamonds are on the ship... every single cruise. those are real facts....🤔

[jimbo5544]

2 hours ago, Squirreladd said:

Diamond and Platinum statistically spend less money, however they are the most likely to tell a friend and thus encourage a new customer. Customer retention is just as important as getting new customers in that your loyal customers tend to tell a friend.

 

I think Carnival would benefit by allowing it's loyalty to cross their brands. This could allow their customers to change lines as their taste mature. Not a full 1 for 1 but something close to it like 2 nights equals 1 rounding down.

 

Additionally, after looking at the way FTTF is sold* it seems that Carnival has a calculated allotment of "priority" space on a ship. It looks like after Diamond and platinums are booked and calculated, the remainder is sold off as FTTF. As a share holder this seems a rather smart way to gain more money. 

 

Remember, FTTF boards after Diamond and platinums, and most ports do not have tender this point, many cruises don't have a tender port, so thats moot, and the only other perk they can infringe on is customer service line. 

 

They have looked at this whole nightmare before.  They hired a loyalty expert away from a hotel chain, think his name was Hanna (father was the cartoon mogul portion of Hanna Barbera), who was going to revolutionize the loyalty program, spent a couple of years working on it and it never took root.  At a Carnival function I attended, he described what they were going to do.  Lots of excitement.  As I recall, it most had to do with trying to find the best platform (days vs cruise vs cost vs class of cabin etc) and finding a common base across all lines.  Throw in the amount of people you tick off by making the change that would feel cheated, the upside in terms of value and there simply was no common ground.  Couple years later he moved on, cannot remember where to, really did not matter.

[jimbo5544]

4 hours ago, gkbiiii said:

Black Diamond on MSC, gets you a Comped dinner for 2, every cruise.  Royal Diamond/Diamond+/Pinnacle  gets 4/5/6 drinks daily.  Celebrity, Elite gets you 3 hours daily Comped drinks, plus daily Coffee House Breakfast, with drinks too!

...and I remember MSC was going to comp cruisers level from other cruise lines to MSC (as long as you kept sailing in them).  The real question is how many are there.  Let's take an example(I will take some poetic license with the numbers to make my point, but the essence is valid).  I was on the Celebration, largest sailing of the ships history up to the that point Think is was 5400).  When I went down to claim my Diamond comp at the Casino I asked and was told (later confirmed at the Diamond Luncheon) that their were 540 diamonds and 2100 plats on that sailing, lets further say only the Diamonds (take note that the two items I mentioned are PERKS) get a dinner for 2 at one of the premium restaurants (for discussion sake, let's say they go to Rudy's Sea Grill.  That is: let me do the math, 48X2 equals 96 X 540 equals 51,840.  If we say that Plats also get it but they are more lowly so under my made up scenario they only get Chi Bang or Cucina (I know they are free but lets just say they cost the 18.  That's 18X2 equals 36 X 2100 equals 75,600. Take the Diamond kicker of 51,840 and add the plat kicker of 75,600 and that totals 127,440. Of course I know that is not their true cost but the point is still valid.  There are simply way too many (despite the blue and reds card sneaking in theory proposed earlier.

 

The only possible solution (for a perk anyway near this value is to simply raise the bar significantly or it just does not hold water.  Hence the free drink during that time slot we now have.  

[jimbo5544]

4 hours ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

LOL - I'm probably more likely to get an invite for MGM Noir (and I have not been to an MGM property in several years)!

 

Tom

That's because they are still looking for the towels you "borrowed" from the pool.

[Elaine5715]

1 hour ago, jimbo5544 said:

Yeah...token white cards....OH wait and a handful of silver cards....it's all those darned blue and reg cards that sneak in with the invites from the token white card holders... I deal with facts, I see how many plats and and how many Diamonds are on the ship... every single cruise. those are real facts....🤔

I also deal in facts and my own eyes.  Also there are numerous thread here and every single social media site (including this thread) of people bringing multiple friends to the party,  PreCooties, the invites  did not include "and a guest" but people brought along everyone in their traveling party.  

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

10 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

They have looked at this whole nightmare before.  They hired a loyalty expert away from a hotel chain, think his name was Hanna (father was the cartoon mogul portion of Hanna Barbera), who was going to revolutionize the loyalty program, spent a couple of years working on it and it never took root.  At a Carnival function I attended, he described what they were going to do.  Lots of excitement.  As I recall, it most had to do with trying to find the best platform (days vs cruise vs cost vs class of cabin etc) and finding a common base across all lines.  Throw in the amount of people you tick off by making the change that would feel cheated, the upside in terms of value and there simply was no common ground.  Couple years later he moved on, cannot remember where to, really did not matter.

 

Was THIS the fellow?

 

BTW - he left Royal Caribbean a couple of years ago too...

 

Tom

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

10 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

That's because they are still looking for the towels you "borrowed" from the pool.

 

How did you know that ? !

[gkbiiii]

16 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

...and I remember MSC was going to comp cruisers level from other cruise lines to MSC (as long as you kept sailing in them).  The real question is how many are there.  Let's take an example(I will take some poetic license with the numbers to make my point, but the essence is valid).  I was on the Celebration, largest sailing of the ships history up to the that point Think is was 5400).  When I went down to claim my Diamond comp at the Casino I asked and was told (later confirmed at the Diamond Luncheon) that their were 540 diamonds and 2100 plats on that sailing, lets further say only the Diamonds (take note that the two items I mentioned are PERKS) get a dinner for 2 at one of the premium restaurants (for discussion sake, let's say they go to Rudy's Sea Grill.  That is: let me do the math, 48X2 equals 96 X 540 equals 51,840.  If we say that Plats also get it but they are more lowly so under my made up scenario they only get Chi Bang or Cucina (I know they are free but lets just say they cost the 18.  That's 18X2 equals 36 X 2100 equals 75,600. Take the Diamond kicker of 51,840 and add the plat kicker of 75,600 and that totals 127,440. Of course I know that is not their true cost but the point is still valid.  There are simply way too many (despite the blue and reds card sneaking in theory proposed earlier.

 

The only possible solution (for a perk anyway near this value is to simply raise the bar significantly or it just does not hold water.  Hence the free drink during that time slot we now have.  

Of the eight Transatlantics I've done, often there are over 200 Pinnacles, 600 Diamond Plus, and around 1,000 Diamond.  When I started with Royal, they had 60+ Pinnacles for these voyages.  My last Christmas cruise with Celebrity, they had only one top level cruiser aboard.  It really depends on the line.

 

I wish there was some shared status between Carnival Lines! 

[jimbo5544]

20 hours ago, gkbiiii said:

Of the eight Transatlantics I've done, often there are over 200 Pinnacles, 600 Diamond Plus, and around 1,000 Diamond.  When I started with Royal, they had 60+ Pinnacles for these voyages.  My last Christmas cruise with Celebrity, they had only one top level cruiser aboard.  It really depends on the line.

 

I wish there was some shared status between Carnival Lines! 

Let  me know when that happens

 

[chill6x6]

On 6/26/2023 at 3:16 PM, hard_eight said:

I still think Suite stays should earn more than interior like on RC...makes more sense to me.

I agree!

I can only say with me, it has cost them.  I'm sure there are others that think like me.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

6 minutes ago, chill6x6 said:

I agree!

I can only say with me, it has cost them.  I'm sure there are others that think like me.

I see you've been on the Rotterdam - we're giving them (HAL) a try next year (12-nt). They had the Pinnacle suite available, so we grabbed it - in celebration of our 40th anniversary. Should be fun !!

 

Tom

[chill6x6]

24 minutes ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

I see you've been on the Rotterdam - we're giving them (HAL) a try next year (12-nt). They had the Pinnacle suite available, so we grabbed it - in celebration of our 40th anniversary. Should be fun !!

 

Tom

GREAT!

Yeah it was one of my favorite cruises.  Suite overall...furnishings etc...super.  You'll also get to be #1 and #2 escorted aboard the ship. We had the best view in the dining room. You'll get a tour of the ship.  You'll have a "butlers pantry" that has a toaster, microwave, sink, larger refrigerator. Everything in the butlers pantry fridge was included...cokes/beers/water, etc. Also..whatever is on the MDR menu can be delivered to your suite during dining room operating times at no extra charge. Room service of course no extra charge.  Dining room service- the best. Cabin service- about average.  Overall a really nice cruise!

BTW Holland America- double points for suites AND you get points for items bought through or on the ship.  Drink packages, excursions, speciality dining, etc. And generously so!

Edited June 30, 2023 by chill6x6

[topaz123]

On 6/26/2023 at 2:09 PM, BigJoe70 said:

I would imagine that they change the number of days on board to 100 for platinum and add a tier between platinum and Diamond. I don't think the perks will be any better.

Getting to Platinum seems pretty easy and quick.....but Platinum locks you in for ages...till Diamond...just way, way too many platinum.

[stevethepirate]

13 minutes ago, topaz123 said:

Getting to Platinum seems pretty easy and quick.....but Platinum locks you in for ages...till Diamond...just way, way too many platinum.

I've been saying that for a long time. What happens when all those gold cards are Platinum? To me all of the cards are by color. Silver is the new gold.