Princess Coffee Cards now have expiration dates

We just disembarked the Royal Princess today. Our coffee cards had an expiration date of December 2018 on them. We were told that our cruise was the first for the Royal that had the cards with expiration dates BUT they were also using up the old cards without expiration dates!!! So some had cards with expiration dates and others had cards without them. There were many complaints onboard. We were at the pursers desk when the person in front of us questioned the new practice. The person behind the desk actually called the corporate office back in California while we were standing in line and when she got off the phone she said that it is being implemented fleet wide and that cards would not be honored AFTER the expiration date. Old cards without the expiration dates will be honored for a time.....whatever that means.

Seems pretty petty to me to institute this change.

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Hmmm let’s hope this is reversed as you’re right it does seem petty.

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I don't like it. :mad:(n)

Sucks! Guess we will all be hoarding unsigned coffee cards!

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If they retain the policy it might be interesting to see f it impacts on the sale of cards

That’s awful!!!

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It will be interesting to see if all ships are doing this. We will be sailing in less than two weeks on a B2B. As we don't drink that much, we exchange one mini bar set up for coffee cards. We can't use up all the punches in that amount of time.

I'm rooting for a reversal of this practice.

If they retain the policy it might be interesting to see f it impacts on the sale of cards

Feb 25 will be our first cruise with Princess and I had planned on buying at least one for my wife and possibly a second one for myself. With an expiration date I no longer plan on purchasing any and therefore probably no coffee either. We both can live without special coffee for a week.

I'm going on the Emerald for 30 days, Feb.-March, planned on bringing my cards from Royal last Fall. They didn't put the ship and I only used 2 punches. I also was going to get 2 more, as I don't use the drink set up. I'm on the Royal in Oct. for 2 weeks, and I do like my specialty coffees! :) Planning on stockpiling them, not to sell though.

I'll have to see what is up when I get there, with all the ones you see on Ebay, somehow I'm not surprised, not at all. I don't get people selling them, I would never consider it.

If this is a trial I sure hope it fails. Being able to continue using punches I think has been a major selling point of the coffee cards. This new idea of an expiration date is a great incentive to increase sales of coffee cards, dontchya think? ;p

What will they think of next?

Feb 25 will be our first cruise with Princess and I had planned on buying at least one for my wife and possibly a second one for myself. With an expiration date I no longer plan on purchasing any and therefore probably no coffee either. We both can live without special coffee for a week.

I suspect many will do similar, or start with one between them and get a second if they need, compared to buying one each knowing they can use it next cruise.

That's just so "nickel & diming!" I have several cards (with no expiration dates) and will be quite upset if they refuse to honor them.

Just off the Crown on 1/7/18; exchanged our mini bar for 2 coffee cards. They showed up with the ship, voyage #, and date of cruise so though the punches would be good past this cruise completion, the brewed coffee benefit wouldn’t be used as I was already using a “blank” coffee card from previous exchange and wanted these 2 new ones for a future cruise.

I was successful getting them to swap cards for wine since I exchanged mid-cruise and because I wasn’t told the cards would no longer be blank due to new company policy. I did not look at them for any expiration date though.

So a January cruise resulted in an expiry date of less than a year from date of purchase!?!?

For those of us that cruise annually that really sucks!! Effectively - if we don't use it on that cruise, its expired!

I predict we'll see a lot of folks selling partly used cards to B2B'ers on the last day, or on shore to those embarking as they disembark.

If this is a trial I sure hope it fails. Being able to continue using punches I think has been a major selling point of the coffee cards. This new idea of an expiration date is a great incentive to increase sales of coffee cards, dontchya think? ;p

 

What will they think of next?

I agree. We have several unused cards that we got as minibar exchanges so if they expire we will lose another perk.

Personally, I never assumed that Princess meant to sell me a "Free coffee for life" card. It just didn't seem to make good business sense and I figured they made a mistake in labeling/marketing that they would eventually correct. That's not to say I haven't taken advantage of it as long as the ride has lasted but it's no surprise to me they're working to close the loopholes.

Oh that's annoying. With work, one cruise per year is MAX what I can do. I drink coffee like water but I still have 5 punches left from a 7 day cruise. It's stupid, we paid for the punches and they should be honored. It's not like limiting free coffee to the same sailing, that makes perfect sense.

The old process allows a person to buy a coffee card and get unlimited non speciality coffee for free forever?

Seems like a very odd aspect of the program that I am sure was abused by many people. I find it hard to believe that this was the intent of what Princess wanted. Perhaps if so many people did not abuse the old process, Princess would not have felt a need need to change the process.

Perhaps Princess should have limited the free coffee to just the current cruise. As stated above, this is probably the real issue IMO.

This isn't the first time they've implemented a new policy that everyone hated...and eventually (sometimes) they back up to the original policy.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO COMPLAIN!!!

The folks posting like coffee card gives infinite free coffee are wrong. The staff are supposed to mark the card for the initial voyage and then any subsequent voyage you do not get free coffee - it requires a punch until they are all used up.

Where this policy really sucks is if someone cruises in Jan and Feb and again in the fall, they get two chances to use the card. But if cruise in fall and then in winter/spring, will the fall card still be dated DEC 2018 expiry? hardly seems fair. If they want to end them, then make it one year from inception (first voyage use).

That said, this sucks for the annual cruiser and greatly devalues the card if you cannot use up all the punches. Of course there is the secondary market, but they could easily kill that by not giving out blank cards - which seems to be stopping. OTOH, I understand if ELITE you get TWO cards and only need ONE for current voyage, you might like to keep one for future. But then next cruise you get two more .. and so on. So unless family or friends need one..... Anyway, I don't like it as I would think only fair to be able to use punches paid for.

The old process allows a person to buy a coffee card and get unlimited non speciality coffee for free forever?

Seems like a very odd aspect of the program that I am sure was abused by many people. I find it hard to believe that this was the intent of what Princess wanted. Perhaps if so many people did not abuse the old process, Princess would not have felt a need need to change the process.

Perhaps Princess should have limited the free coffee to just the current cruise. As stated above, this is probably the real issue IMO.

That is/was the policy. One could get REGULAR coffee for "free" on the cruise when the card is first used. After that first cruise, one would use a punch for a coffee.... regular or specialty.

So, as far as I recall, the "free" coffee was only available for one cruise. After that, a punch from the card was needed for regular coffee.

It will be interesting to see if all ships are doing this. We will be sailing in less than two weeks on a B2B. As we don't drink that much, we exchange one mini bar set up for coffee cards. We can't use up all the punches in that amount of time.

 

I'm rooting for a reversal of this practice.

The current expiration date on the new cards is 6/30/2018, so your card will be fine on your B2B.

The current expiration date on the new cards is 6/30/2018' date=' so your card will be fine on your B2B.[/quote']

 

Shame.

Well this sucks. We have a bunch of partially used cards. We get them on cruises of 7 days or more, because I like the brewed coffee and husband likes the lattes, etc. On the shorter cruises, he'd use punches and I'd pay for the brewed. Hopefully, if the "for a time" ends, they'll take an old card, and replace it with one that expires, and punch out the used punches from the old card. That's what they did for me when we had an old card on our first cruise with the voyage number on them. (IMHO, they should just honor them until you use them up).

Fortunately for me, Celebrity's coffee bar doesn't have brewed so I learned to like Lattes. I guess I'll be drinking them on our next cruise. The two after that were purchased under the Sip and Sail.

I hope they drop this soon.

On the Sun Princess in November they where strict about free coffee only on dated card. No problem I got new card for free brewed coffee and used old one for the good or specialty coffee. Actually worked well as sometimes I got hubby free tea, whilst I had good coffee as he doesn't drink either very often so better to have 2 cards.

I actually wish they would do it all from cruise card for I have lost several coffee cards over the years.