Carnival Promotions/Offers: How do they work?

[zzdoug]

5 minutes ago, Isasprings said:

Yes I agree with you. I live in Miami I got lots of good offers. I just came back yesterday from a great cruise in the Horizon. Carnival call me on a Thursday and ask me if I want to go on Sunday they offered me  a balcony for $100 (6 days). I have another cruise booked for October on the Sunrise cheers included in the price. I Got good offers not only in Carnival. I booked MSC for December with free internet and alcohol very cheap.

Can you give them a p.o. box?

[Elaine5715]

1 hour ago, zzdoug said:

Can you give them a p.o. box?

Doesn't matter.  It is the zip code

[Virga]

On 9/18/2021 at 4:42 PM, aprilsp88 said:

@VirgaIs there a forum/place in flyertalk for cruise targeted offer? Thanks.

Sadly, while they have a cruise section, it appears to be rarely used and not nearly as... rigorous as you see in other forums there =p. I had hoped to find more threads here with similar analytically minded folks tracking some of these insane offers.  We freaks are definitely a minority in the population, though, and there are a lot fewer cruisers than there are air travelers - I'm not surprised we haven't quite been able to cobble together enough data just yet.

 

For interested CC folks and future googlers, though, here's our current situation:  Our 'wow' vipf offer (PMU) indeed disappeared immediately after we each booked our wow deal.  The 'quite good' casino offers (PLH, no free drinks, and twice the cost pp of PMU, and available through the end of the year instead of just last minute) stayed available after we'd booked the two wow fares, but were not renewed after they expiration, though they were renewed the week before when they expired.  OV8 remains at very attractive fares - insides starting at $109pp, with $200 per cabin obc.  We still only qualify for RU9 for cheers, which is no deal at all for any sailings I've seen, and the Early Bird fares aren't bad but I'd only book them in order to lock in a much later cruise, or to immediately match to the OV8 rate but still be eligible for further reductions in case we get some new casino offers.

 

On that front, we gambled for the first time on the Sunrise this past weekend.  It's still not very heavily - I think I had 1050pts and hubs had 1100pts - but if we were eligible for PLH with less than an hour in the casino in the past, who knows!  He got an offer onboard - no drinks - but still not as good as the OV8 with $200 that we both have.

 

While I wish the offers we had were mostly based on our home location (half an hour from a port) I'm thinking that us not having cruised on Carnival in seven years had more to do with our offers, which is why we gambled at all.  We are loving getting to have a little bit of normal back in relative safety.  If they offer us more great deals, we're in for more cruises!  If not, well, the MSC weekend cruises fit our schedule even better.

 

I'm disappointed that our play didn't earn us any free drinks for upcoming cruises, but I'll keep posting what we see.  There's got to be some method to their madness, I'm sure we can figure out some of it!