ab19902

That's a horrible way to learn a lesson, that's a lot of money. Can you book another cruise (or 7) with that money in the meantime?

I'm not sure there is a way around this, unfortunately. Someone else can say if they have a work-around. But this is directly from Carnival FAQ's on gift cards: "Carnival Gift cards cannot be redeemed on Carnival ships based in Australia."

This isn’t new. It’s just a “warning” but it won’t stop you from moving forward. You should still be able to submit payment and it work. Then you can use the balance somewhere else.

Silly question, but are you making sure the amount paid matches what you want after putting in the card info? I’m sure it’s just a glitch if you are.

Cruises are paid with gift cards that I get at AARP. I usually have 2-3 cruises booked at a time, so if the GC is too much for one cruise, it goes to the next one.

Interesting. Funnily enough, I don't use the gift cards when I cruise. Here since the shutdown, I usually have a decent amount of OBC (plus DH and I both own Carnival stock, so that gives us more). This last cruise in February was an 8 day with 4 days at sea. We forgot cash, so DH charged the room for about $250 in the casino (actually more, but he won it back, so we put it back in to our account). Ended up leaving with $200 charged to my Carnival card to get points towards paying off a charge.

You can add the gift cards when on the ship, even the digital ones. Then you can go into the casino and add to your players account by charging your room. Whatever is left in your players account can be cashed out at any time. But I would make sure to at least gamble a little bit. I’ve done this with OBC, so I don’t see why gift cards would be any different.

Oh, darn. I guess that means you just have to book another cruise.

This was many moons ago. Since then, they have updated their program, so you do have to be a member now.

I've had something similar happen before when I tried getting some using one of my credit cards. I don't remember if it was on AARP, but I want to say that it was (back before they changed how they do things and you had to be a member to purchase the Carnival cards). It would just never go through, but would be pending on my credit card. However, if I used another card, it would go through just fine. Not sure why I had that issue, and I never contacted them about it. Is there a way you can use another card to purchase the gift cards? I know sometimes you want to maximize and get points on your card, so I figured I would ask.

Nope. You just have to be a member of AARP. These are member only cards. Membership is open to anyone (I'm 34), and is $12 for the first year. It's easy to get your money back with this. Most other cards they offer can just be done with points and no membership.

That's crazy. But I'm weird. I would have done each gift card as a separate transaction. Like if it was 9 $100 gift cards, I'd put $100 as what I was paying, put down one gift card, then submit it. I don't know, I've always done it that way. Or maybe 9 is just too much at one time? Who knows.

That makes sense. Sorry, mom brain.

It's $12 for the first year, and $16 per year after that. Or $43/48 for 3 years. Or $63/80 for 5 years. Where did you get $25 per month?

With the new way I talked about, you still put the amount to apply first, then add the gift card. So you should still be able to just put part of the gift card on it. However, I'm not usually putting only a gift card on unless my balance is less than the amount on the card. But then it doesn't matter.