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Royal Caribbean Group has announced an interesting innovation in cruise line loyalty programs – Points Choice. This will introduce a compelling value proposition across Royal Caribbean Group’s three brands, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea.
What is Points Choice?
Basically, the program will allow guests to apply the loyalty points earn on any of the Group’s brands toward their program of choice. For example, if you book a Celebrity sailing, but wish to achieve a higher level of status in the Royal Caribbean Crown & Anchor Society, you can credit the loyalty points you earn on the Celebrity cruise to your Royal Caribbean account. According to Royal Caribbean,
The Bottom Line
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I am not sure if you can exchange the points that you have already earned on Celebrity to RCL and visa versa. My interpretation of this announcement is for going forward, if you sail on any of the 3 brands (Silverseas, RCL, or Celebrity) you have the option to choice which brand’s loyalty program you want to earn. I maybe wrong, but like you said, the devil is in the detail.
Right now, RCL’s Crown and Anchor program is like a run away train without breaks. Way to easy to make Pinnacle and way Too Many of them. It is similar to the situation that Carnival is having. I have seen sailings that have over 480 Pinnacles. If there there are 480 Pinnacles, there usually will be 1.5X the number of Diamond+ (about 720), and another 2X Diamonds. Therefore, you are talking about over 1000 guests who can drink for FREE on the ship. This definitely cuts into the company’s profitability, and it is not sustainable. Royal Caribbean is trying hard to spread the number out to the other 2 brands by encouraging guests to go on to Celebrity; but they really need to attach the core of the problem. 1) stop the double point earning for solo guests who pays are little as 1.25 cruise fare and 2) end the lifetime loyalty benefits by requiring periodic renewals (ex: every 2 years or such) like hotels and airlines.