Holland American Gift Cards

[a1moty]

Does anyone know if there is a place/way to purchase a HA gift card?

[jtl513]

You can purchase On Board Credits or specific gifts by calling ship services, 1-800-541-1576.

 

If you are booked on the same cruise as the recipient you can also do it on HAL's website. Log onto your account and go to Purchase Indulgences.

Edited January 26, 2015 by jtl513

[sail7seas]

All you need to send a gift of OBC for someone sailing is to call the number provided above, know the name of the recipient, which ship and date of sailing. You don't need cabin number or confirmation number or any of that.

 

[pms4104]

If you are looking for something comparableto this, it is not offered by HAL.

 

http://www.princess.com/learn/onboard/gifts_services/gift-cards/

[a1moty]

Thanks everyone...Yes, PMS4104, I was looking for a plastic gift card.

[sail7seas]

If you arrange OBC as a gift, there will be a note card delivered to their cabin advising them of the gift and who sent it.

 

ALSO, on HAL, the Star Mariner Program (for repeat cruisers with HAL) awards benefits predicated upon how many day credits each cruiser accumulates. Any gifts guests receive that have been ordered through HAL will go toward their credits. One day is awarded for each $300 spent on the ship in addition to actual days sailed. (Suites get double days.)

[POA1]

Thanks everyone...Yes, PMS4104, I was looking for a plastic gift card.

The only thing that comes as a plastic card are the beverage cards. They will come with a typed invitation sized card, and you can put a personal note on the card. Aside from that, I don't know of any options that would give you a traditional plastic gift card. (You can tell it's the 21st century when we're talking about "traditional plastic gift cards.")

[take us away]

You can also have their TA take care of this if you know who that is. Only cards I have ever seen are beverage cards (love the use of 'traditional').

[Mary Ellen]

I prefer the Princess gift card method to what others have suggested as a 'work around' on HAL. Friends of ours recently had a retirement/birthday party. We gave each of them a Princess gift card appropriate to their event (we thought the Happy Birthday one particularly attractive). They were quite happy to receive them. Getting a nondescript OBC some time after their celebrations just doesn't cut it as far as a gift. Also, with the Princess gift card, the recipients can also use them to help pay for a cruise. That would be kind of nice for some.

 

Too bad HAL doesn't offer similar gift cards.

[InTheWASide]

The OBC work around is a great idea IF someone is already booked. But if the intent of the gift card is to allow them to book the cruise of their choice and put that money toward the CRUISE PURCHASE then the workaround for ways of gifting onboard credit don't help too much.

 

As others have said, HAL does not offer a "gift card" but they have TONS of ways to get a special gift for someone once they have joined the ship.

 

Certainly wouldn't hurt anything for HAL to start the gift card program. In theory they could use their Future Cruise Deposit infrastructure, make the "card number" the same as the FCD number already housed in their system and when the people call in whether it's a "card number" or "deposit number" it's all technically the same thing and they can use cards with a pretty picture but no particular magnetic stripe or function. (You could have a card sized piece of plastic with... oh say Nieuw Amsterdam on it... on the back is a spot where a number can be written even if just in sharpie and then protected with a piece of tape... I know... SUPER high tech here... and then someone can call in, say they have a card. Number 1234567. The agent can confirm there is $400 on it, then they apply that $400 toward a booking. And if they don't want it to satisfy the full deposit requirement of a booking, they can uncheck that box on their back end)

Edited January 27, 2015 by InTheWASide

[sail7seas]

More arts and crafts projects. :) I thought it's enough crafting doing our personally prepared luggage tags. :) :D

 

Edited January 27, 2015 by sail7seas

[InTheWASide]

More arts and crafts projects. :) I thought it's enough crafting doing our personally prepared luggage tags. :) :D

 

 

Well yeah :D... it's been made pretty clear that with a new President from outside the industry they want some new thinking... if that in any way infers money issues to any degree, this would be a way to do it with MINIMAL cost since launching a huge gift card program could have a pretty major initial investment.

 

If they want or need to avoid that... there are still ways to get it up off the ground

[sail7seas]

There is such a thing as polish and presentation. When so many features are presented in amateur ways, the entire product is diminished. People look for tasteful way of doing things throughout the product (whole cruise) and each cheapening money saving step makes the cruise less than it was and still can be.

 

Let's hope that is not what HAL's new President wants for this well respected, long historied company much loved by many.

Edited January 27, 2015 by sail7seas

[Roz]

My Kroger store started carrying the Carnival gift cards. I just purchased one 2 wks. ago for $55 when Kroger was giving 4X fuel points on gift cards. Don't know if the other Carnival brands such as Princess and HAL will start to do this.

 

Roz

[jtl513]

... since launching a huge gift card program could have a pretty major initial investment.

 

If they want or need to avoid that... there are still ways to get it up off the ground

HAL already has the Barclay Visa Card partnership. Would adding a pre-paid Visa gift card program be such a big step? Edited January 27, 2015 by jtl513

[Roz]

Since Carnival already has a program in place, it wouldn't be a huge leap for others under the Carnival umbrella to have their own cards, or have a generic Carnival gift card that could be used for all Carnival brands. Isn't that one of the reasons there are cruise and hotel groups - economy of scale?

 

Roz

[kazu]

HAL already has the Barclay Visa Card partnership. Would adding a pre-paid Visa gift card program be such a big step?

 

The only problem with the HAL Visa card is that it is not available to everyone. We Canadian can't get it - suspect other nationalities are in a similar boat so to speak.

[sail7seas]

And some of us don't want the Barclay Visa. I don't want to 'have' to get another credit card I don't need or want.