Yesterday, Carnival Cruise Line announced some major changes to its loyalty program that will roll out in June 2026. Since I’ve cruised on Carnival twice, I’m in several social media groups related to Carnival cruising. The reaction from cruise passengers to this announcement has been overwhelmingly negative..
New Carnival Rewards Loyalty Program
The current Carnival status program, VIFP (Very Important Fun Person) Club is based on number of cruise days. So if you go on a 7-night cruise, you get 7 points toward status. You can earn the highest status, Diamond status, by cruising 200 days on Carnival. Diamond status members get special perks like free bottled water, free drinks, free on-board laundry, priority embarkation and debarkation, special events and more. Once you earn a status, it doesn’t expire.
The new Carnival Rewards loyalty program could not be more different in terms of how status is earned:
- Status is no longer based on number of days cruising, but rather the dollar amount spent on cruise fare, excursions and on-board expenses: 3X stars (points) per dollar spend, 1 star per Casino point
- Status is earned over 2 years and expires after two years (for the rollout, passengers who already have Diamond status will get to keep it for 6 years; all other statuses will be retained for two years)
- To earn or re-qualify for Diamond status, you must earn 100,000 stars, which is $33,334 in spending over two years
- Passengers who own the Barclays co-branded credit card will have more opportunities to earn stars toward Carnival status
Why People are So Furious
It’s always tough to take away benefits. Cruisers who have been loyal to Carnival for years who earned Diamond status believed they would have it forever. Unless you get the co-branded credit card and put a lot of spending on it, most people will have a hard time spending $33k+ over two years on Carnival.
I sympathize with these cruisers. Right before I earned the highest status with Disney Cruise Line, DCL added an additional top-tier status (Pearl) with even higher requirements. Ugh! The bar keeps getting higher.
This Carnival Rewards loyalty program closely mirrors airline and hotel loyalty programs, which require you to continually re-earn status. I’m curious to see if other cruise lines will revamp their loyalty programs accordingly.
For me, I don’t stress too much about my status in any program, whether it’s airline, hotel or cruise. I mean sure, the extra benefits are nice. But, even though it seems like my family travels a lot, we don’t travel often enough to justify spending a ton of money and effort to earn status in any one program.
What do you think of Carnival’s new loyalty program? Do you think this will become the norm in the cruise industry in the near future?
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
MSC only requires you to cruise with them once every 5 years to keep status. I’m platinum with Carnival and diamond with MSC. Soon to be nothing with Carnival and blue diamond with MSC. Bye, Carnival and your rusty old ships that now won’t even be worth a casino offer.
Wow, that is shocking. I have a lot of cruising days with Carnival and moonlight as a travel agent, and I own a lot of Carnival stock to boot. All they did was make themselves like MSC in how the status expires. Most people don’t cruise more than once or twice a year at the most, so it will be difficult for them to ever earn much status. The earning rate on the card is a joke, so that isn’t a good idea. Most frequent cruisers know the cruise line cards are crap earning rate. I think they just made a bunch of loyal customers free agents. It cost them VERY little to keep those lifetime status folks happy.
That’s a stunningly impressive devaluation. That mentality of screwing the customer over rather than trying to earn more business by making things better has become pretty prevalent in the cruise industry. That’s why while I enjoyed the cruises I took there are very few that are worth the effort now.
Sure hope the Holland America Mariner loyalty program (HAL is owned by CCL) does not catch this Carnival Covid crud.