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Oh boy. This is big and long time Carnival loyalists are furious (to say the very least) after the tsunami announcement this week that Carnival is completely changing their loyalty program. The changes are, to most, really bad and a lifetime of loyalty is going down the drain.
First up, for those not used to cruise loyalty programs, most cruise lines have a loyalty program that rewards you for how many nights you sail with them and that works you up the elite ladder. You can often get bonus “nights” by booking suites or during certain promotions. The more you sail the faster you rise in the ranks and the more perks you get both before, during and at the end of your cruise.
Carnival’s old program was called the VIFP Club or “Very Important Fun Person” and as they point out it really was simple.
But the problem for Carnival, and maybe a good problem, is that too many people were sailing all the time with them and there were just too many top elites (sound familiar Delta Air Lines?).
What did they choose to do to fix this elite problem? Rather than do what many other cruise lines, and even airlines, have done, that is, expand the number of elite levels and increase the nights needed to reach them, Carnival decided to rip off the Band-Aid and completely switch over to revenue based loyalty like so many hotels and airlines now offer. The new program will set sail on June 1st 2026 and will be called “Carnival Rewards“. You can read all the facts about the new program here.
The biggest OUCH for guests is that lifetime status is now dead. After a few years of extended status for the top tiers guests will have to spend and spend BIG ($16,500 / year for Diamond) across all parts of the Carnival ecosystem and that includes their credit card program with Barclays bank to have their status for a short 2 year span. In other words unless you keep spending and keep re-qualifying for status you lose all the perks you once had from so many nights at sea with Carnival.
As you can imagine longtime guests are freaking out and sharing how much they hate it across Reddit, Facebook and many other sites. For some reason (this is said in jest) guests don’t like having perks ripped away from them and being told you are only as valuable as what you are spending NOW and it better be a lot btw.
What impact will this have on Carnival guests? Clearly if you are a bargain cruiser and an infrequent one you will not get the same perks you have become accustomed to. Many online are suggesting this gives them a reason to try other cruise lines and my guess is that will be the case but cruising in 2025 is more popular than ever and ships are all full so time will tell what impact the new rewards program has on bookings.
While I am not a huge Carnival fan and have no intentions of sailing with them again (my last cruise was just lovely but Carnival is just not for me) I am disappointed by this switch to only rewarding spend. While MSC does have a spend based program already in place it is much more flexible than the one Carnival has rolled out and only requires you cruise once every 5 years to maintain your whatever status reached.
The big question really is, due to Carnival’s size, will other cruise lines also switch over to revenue based yearly rewards as well? I hope not. Not too many years ago NCL, my cruise line of choice, expanded their elite levels. On any given cruise the number of top (Diamond and Ambassador) is not that many and the mid-level perks are manageable and do, IMO, drive folks to continue to sail with NCL.
For now the other cruise lines should be licking their chops as my guess is they have a chance to win over a bunch of previously 100% Carnival loyal guests and show them what they have been missing. It will be interesting to see what they do to try to win them over.
What do you think about the Carnival program changes? Are you impacted by them? Are you a big spender with Carnival and will benefit from these changes? Will the program changes impact your choice to sail with Carnival? Let us know in the comment section below. – René
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I sent an email to Carnival sharing my concerns and have not heard back! I spent twenty years and a lot of money to reach Platinum status and it will be useless and gone in a flash! Most disappointing I am two cruises away from Diamond level. Ironically, before receiving this Carnival information I had already booked two cruises on RC for some reason and now I know why! Done with Carnival! Many better choices these days. Carnival is only hurting themselves. Time to switch everyone!
@Marc – I feel your pain. If NCL were to do this to me I would be crushed.
This a a big mistake by Carnival. Keep those loyal customers happy didn’t cost them that much. All they did is pour them back into the sea as free agents and even pissed off a bunch of them. We are talking 20+ year loyalty levels for many of these customers. RCCL and NCL must be thrilled.
Have you seen the thugs on carnival lately! There doing u a favor! Maybe on longer international cruises u would still have civilized cruiser! The us cruise have turned in spirit airlines!
Something tells me most of the thugs don’t have elite status but I could be wrong.
With Carnival, I love getting priority boarding & free laundry. Their credit card isn’t compelling for retaining status because the spend required to achieve anything meaningful is way too much. Taking away status means I wont even bother looking at their offers after my status expires. But maybe their wanted customers are new or infrequent cruisers? ♀️. Most of the cruises I have been on with them have had majority blue (first time) and red (2nd cruise up to mid gold tier ), even though they say the reason for the changes is that there too many upper tier cruisers. Personally, I just love cruising and there are plenty of cruise lines for that