Carnival gift cards from AARP

[rideev]

Although it is a good deal to buy gift cards from AARP for your cruise ($500 for $450), be advised that they can only be used on cruises originating out of the US.

[tree.critter]

Not true, I’ve been using them for years now and have never cruised from any home port out of the US. Just added another $1500 worth of cards to upcoming Hawaii trip out of Long Beach.

 

[Elaine5715]

43 minutes ago, tree.critter said:

Not true, I’ve been using them for years now and have never cruised from any home port out of the US. Just added another $1500 worth of cards to upcoming Hawaii trip out of Long Beach.

 

Long Beach is a US port and Hawaii is US 

AARP gift cards can not be used on Australian cruises 

[PayneAS]

46 minutes ago, tree.critter said:

Not true, I’ve been using them for years now and have never cruised from any home port out of the US. Just added another $1500 worth of cards to upcoming Hawaii trip out of Long Beach.

 

That made me LOL for real. If Long Beach isn't in the US, where is it? 

 

3 minutes ago, Elaine5715 said:

Long Beach is a US port and Hawaii is US 

AARP gift cards can not be used on Australian cruises 

(I'm assuming) that includes European ones too? 

[tree.critter]

53 minutes ago, PayneAS said:

That made me LOL for real. If Long Beach isn't in the US, where is it? 

 

(I'm assuming) that includes European ones too? 

 Oh jeez, that was a royal misread on my part of the OP’s post, sorry! I bet there are Long Beach cities outside of the US but I’ve surely never been to one.  I was wondering why he was having problems using them for his US cruises.

 

On another note though, when I last used my AARP cards I had to add my address when submitting. Don’t know if it was because of amount or if another reason. 

[jb58]

I have used the gift cards from AARP to pay for our TA out of Barcelona

[ngrund]

As far as I know, the only time you can't use gift cards is when the ship/sailing is not priced in $US

[KaiBlue]

We used some on our recent cruise out of Dover, UK with no issues. 

[pcvtmom]

I've used them for European cruises...

 

[sasandy]

I have been using them for a 2024 cruise out of Italy. There has not been a problem.

[fuddrules]

On 12/10/2023 at 9:00 AM, KaiBlue said:

We used some on our recent cruise out of Dover, UK with no issues. 

Same with us.  Must be that if you book the cruise on the US based website and the cruise is booked in dollars, they work.  I've never had a problem in the past.

[sasandy]

I just cancelled an excursion that I had used a giftcard to purchase. From AARP. I expected the refund giftcard to arrive in the mail, but I got an email with an egift card that I could use immediately. It was easy.

[cruiselover**]

I am an AARP member and I didn't know I could buy discounted Carnival gift cards.  I looked online at the AARP website but couldn't find anything about them.  Can someone please let me know how I can get the gift cards?  I would love to save some money!  Thanks in advance for any information you can give me.

[n6uqqq]

57 minutes ago, cruiselover** said:

I am an AARP member and I didn't know I could buy discounted Carnival gift cards.  I looked online at the AARP website but couldn't find anything about them.  Can someone please let me know how I can get the gift cards?  I would love to save some money!  Thanks in advance for any information you can give me.

Go to AARP website log in and look under the rewards section. Browse rewards under " members only " and there will  be a 100 dollar card and scroll down a bit there is also a 500 card and they are 10 percent off. 

[n6uqqq]

2 hours ago, sasandy said:

I just cancelled an excursion that I had used a giftcard to purchase. From AARP. I expected the refund giftcard to arrive in the mail, but I got an email with an egift card that I could use immediately. It was easy.

Carnival finally got wise and decided to save the 2nd day air Fedex charges for refunding gift cards. In years gone by if I cancelled a cruise (or Carnival did) they would send me several 2nd day air Fed ex envelopes for my gift card refund. I had 4 separate packages on my porch the same day. As you can imagine that was a highly inefficient way and expensive to send back the refund.