Calnev1

I have the same list as you. HEP2322CS_USD. We are looking closely at booking the very last one (Boston to Quebec City).

And I just now received another HAL free cabin casino offer with $150 free play and DOU. The offer includes 85 different HAL cruises through the summer and into the fall. No evidence here that these offers are drying up. Happy day!

Oceans Players Club is owned by Carnival Corporation. The two are not functionally separate entities. The idea that Oceans Players Club "doesn't market to cruisers" and doesn't coordinate with the various cruise lines under the Carnival umbrella doesn't make sense either. In my situation, I think it is more than coincidence that I stopped booking full fare (like "early saver") rates post-COVID -- and now continue to get casino offers on Carnival, Holland America, and Princess. But clearly you and I are on entirely separate wavelengths, so I am done with this thread.

Let me clarify then. I think people who have booked future cruises at full rate or close to full rate are less likely to get good casino deals. That is, Carnival knows these people will sail them regardless, so why should they offer them particularly good deals. Of course, I could be wrong. But it seems to make business sense to me.

Are your "2-3" currently booked cruises booked on casino deals? Or at they booked at full price?

Interesting. I am pretty sure that schedule is wrong. For one thing, it shows the Ruby Princess and Crown Princess competing for pier space in SF in November and December of 2023. But the Ruby leaves SF in October for Fort Lauderdale, and is sailing out of Fort Lauderdale the entirety of November and December. In fact, I think the Crown Princess is the only cruise ship in SF on December 22. So the odds are it is sailing out of Pier 27.

Yes, I think this thread needs a bit of context. There are two cruise terminals in San Francisco. The old terminal is at Pier 35, and the new terminal is at Pier 27. The new terminal at Pier 27, which opened about nine years ago, is much nicer than the old terminal. SInce Pier 27 can only take one cruise ship at a time, when there are two cruise ships in San Francisco the second ship must use Pier 35. On any given day, there is usually only one cruise ship docked in San Francisco, so most ships that come to SF will be using Pier 27. But if you are unlucky, you may find your ship at Pier 35.

I think you are on to something. If the cruise line knows you will pay full price . . . why should they offer you a casino deal?? There are folks on the Carnival forum who complain that they are extremely loyal but are never offered any deals. Yeah, its best to show that you are NOT loyal and make them entice you to get on the ship!

I play table games (blackjack), and my wife plays slots (when she plays). We both track closely what we win/lose on a daily basis. My wife plays quite infrequently, and has never even come close to 1500 points on any given cruise. The most money she has lost on any of our ten previous cruises is about $150 for the entire cruise. Yet she still gets casino offers. Not free room offers, but offers with discounted room rates that include DOU and sometimes funplay or OBC. I get free oceanview offers, but I play a lot more than she does. BTW, you don't have to bet $25 a hand at BJ to get noticed. For the longest time, I played only the minimum bet ($6) and still got offers. Of course, I tipped the dealers. I think that actually helps you get noticed more. 🙂 My advice to the OP is to wait a few more days. I think you will start getting something in the way of casino offers.

And I am on the July 24 cruise SF to Alaska. Was also able to book it just now under the home port (SF).

And meanwhile AARP continues to offer discounted egift cards for Carnival, Princess, Holland America, RCL, Celebrity, and many other companies. AARP recently added American Airlines gift cards. The discount on these AA GCs is only 5%, but still a nice addition to AARP's inventory of discounted cards.

An excellent question -- and one that leaves me wondering whether an Allstate/AARP gift card purchase would actually fall in to a qualifying category triggering the 5% cash back. Citi says the following about its 5% cash back categories: "Each billing cycle we will determine your highest spend for purchases posted to your account in the following categories: Restaurants, Gas Stations, Grocery Stores, Select Travel, Select Transit, Select Streaming Services, Drugstores, Home Improvement Stores, Fitness Clubs and Live Entertainment." When I look at the definitions of some of these categories, I don't see a clear fit for the Allstate/AARP GC purchases. And if your spending doesn't fit in one of these categories, you will only get 1% cash back not 5%. In the past we have used our Citi Custom Cash Cards to buy Gift of College Gift Cards at our local supermarket. Those have triggered the 5% cash back as grocery store purchases (remember, you don't choose your 5% category, it is auto triggered by the eligible category you spend the most in). But maybe the 5% doesn't work for purchases directly from Allstate or AARP. And we haven't tried it. Sorry if I might have mislead on that. On a related note, every few months Lowe's home improvement stores put Mastercard and Visa gift cards on sale. Unlike the Staples and Office Depot sales of MC/Visa GCs I mentioned in a previous post, the Lowe's sale does not involve a waiver of the gift card purchase fee. Instead, Lowe's will give you a $15 Lowe's gift card for every $200 MC or Visa gift card you buy. In a sense, this is even better sale than what is offered by the office supply stores because the MC/Visa purchase fee is only $7 which is more than offset by the $15 Lowe's gift card. And clearly Lowe's purchases fall into a qualifying category for the 5% Citi Custom Cash Card. And Lowe's purchases also fall in this quarter's 5% cash back category for the Chase Freedom cards if you have those cards. Unfortunately, the most recent Lowe's GC sale ended last week and its not clear when the next one will be. In case you are wondering how you find these sales, a blogger like Doctor of Credit will post these sales as they occur, and you can make a note to check that website every week or two to see what is up. That is what we do. Apologies for the long post and for the way it careens around to the point of (almost) being off topic.

Oh, I forgot one other very good option for firing up your cashback on Allstate/AARP gift card purchases. Each month the no annual fee Citi Custom Cash Mastercard gives you 5% cash back on whatever category of spend you do the most on, up to a max of $500 spend per month. So one way you could use this card is keep it in your sock drawer, then on the first of every month go into the drawer and pull it out and buy a $500 Carnival GC on AARP or Allstate to get 5% back on your $450 purchase. Then put the Citi card back into your sock drawer until the next month, when you buy another $500 Carnival GC. Rinse and repeat every month. The reason that I forgot about this is that my wife and I use our two Citi Custom Cash Cards in a different way -- to get cash back on funding our 529 college plans for our grandchildren.

Yup, I also use my BofA cash rewards set in online purchase mode to get the extra 3% cash back on my Carnival GC purchases. You can get an even higher percentage cashback on the BofA card if you have certain deposit accounts at BofA. Both Staples and Office Depot occasionally put Visa and Mastercard gift cards on sale, meaning that they waive the purchase fee. When that opportunity presents itself, I buy a bunch of these no-fee Visa/Mastercard gift cards at Staples or Office Depot using my Chase Ink Business Plus card, which earns five Ultimate Rewards per dollar spent at office supply stores including on the Visa/MC GC purchases. I then use those Visa/MC GCs to buy the discounted Carnival cards on AARP (.... the Visa/MC GCs work on AARP, but not on Allstate). I am not sure, though, that Chase still offers the Business Plus card to new applicants. As for other Chase cards, the Chase Freedom Unlimited card earns 1.5 Ultimate Rewards points for every dollar spent, so I suppose you could buy Carnival gift cards with that no annual fee card.

Often these offers are only available on AMEX cards that offer Membership Rewards points -- as opposed to co-branded cards like the AMEX Delta cards that provide rewards in the form of Delta Skypesos. Oops, I mean Skymiles.

Just got a new offer on my AMEX Everyday Card. Spend $1,000 at ncl.com and get $250 back.

I was on the Volendam a couple of months ago. There was a man playing blackjack for a couple of hours every sea day. He was betting $200 to $400 each and every hand. His wife joined him for part of the time. She was betting $100 on each hand. I am absolutely sure he and his wife will get nice casino offers going forward from HAL regardless of whether HAL is at or near ship capacity. As for the rest of us who play in the casino, who knows what the offer cut-off will be.

I am sure that if there are empty seats at the HAL casino tables and slots, the casino offers will keep coming even if the ships are otherwise sailing close to capacity. The number of those receiving offers may decline, but the offers will still come for those who gamble above certain levels. HAL would be very happy to replace a nongambling customer who pays the average cruise fare with a casino "whale."

Since you own a business, you might consider getting the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Credit Card if you don't already have it. There is a way to leverage the Wyndham status you get from that card into Caesar's status, and then to leverage Caesar's status into free Carnival cruises. You can read about this on some travel blog websites, including the Frequent Miler. The Wyndham points earned through the card bonus and card spending are also currently pretty valuable for booking vacation rentals through Vacasa.com (also discussed by the bloggers). Disclaimer: I have not myself tried to do the status leverage trick. But I have used Wyndham points to book vacation rentals through Vacasa, and I can confirm that those rental deals are superb.

In my Citi premier thankyou account, I see that I can currently redeem my thankyou points for Princess gift cards at one cent of gift card per point. (I assume that the Carnival cards have a similar redemption cost, but don't see them available right now). I can also redeem my citi thank you points for a statement credit (i.e., cash) at the same rate of one cent per point. I think it might be better to take the cash redemption and use it to buy the discounted Carnival gift cards from Allstate or AARP. Unless I am missing something, which I could be.

Free is very good! I have two citi credit cards, but can't figure out how you did this. Can you describe your method in more detail? Thanks.

Another excellent documentary on advantage BJ play (i.e, counting) is "Inside the Edge" available for rental on Amazon video. Documentary includes descriptions of various advantage strategies, starting with the basic Hi Lo system and branching out into ace tracking and hole carding. I was on the Volendam this past October. There was a $15 minimum table that paid 3:2 on Blackjack. My next cruise is on the Zaandam. Hoping that I will find a similar $15 minimum 3:2 but am not holding my breath.

I am having trouble even remembering the last time Allstate had Carnival egift cards in stock. As one who strongly prefers the ecards over the physical cards, I am happily using AARP for all my cruise egift card needs. AARP now has discounted ecards for Carnival, Princess, and Holland America, all cruise lines that I use depending on price and itinerary. It has gotten so that I ask myself "is it worth it to keep adding to my big stash of Allstate points??" But of course I do still use the Allstate codes posted here. I don't do it every week now, instead I do it maybe every third week.

That is weird that you got someone trying to sell you something. AARP Rewards has a direct number: (866) 451-6305. Not sure that number would be helpful for you, but last time we called that number we were talking to a live person within about a minute or so. And that alone surprised me.

Having sailed all three cruise lines (Carnival, Princess, and Holland America) since the COVID restart, I can confirm that Holland America gift cards are pretty much exactly like Princess and Carnival gift cards. That is, HA give cards have virtually no restrictions on how they can be used to pay for cruise fare or for onboard ship purchases. You can even use the "casino trick" cash-out with HA gift cards. It is interesting to me, though, how few people I run into on HA and Princess cruises know about the existence of discounted gift cards.