Anyone have Carnival Sea miles Credit card?

[viaggi_per_mare]

We have Delta skymiles card that earns us miles in the frequent flyer program of Delta. My husband only gets credited the miles but he is able to "give me miles" so we get free flights.

We have looked at the Sea Miles card for Carnival and we were thinking of possibly getting this to earn Sea Miles as well. (We usually pay off balances completely so a high interest rate is irrelevant - we also know that most of these cards have an annual fee)

 

What I want to know is how does it translate into cruises?

Is it a certain amount of miles for X amount of credit towards your cruise, or do you have to have enough for a "complete cruise" before you use them?

We use a PVP at Carnival, if that matters.

 

I seem to remember some threads about "nightmare" Sea miles posts, but I can't seem to find them.

 

We take 4-6 cruise a year, would this be beneficial for us and not too many hoops to jump through to redeem them?

 

Thanks in advance

[rlkubi]

I do have one but do not recommend it. I stopped using it and started using an airline card instead.

[deeluvs2cruise]

I have a Sea Miles Card and have had no problems with it...however, I charge very little and ALWAYS pay off the balance of each statement. A couple of years ago I had accumulated enough points to pay for RT airfare for a cruise, and just this week I traded in enough points for $200 OBC on my next cruise. It's been okay for me.

[mikel24m]

I have one and did a kitchen remodel on it and not even close to a cruise yet.I just looked you need 90,909 points for a $1000 cruise.I just make big purchases and things that I pay off every month. Eventually we will get a freebie.

[TennesseeTater]

My wife and I use it to pay most of our monthly expenses and then we pay the balance down to zero at the end of the month. We are booked on the Legend for next September and were able to book a 7 night balcony cabin FREE OF CHARGE!

 

Dealing with Sea Miles used to be a nightmare but a year or so ago Carnival changed it from Sea Miles to "fun points" It's so much easier to use. Earlier this year on the Fascination we were able to cash in points and buy ourselves drink tickets, on board credict, etc.

 

We have used it every month and it took about 3 years to be able to book a free cruise, but hey I will take a free cruise every 3 years!

[Binker]

My wife and I use it to pay most of our monthly expenses and then we pay the balance down to zero at the end of the month. We are booked on the Legend for next September and were able to book a 7 night balcony cabin FREE OF CHARGE!

 

Dealing with Sea Miles used to be a nightmare but a year or so ago Carnival changed it from Sea Miles to "fun points" It's so much easier to use. Earlier this year on the Fascination we were able to cash in points and buy ourselves drink tickets, on board credict, etc.

 

We have used it every month and it took about 3 years to be able to book a free cruise, but hey I will take a free cruise every 3 years!

hi Tennessee Tater, we sailed Triumph in January '09 as well ... and are using our Carnival Card to earn discounts on Valor in 2011 :-) I agree, the fun points is earier to work with.

[BcIcemen]

I have one and have had no problems. I just wish they would credit you more than 1 point per dollar spent. I also have a Hilton card and if you by gas for example they give you 2 for 1

[cantw82cruise]

We have Delta skymiles card that earns us miles in the frequent flyer program of Delta. My husband only gets credited the miles but he is able to "give me miles" so we get free flights.

We have looked at the Sea Miles card for Carnival and we were thinking of possibly getting this to earn Sea Miles as well. (We usually pay off balances completely so a high interest rate is irrelevant - we also know that most of these cards have an annual fee)

 

What I want to know is how does it translate into cruises?

Is it a certain amount of miles for X amount of credit towards your cruise, or do you have to have enough for a "complete cruise" before you use them?

We use a PVP at Carnival, if that matters.

 

I seem to remember some threads about "nightmare" Sea miles posts, but I can't seem to find them.

 

We take 4-6 cruise a year, would this be beneficial for us and not too many hoops to jump through to redeem them?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Hi Viaggi, We also have the Carnival card, the new one with fun points is way better than the Sea miles. The nice thing with the card is you can go to the web site and say you want to redeem points. It will bring up any travel purchases made with in the past 6 months (I think that's how long a purchase stay on) You can select any of these things and it will take that amount off your next statement. We also always pay ours off every month. I would never use points to get an OBC or coupons because you get double points when you purchase anything through Carnival. So I always use my card to pay for my cruise and sign and sail account. I would rather spend the extra $200 on there and get 400 points than redeem points for a $200 OBC. Most of the stuff is just like other cards 20,000 points will get you $200 off you bill. By the way there in no annual fee for this card either. We just got the Delta Skymile card only so we don't have to pay for bags when we fly with Delta.

 

Over all I think the Carnival card is pretty good. You can check on the site to see how many points you need for a free cruise. They have a spot there where you enter the amount of your cruise and it tells you how many points you need. I'm not sure how well this works because if I put $1450 in there it says I need 86,826 points but if I say my cruise is $1250 it says I need 113,626 points. I have not tested this yet as I don't have that many point yet but there might be a glitch in there system. I am not sure if it comes up this way for everyone as you have to sign in to be able to use the calculator.

 

John

[Beej29]

I have one and I love it. My husband, son and I all use it for our personal This past year, we got over $700 off our June cruise and over $600 on our upcoming cruise that we will be taking in a few weeks. I like it so much better now that we get a credit on our bill rather than just cashing the miles in. I think it is only beneficial if you charge everything and can pay it off at the end of the month.

[viaggi_per_mare]

Thanks everyone for the responses. We too took the Skymiles card from Delta for the free suitcase perk - as much as we travel, we dropped almost $1000 in luggage fees to Delta because we fly so much so we figured that one was a must. We the amount we cruise, I think it will only benefit us.

 

Thanks again

[Carnivalcruiselover!]

I wanted to apply for one of these a couple of years ago, but I was told I couldn't because I'm from Canada. They only are available for people who live in the US. Pity, because I would have liked to have had one!

[papilliontraveler]

I got one of the Carnival cards back on the Destiny in 2006.

They changed what the "perks" were a few years ago(you used to be able to redeem for resorts, air, etc., now only cruises with the one I have) but it has worked out quite well for us. I was able to accumulate enough points to pay for our upcoming cruise. The cruise was $1500 and it took 94,000 points, so better redemption rate than I thought.

 

I too, pay off my bill every month as it would defeat the purpose of earning the "free" cruise if I was paying interest every month. And the interest rate is pretty high.

 

I had read about people having all kinds of problems trying to redeem points with this card but I had nothing but smooth sailing with it.

[WendyVF]

The card is much better now that it is Fun Points. There is no set points = this so you have to play with it. I found the most value for points was when I paid for an entire cruise at once. Once the charges are on your statement I believe you have 90 days to claim a credit. You select the charge and it will give you different reward levels.

[bmwmj]

My wife and I use it to pay most of our monthly expenses and then we pay the balance down to zero at the end of the month. We are booked on the Legend for next September and were able to book a 7 night balcony cabin FREE OF CHARGE!

 

Dealing with Sea Miles used to be a nightmare but a year or so ago Carnival changed it from Sea Miles to "fun points" It's so much easier to use. Earlier this year on the Fascination we were able to cash in points and buy ourselves drink tickets, on board credit, etc.

 

We have used it every month and it took about 3 years to be able to book a free cruise, but hey I will take a free cruise every 3 years!

We are doing the same thing on the Miracle in 11 days!!!

The old "Sea Miles" were a horror, however the Fun Miles are MUCH easier to use. For the same miles it cost me for a FREE balcony for both of us, I would have gotten a round trip air on Delta, I would have only gotten 5 days inside on a Princess. So decide how you want to use your points. Someone else mentioned that you are better to put all your charges on your Sign & Sail as you get at least double points. I have also purchased in advance some drink coupons & some OBC with the card so I would get the double points, so you're not shocked all at once! I will see when I get home how much that computes to & see if I can pay it off as well, but I would imagine I will just let the points ride. We are planning another Carnival with friends Jan/Feb 2012. I'm at least 1/2 way there. We use it daily. There is no annual fee.

I do want to mention also however that you want to pay for your cruise at once! I put my $600 deposit down & it wanted some fantastical amount of points, but when you put the total dollar amount down it was less? So I called my PVP back, had her do the entire transaction at once, including trip insurance, then paid it off with points as soon as it posted on the website (MasterCard). Easy peasy.

[JonV]

RitaSusan/Viaggi Per Mare,

 

I have this card and it is so much better now. You earn DOUBLE points for Carnival purchases and using this card for your Sail & Sign plus any Carnival excursions you book in advance with this card. Then you can use it to wipe away onboard charges from Carnival or get a credit towards those purchases. It takes alot of points to use it for a free cruise but it is great in getting credits for onboard purchases.

 

 

When you view you bill online you can redeem points to credit some of those Carnival purchases just by clicking and saying reedeem now. It will show you all the options you have at your current point level for redemption.

 

Jon

[ChiefSki]

I use it to pay the cruse and the sign and sail. For my next cruise I'll have enough for $200 ship board credit. I hardly use it for anything else. On a Chase Master card they have Carnival certificates as one of the rewards and it is the card I use the most. I'll have $800 towards my next cruise on that card. As long as you pay them off every month their both fine.

[Frank12]

If you cruise a lot and pay the balance off in full every month, it is worth it. I have already done one free cruise with mine and will get my second free one this spring on the Dream. That is 2 free cruises in 5 years. :D

[capndinghy]

This is good news. I just signed up for one on our last cruise in September and I have been using it. I will redeem points for my sign and sail accounts.

[MicksMom]

Glad I read this thread! Have been thinking about getting one ever since our current rewards card dropped their rebate amount from 1% of all purchases to .5% - it adds up when you have your monthly bills charged to in along with DD's college tuition.

 

Thanks for the info everyone!

[Fraucruiser]

I have a Carnival Sea Miles card and truly have not paid much attention to it! I used it for my onboard account last cruise and I used it to pay for my upcoming cruised as well as I will use it for my onboard acct. Thank you for this thread!!! I had NO idea!

 

Can someone PLEASE tell me the website so I can play around and check out what I have been missing??

[papilliontraveler]

I have a Carnival Sea Miles card and truly have not paid much attention to it! I used it for my onboard account last cruise and I used it to pay for my upcoming cruised as well as I will use it for my onboard acct. Thank you for this thread!!! I had NO idea!

 

Can someone PLEASE tell me the website so I can play around and check out what I have been missing??

www.seamiles.com

[jaded99]

I have the SeaMiles card. It's not as good as some other rewards programs (eg I have a gas rewards cc that pays me $50 every few months) but you get triple points for booking a Carnival cruise or using your SeaMiles card on-board.

 

It is pretty difficult to earn a free cruise - it would probably take you a few years of going on 3 or more cruises a year just to pay for an inexpensive one, but there are other goodies you can buy with your rewards, and they do have some "bonus points" offers that go out - like shopping at a certain merchant type and getting 500 extra points or something.

 

You also can use points to pay for partial cruises.

 

To give you an idea, I usually only use my card for onboard expenses and sometimes the deposit or payments towards a cruise if I don't book it all up-front. I have had the card for about a year and a half (2 cruises) I have just over 10,000 points - I could use this for $50 OBC and a bottle of wine, $100 towards the price of a cruise, or 2 sets of bar credit/soft drink coupons. I think using it to pay part of a cruise is the best bet, usually - or if you're cruising often, just use it for all your cruise bookings and expenses and maybe after a few years you will have enough to cruise free!

 

PS: I think they call it the FunPoints card now, but the rewards look pretty much the same as when I first got it and it was SeaMiles.

[mjl1960]

I have one, use it for all my work expenses, which I pay the balance off at the end of the month. I have saved hundreds of dollars on my cruises by having it, since I cruise on Carnival, however, there are better options if you don't want to just cruise with only Carnival.

[mikel24m]

https://www.barclaycardus.com/

[Texaspepper]

https://www.barclaycardus.com/

 

Have a Carnival Master Card. Got 5,000 points when I applied. Anything you charge that is Carnival related, cruises, pay Sign & Sail you get double points.

 

Our last Ecstasy got double points for everything. Just Booked the Conquest 3 days ago for Feb 20, 2011 got double points. On the BarclayCardus.com I can see the points and can redeem them there for OBC or pay toward a new cruise. Starting point is 7,200 =$50 OBC.

 

FYI. . .if you own 100 or more shares of CCL stock you get $50 OBC for 1-6 day cruise, $100 OBC for 7-13 day cruise, $250 OBC for 14 days or longer. This has worked for us on both CCL and RCL. Buys a few drinks and photos. BTW. . .with RCL credit card. . .it only takes 5,000 points for a $50 OBC.