Luggage tags for Platinum no longer say Priority ?

[balcony bound]

8 minutes ago, jetsfan58 said:

Why do we continue to allow "Status" to matter? The purpose of your success is to always pay it forward. How about introducing new family members and friends to our Cruising World. Then as a real "Platinum" gesture pay for their initial voyages. That's much more important than who gets to their 'Suites" first as none of us are leaving until the Captain says " Let's Go".  

Almost every business has a reward program - Starbucks, Pizza Hut, airlines, Khols - I could go on forever.  Every day, folks are rewarded for their loyalty to businesses.  It is one of the ways they keep customers.

[jetsfan58]

1 minute ago, balcony bound said:

Almost every business has a reward program - Starbucks, Pizza Hut, airlines, Khols - I could go on forever.  Every day, folks are rewarded for their loyalty to businesses.  It is one of the ways they keep customers.

They are also "Gimmicks" to get you to continue to spend you hard earned dollars. 

[Roscoe13]

1 minute ago, jetsfan58 said:

They are also "Gimmicks" to get you to continue to spend you hard earned dollars. 

Have you heard of marketing?

[lobster1313]

1 minute ago, jetsfan58 said:

They are also "Gimmicks" to get you to continue to spend you hard earned dollars. 

Those so called gimmicks help with brand loyalty which is the whole point.

[jetsfan58]

1 minute ago, jetsfan58 said:

They are also "Gimmicks" to get you to continue to spend you hard earned dollars. 

Let me take this one a step further. My mission is to always try and pay it forward. My one and only time utilizing a Cruise Travel Agency was a delight to me. I took the "Extra" amenities that were going to be given to my family and passed them on to a "Newbie" family that was cruising in our party. They were quite surprised with the in-cabin perks that they were awarded. 

 

I always have a story that includes helping others to become better individuals and/or Carnival Cruise Nuts. The good part is that I will never have you sign up or pay a fee for your legacy "Loyalty".   

[BlerkOne]

17 minutes ago, balcony bound said:

Almost every business has a reward program - Starbucks, Pizza Hut, airlines, Khols - I could go on forever.  Every day, folks are rewarded for their loyalty to businesses.  It is one of the ways they keep customers.

All loyalty programs are marketing gimmicks.

[Lee Cruiser]

47 minutes ago, Cushing985 said:

 

I'm a Plat but have never been in a suite.  Regardless, I don't care about the baggage thang.  It isn't like I'm pacing my cabin waiting breathlessly for them to arrive.   I'm usually on the Lido eating as soon as we board.  I do like the "VIP" line but my life will continue if they do away with it.  But, they better not do away with my free laundry!

We are just the opposite. The big things we like is priority boarding and luggage. We rarely go to the service desk and have never used the laundry service.

[jetsfan58]

54 minutes ago, Roscoe13 said:

Have you heard of marketing?

I have heard of Effective Marketing; the one that builds legacy sales. Have you heard of Legacy Sales? That's the desired outcome of effective marketing. Not Effective Gimmicks.  

[jetsfan58]

17 minutes ago, Lee Cruiser said:

We are just the opposite. The big things we like is priority boarding and luggage. We rarely go to the service desk and have never used the laundry service.

There is always a positive and workable solution. Bring less clothes and you will automatically have less laundry to worry about. Perks Are Us! 

[BlerkOne]

11 minutes ago, jetsfan58 said:

I have heard of Effective Marketing; the one that builds legacy sales. Have you heard of Legacy Sales? That's the desired outcome of effective marketing. Not Effective Gimmicks.  

i prefer the original terms. When you start adding fluff descriptive words, it is to fool people into buying new books on old material. Marketing to me is the art of discovering a need and finding a solution to that need at a cost acceptable to all sides. If your marketing costs result in the desired ROI. good job. If not, change or eliminate those costs.

[jetsfan58]

3 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

i prefer the original terms. When you start adding fluff descriptive words, it is to fool people into buying new books on old material. Marketing to me is the art of discovering a need and finding a solution to that need at a cost acceptable to all sides. If your marketing costs result in the desired ROI. good job. If not, change or eliminate those costs.

Fortunately I have been following the Sales and Marketing wars for decades. I agree with your descriptive logic and I just wish that more "True Marketers" spent adequate time at retail establishments and in Mass outlets and not sitting analyzing how to stop "sales" from selling. Sometimes the "Two Top Box" scores are not as important as building partnerships.  

[firefly333]

1 hour ago, jetsfan58 said:

Let me take this one a step further. My mission is to always try and pay it forward. My one and only time utilizing a Cruise Travel Agency was a delight to me. I took the "Extra" amenities that were going to be given to my family and passed them on to a "Newbie" family that was cruising in our party. They were quite surprised with the in-cabin perks that they were awarded. 

 

I always have a story that includes helping others to become better individuals and/or Carnival Cruise Nuts. The good part is that I will never have you sign up or pay a fee for your legacy "Loyalty".   

Very often I give away whatever logo item I get. Even priority luggage tags. I did think twice about my rcl baseball cap, but a family from Ireland really wanted it.

 

I dont have a mission ... dont even think it's that unusual so never bragged about it. If someone is in a hurry I let them go first in the line.  I thought it was common courtesy. Never thought of it as a mission lololol. I think of it as being lucky I can afford to give things away. 

[phoneman69]

14 hours ago, jetsfan58 said:

There is always a positive and workable solution. Bring less clothes and you will automatically have less laundry to worry about. Perks Are Us! 

So i am not allowed to being what ever i want ? Ok you don't believe in any type of benefit for loyalty to any one. 

[phoneman69]

On 5/31/2021 at 1:13 PM, jetsfan58 said:

Let me take this one a step further. My mission is to always try and pay it forward. My one and only time utilizing a Cruise Travel Agency was a delight to me. I took the "Extra" amenities that were going to be given to my family and passed them on to a "Newbie" family that was cruising in our party. They were quite surprised with the in-cabin perks that they were awarded. 

 

I always have a story that includes helping others to become better individuals and/or Carnival Cruise Nuts. The good part is that I will never have you sign up or pay a fee for your legacy "Loyalty".   

Way outside the original post. The original question was rather simple

[hurricane0226]

On 5/29/2021 at 11:19 AM, mondello said:

Life is good as long as your Rum Runners make it through.

I second that lol.

[JMAE]

I don't consider the VIFP Club a "status" I consider it as a thank you from CCL for being a repeat customer, if I recall correctly one of the highest repetitive customer base in the industry.  We have been on many cruises with CCL and believe in the product CCL provides.  If my loyalty to a brand provides me a value add in my opinion it should not be given to everyone nor can it.  In this case we are discussing priority boarding which we receive as a Platinum guests on Carnival.  If someone that is not at one of the VIFP Club levels that provides priority boarding and the other perks they can or someone else can purchase FTTF.  We have done in the past for friends and families we recommend try CCL and they appreciated the gift.      

[BoozinCroozin]

I think people are confusing loyalty, VIFP status, and the current situation separately. Unfortunately, they are all intertwined, at least for the short-term. I am making the assumption that they take the perk away temporarily. 

 

Lets be honest and take any sort of VIFP level out of the equation because it is an emotional position and has absolutely nothing to do with CCL. CCL is a publicly traded company and their ONLY obligation as such is to its shareholders to bring value to their investment. I cannot think of any other business that has been shut down for 15+ months and survived.

 

So, what is a publicly company obligated to do?

1. Generate revenue and profit. Unfortunately, that VIFP level you have is meaningless to the Finance organization to make the P&L look as best it can over the next 12 months. Yes, any little hiccup is temporary.
2. Determine how many Super Diamond whatever level people are their customers compared to the overall customers purchasing cruises. Percentage wise, I think it is small. Of that small percentage how many are really going to give up that status and start over with another cruise line? That number will be drastically smaller.
3. How do we increase revenue regardless of status? Charge for that Priority Boarding that people are asking for. Yes, it use to be free but the actuaries and finance teams have found there is far more demand to pay for it rather than giving it away. The same goes for drinks. That drink that use to be $10.95 is not $12.95 or $15.95. Regardless of what it is, people are going to pay for it. It is that simple. 
4. The cruise lines have done the analysis on the average age of the Super Diamond Give Me Everything group. I don't have the statistics, but I am willing to bet that the average age puts them all in the most at risk age group for bad publicity if something happens on the ship be it covid, rhinovirus, or something else. I think the health screenings are not some 1-minute quick test and be done. I think the are going to be longer from the start and regress as cruising takes hold.

Believe me, if they looked at taking a perk away from the VIFP Diamond I have been on 10,000 cruises people, they have run the numbers on an acceptable number they are willing to lose. When that small number sees what it will take to do the same on another cruise line, they will make the choice not to and accept the temporary change.

[pe4all]

I booked a cruise last week for November 2022.  I always print off my luggage tags immediately.  No reason why - I just do.  They had the red "priority" on them.  Just checked now on CCL site - no priority listed anymore!  Hope this doesn't go by the wayside.  Enjoyed getting on right away and getting settled before the crowds hit.

[WPTNGirl]

A year ago I scheduled an Alaska cruise for May 2022 and Mardi Gras for Nov 2022.  I checked this morning and both still have Priority on the documents and luggage tags. 

[crewsweeper]

Curious, if they aren't sailing full capacity on  early cruises, do you even need priority?

They may be scheduling times to get cruiser s spaced out a bit.  Did you get a Check-in time? Or can you do that prior to 30-days?

[Homosassa]

OK, I think all  of you worrying about the priority boarding is overlooking the elephant in the room -  Covid 19 and vaccination status.

 

Carnival has made it clear that vaccination status will not be a factor for those cruises. This means for cruises from US ports, the cruise line will have to follow the CDC recommendations for cruises that do not have the 98/95% vaccination rates. This means that there will be a embarkation screening which most likely will include a Covid 19 screening test and a passenger will not be allowed to embark until the test comes back as negative for Covid 19.

 

Therefore, no type of priority embarkation can be used when all passengers will need to wait for their individual test results before being allowed to board.

 

There will most likely be strictly enforced check in arrival times to prevent overwhelming personnel taking the samples and running the tests. 

[BlerkOne]

My guess is they will take an extra step when loading luggage to "sanitize" it for everyone's protection. It makes priority rather useless. But as mentioned above, cruises won't be at maximum capacity so it is meaningless, too.

[BlerkOne]

Just now, Homosassa said:

 

Therefore, no type of priority embarkation can be used when all passengers will need to wait for their individual test results before being allowed to board.

 

 

Of course Carnival can give priority status to vaccinated folks. Even if they don't require a vaccine, people can volunteer vaccination status and skip a number of hoops, per CDC guidelines. No need for people requiring testing to slow everyone else down.

[Homosassa]

1 hour ago, BlerkOne said:

Of course Carnival can give priority status to vaccinated folks. Even if they don't require a vaccine, people can volunteer vaccination status and skip a number of hoops, per CDC guidelines. No need for people requiring testing to slow everyone else down.

I agree.  But if the cruiseline doesn't know the status before arrival at the port when the information and proof are presented, priority embarkation can't be assigned ahead of time.

[pe4all]

4 hours ago, WPTNGirl said:

A year ago I scheduled an Alaska cruise for May 2022 and Mardi Gras for Nov 2022.  I checked this morning and both still have Priority on the documents and luggage tags. 

I just checked again, and can't even find my cruise docs/luggage tags online.  The only things I can do "before my cruise" is 1. pay balance (not due till Oct.). 2. complete health form (can't do yet). 3.  online check in (can't do yet) and 4. complete guest names (done).  Have no idea where the "print cruise docs/luggage tags" went to.  Anyone?