Buying stock in a cruise company

[kaymoz]

Once upon a time on a cruise, we had a conversation with another passenger who happily shared one of his cruise bargain strategies -- scoring meaningful shareholder discounts becuase he had purchased shares in a cruise company.  I can't remember now which cruiseline family this was, but he had done  alot of research to optimize the greatest discount for his investment. 
Sound familiar?  Just thought I'd throw this topic out to see what others have to say!

[smarterman64]

it's typically an onboard credit. Royal caribbean, norwegian, and carnival have it for owning 100 shares. you can find what they offer on these boards and with an online search. 

[brzymom]

Have recently bought 100 Carnival shares in anticipation of an upcoming Holland America TA. Cost approximately $1430. Will get $250 OBC on this trip. Had some Royal Caribbean in a fractional share plan I have with Stash. Then found out they will provide verification of ownership of the required 100 shares. So I’ve been buying more with them since I already had money in that stock. Will take me a bit to get to 100 but that’s ok (shares closed at $143.30 yesterday). The amount of OBC you get depends on how many days aboard. 
 

Also—if you have a Roth IRA you can invest some or all of it in stocks. As Roth is post tax money any money in the account including gains can be withdrawn without any additional taxes. Good option if you have a Roth that you are not planning on drawing on just yet. 

[crystalspin]

On 5/6/2024 at 2:42 PM, kaymoz said:

I can't remember now which cruiseline family this was, but he had done  alot of research to optimize the greatest discount for his investment. 
Sound familiar?  Just thought I'd throw this topic out to see what others have to say!

We bought 100 shares of CarnivalCL at about its highest (last week of December, 2019). My husband was retiring, and we had six cruises booked on HAL and Princess... None of which happened. Plus the stock price plummetted, and we didn't cruise for three years. But HAL is still our favorite line and we hope to someday recoup our losses!

[Mum2Mercury]

On 5/7/2024 at 5:04 PM, crystalspin said:

We bought 100 shares of CarnivalCL at about its highest (last week of December, 2019). My husband was retiring, and we had six cruises booked on HAL and Princess... None of which happened. Plus the stock price plummetted, and we didn't cruise for three years. But HAL is still our favorite line and we hope to someday recoup our losses!

We were the opposite:  We bought Royal Caribbean stock during the pandemic, when stock was bargain-basement priced.  Not only have we had hundreds in OBC (claiming the OBC credit just requires an email), the stock price has increased exponentially.  

[JJK2008]

We recently used the Stockperks app for the first time. Full Disclosure - I am NOT a tech savvy person. YES, I can take my time and muddle through some tech issues. That being said, I read NUMEROUS posts here on CC about the pros and cons of the Stockperks app. Some of the info was good, some of it was people spouting off in frustration about the difficulty of the app, info requested, etc. This post is MY experience with the app. Like MANY apps it is NOT "user friendly" (IMHO) in that it requires a little bit of trial and error and figuring out what goes where and generally navigating the app. First, the app was not easy to load. It kept freezing or would not open at all. Installed/uninstalled a number of times. Also had to restart my phone several times. Finally got it to load properly and have not had a problem since. Why was I having the problems with it??? I don't know but it works now. Many of the posts I read on CC people complained that the app was intrusive in that it required them to put their broker account number, password to the account, etc., etc. I did NOT find that anywhere. I did NOT complete the "profile" questions. At NO TIME did I provide account number, password or ANY other sensitive, personal information. I just skipped to the next page. What is REQUIRED and what is ASKED are two different things.  The ONLY information I provided was name and email address, NOTHING MORE. Getting the OBC is a TWO STEP process. I took a picture with my phone of the stock statement with ALL sensitive information blacked out. Next, as requested I uploaded a broker statement showing the Brokers name, our names and the cruise line stock, again with all sensitive information blacked out. I uploaded the statement by selecting MANUAL and did NOT use the dropdown for the list of brokerage firms. Once accepted, it took about 48 hours for the approval of the stock statement. The next step was to request the redemption. In the redemption tab I selected CCL and made the request. It took about 3 days for the OBC to be credited to our account. The broker statement approval is good for a year so there is no need to upload it again for future OBC requests within a year. Now that I understand how the app works, it is a pretty easy system and going forward I won't have the difficulty of the first time. The OBC is a great perk and since we cruise often it is well worth it for us.  Hope this helps anyone interested in giving it a try. Good Luck. Happy Cruising.