My AMEX card had a new offer, spend $500 on Celebrity and get $100 back…

[jenf22]

6 minutes ago, ORV said:

That makes no sense at all. These offers are generated by the merchant, why would Celebrity put a stumbling block in the way of using the Amex if they're trying to entice people to use it? 

It was because it was a group booking through the TA.  The TA is a big box company who doesn't accept AMEX.  Stupid, yes, but that's their rule.  I ended up buying OBC on the Celebrity website.  Should trigger the deal.  I'll post back here when it does.

[ORV]

2 minutes ago, jenf22 said:

It was because it was a group booking through the TA.  The TA is a big box company who doesn't accept AMEX.  Stupid, yes, but that's their rule.  I ended up buying OBC on the Celebrity website.  Should trigger the deal.  I'll post back here when it does.

That makes sense. Be watching for the email that says you triggered the offer. Having said that I did one the other day for HBO Max that I never received the email for but did get the credit on my statement. 

[Stockjock]

I'm getting slightly off-topic and slightly not, but I had a nice Amex offer for a different cruise line, which I think was $200 back for an $800 spend, so I booked that.  Got the same offer again, so I added another $800 to the booking and got another $200 back.  Got the same offer a 3rd time, and you guessed it, I threw on another $800 and got $200 back again.

[depplep]

I have Oceania on my Platinum offers but not Celebrity. Same thing happened to me last year. Others reported getting NCL and I got RCCL. I contacted Amex and asked about this and they pretty much said we give you offeres based on past purchases that we think you will like. I guess they didn't think I would like Celebrity. 😒

[MisterBill99]

5 hours ago, markeb said:

 

Check the T&C on the offer. Usually if there’s a return (OBC refund) they subtract it from your spend. It’s a net spend. You might not make the $500 if the refunded OBC you bought. 

 

They're not going to catch the refund because it's going to post as an on board account transaction, which the offer isn't even valid on. Plus you could get the excess OBC as cash if you wanted. Or just register a different card for your on board spending. While I don't like using a debit card normally, I do it when I am expecting a refund of excess OBC. IF you use a credit card and it gives you rewards for purchases, you'll get negative rewards for the refund portion.

[MisterBill99]

5 hours ago, RichYak said:

 

DO NOT let any unused OBC refund to your Amex. They will almost certainly claw back the credit. Either cash out unused OBC on the last day of the cruise, OR purchase the OBC with your Amex, but use a different credit card for onboard expenses. Any unused OBC will be refunded to that card instead of your Amex.

 

Actually, since the charge will appear different than the purchase (given that it's not valid for on board purchases), it's unlikely that they will. But as I posted, it makes no sense to take the refund on a card that will charge back a percentage of your refund. Either get cash or use a debit card.

[Stockjock]

2 hours ago, jenf22 said:

It was because it was a group booking through the TA.  The TA is a big box company who doesn't accept AMEX.  Stupid, yes, but that's their rule.  I ended up buying OBC on the Celebrity website.  Should trigger the deal.  I'll post back here when it does.

How much OBC could you buy online?  As mentioned, for me there was a limit of 9 $25 OBC certificates, which is only $225, aka not enough to trigger the offer.

[MisterBill99]

6 hours ago, Mrs_Tiki said:

Darn, I don't see on mine either. And I have a final payment coming up. Bummer.

 

They only show 100 available offers. If you have more than that, you need to load offers before they show you more. I have a script (not mine) bookmarked to load all offers with the following:

 

javascript:btns=[...document.querySelectorAll('.offer-cta')].filter(b => b.textContent === 'Add to Card');c=()=>{ b = btns.pop(); if (!b) return console.log('added all!'); b.click(); setTimeout(c, Math.random() * 1500 + 300) };c();

 

Or just load a bunch manually, reload the page and see if it shows up. Also, what card do you have? It may not be available on co-branded cards from other travel companies (like Delta).

 

I had it on my wife's card and mine, but I do not see it on my kid's authorized user cards. I am not sure if it was only available on the primary card because I didn't think to look before loading it on our cards last night. It's also possible that it's no longer available, but that is unlikely so soon after it showed up.

 

I actually just made final payment on a cruise last week, and it was actually sooner than Celebrity's final payment date because my TA sets it a couple of weeks earlier (I could have asked to have it extended, but never expected the offer to show up now). Fortunately, it appears that I can just purchase refundable OBC and take advantage of our offers that way.

 

Here's the link to purchase OBC, BTW. It's basically their site to purchase gifts for others who are cruising. It won't be available to use before you board, but if you wanted to spend it now, you could just purchase what you want in the Cruise Planner.

 

Celebrity Cruises

[MisterBill99]

6 hours ago, Stockjock said:

I’m not sure if it’s only on the platinum or on other versions of the AMEX card.  

 

Not specific to Platinum. I had it on my free Blue Cash card, my wife had it on her Blue Cash Preferred.

[MisterBill99]

5 hours ago, Stockjock said:

FWIW, I followed the link in the discussion that I mentioned earlier.  The maximum number of OBC certificates I could add to the cart was 9 $25 certificates ($225), which isn't enough.  Not sure if one could call Celebrity to do it or not.  As I mentioned, the Celebrity agent I spoke with said it couldn't be done, but that may have been bad info.  Not sure about that one.

 

The offer says "Get a one-time $100 statement credit by using your enrolled eligible Card to spend a minimum of $500 in one or more purchases" so buying more in another transaction should trigger the offer once you hit $500.

[jenf22]

13 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

How much OBC could you buy online?  As mentioned, for me there was a limit of 9 $25 OBC certificates, which is only $225, aka not enough to trigger the offer.

I did $225, then $175, then $100 to get to $500 total.  The offer says you can do multiple orders.  It hasn't shown up on my AMEX card yet.  I read somewhere OBC bought this way could take a couple of days to post.  I'll let you know when it shows up.

[Stockjock]

6 minutes ago, jenf22 said:

I did $225, then $175, then $100 to get to $500 total.  The offer says you can do multiple orders.  It hasn't shown up on my AMEX card yet.  I read somewhere OBC bought this way could take a couple of days to post.  I'll let you know when it shows up.

Hopefully this bit of fine print won't be an issue.  Guessing it won't be, but hard to say for certain.  I'm assuming buying OBC certificates isn't the same as buying gift cards.

Excludes international transactions, all onboard transactions, corporate sales and corporate sales gift cards, physical gift cards purchased online, e-gift cards, art auctions and affiliate brands: Royal Caribbean and Silverseas.

[Sea Dayze]

6 hours ago, chadwickx16 said:

FYI...Amex Offers can only list 100 at a time.  If you don't see the offer you have to add other offers to your card and then logout and log back in for a new batch of offers. I had to add 90 other offers to my card before I was able to see the Celebrity one.

Thank you!  Just added 241 offers to my card before it showed up.  Great way to "earn" a little $$ while watching TV!  We'll use the card to make a pmt on our upcoming cruise.

[MisterBill99]

1 hour ago, jenf22 said:

I did $225, then $175, then $100 to get to $500 total.  The offer says you can do multiple orders.  It hasn't shown up on my AMEX card yet.  I read somewhere OBC bought this way could take a couple of days to post.  I'll let you know when it shows up.

 

You won't get the Amex credit until a couple of days (or more) after your charges post. If you just made the purchases, you certainly won't see it yet. Check the offers section, it will disappear from the list of offers added to your card first, then it will show up under earned, then you'll see the money in your account. You may receive an email from Amex saying that you redeemed your offer. It sometimes shows up immediately but can appear hours later, or never. 

[MisterBill99]

1 hour ago, Stockjock said:

Hopefully this bit of fine print won't be an issue.  Guessing it won't be, but hard to say for certain.  I'm assuming buying OBC certificates isn't the same as buying gift cards.

Excludes international transactions, all onboard transactions, corporate sales and corporate sales gift cards, physical gift cards purchased online, e-gift cards, art auctions and affiliate brands: Royal Caribbean and Silverseas.

 

Reading fine print on Amex offers is rarely a good idea, especially when you misinterpret it. Gift cards are not included because they're often sold by a third-party company (but if the charge posts from the store with the offer, you'll still get credited for the offer). And you're not buying a gift card, nor are you buying a certificate.

Edited June 18 by MisterBill99

[NutsAboutGolf]

There are some browser extensions out there that add the offers automatically but they're not free, some are against browser extensions, you have to enter your credit card usernames/passwords and they're not compatible with some VPNs.  Disclaimer, I bought a lifetime membership with cardpointer and never looked back and also I may not be current with other competitors 

 

 

 

Yet the cool thing is, when you login to a site like Celebrity, if there's an offer, the offer will popup notifying you.  It also monitors all credit cards points/miles/cashback and will tell you which card will give you the most value

 

[Stockjock]

4 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

There are some browser extensions out there that add the offers automatically but they're not free, some are against browser extensions, you have to enter your credit card usernames/passwords and they're not compatible with some VPNs.  Disclaimer, I bought a lifetime membership with cardpointer and never looked back and also I may not be current with other competitors 

 

 

 

Yet the cool thing is, when you login to a site like Celebrity, if there's an offer, the offer will popup notifying you.  It also monitors all credit cards points/miles/cashback and will tell you which card will give you the most value

 

FWIW, Rakuten was at 6% a few days ago.  So you cold stack whatever discount they're offering (currently 2%) with the Amex deal.

Edited June 19 by Stockjock

[kasowell2]

Finally found it on my Blue Cash card after adding over 300 offers. The "funny" thing is i went back on our upcoming cruise to see if I could cancel some pre-paid excursions and then use this offer to make them cheaper. The funny thing is once excursion I booked was on sale at 15% off but when I checked the new cost at only 5% off the final amounts were the same. 

Edited June 19 by kasowell2

[Stockjock]

4 minutes ago, kasowell2 said:

Finally found it on my Blue Cash card after adding over 300 offers. The "funny" thing is i went back on our upcoming cruise to see if I could cancel some pre-paid excursions and then use this offer to make them cheaper. The funny thing is once excursion I booked was on sale at 15% off but when I checked the new cost at only 5% off the final amounts were the same. 

I’m not sure if this is what is going on with you or not, but I was thinking about booking a specialty restaurant that showed to be 8% to 10% off. And when I clicked through it, it populated it only 5% off. I refreshed the page a few times and same situation.  So you have to take a close look to make sure you are actually getting the discount that they promised. It sounds like Celebrity has some kind of a bug that’s not giving the correct discount, in some cases. 

[MisterBill99]

28 minutes ago, kasowell2 said:

Finally found it on my Blue Cash card after adding over 300 offers. The "funny" thing is i went back on our upcoming cruise to see if I could cancel some pre-paid excursions and then use this offer to make them cheaper. The funny thing is once excursion I booked was on sale at 15% off but when I checked the new cost at only 5% off the final amounts were the same. 

 

I'd just wait a few days and hopefully someone will report that buying the OBC through the gift site works, and do that. Or wait until they hopefully have a July 4th sale on excursions and other stuff and use it then.

[wrk2cruise]

Thanks for posting the script.   I had given up adding them one by one.  The very last batch had it on one of my cards.

 

I have done this twice before each time buying OBC which triggered the offer no problem.

[Kmangel]

So far I have not found any offers on my American Express card yet, though my husband is sifting through all the offers now with our fingers crossed!  In any case, our upcoming cruise is paid in full.  Would any OBC we might purchase (should we find an offer) be returned to us after the cruise if it is unused?  Like TA OBC is refundable.  Or will we lose it?  Use it or lose it? 

[wrk2cruise]

OBC which is purchased is refundable like what you get from the TA.  The trick is either go to guest relations the last night of the sailing and get any remainder in cash OR use a different card (not Amex) when setting up your seapass account.    If the remaining OBC is credited to your Amex then they might claw back the statement credit.

[wrk2cruise]

Called and bought $500 OBC for my sailing next week.

 

[kasowell2]

2 hours ago, Stockjock said:

I’m not sure if this is what is going on with you or not, but I was thinking about booking a specialty restaurant that showed to be 8% to 10% off. And when I clicked through it, it populated it only 5% off. I refreshed the page a few times and same situation.  So you have to take a close look to make sure you are actually getting the discount that they promised. It sounds like Celebrity has some kind of a bug that’s not giving the correct discount, in some cases. 

What I found was the costs were the same no matter what they said was the discount. The only difference is the original costs fluctuate to end up with the same net amount.