Crown and Anchor and Using "Free" Cruise Cert Won at BINGO

Hi all! I have asked about a dozen people at Royal Caribbean and I have gotten a dozen different answers, so I thought I'd come to the experts :)

I won a "free" cruise playing BINGO on my Alaska cruise in May. Apparently this was right around when RCI changed the program to not be a free cruise (previously limited to an inside cabin on a 7 night or less Caribbean sailing), to be essentially a gift certificate to be used towards any cruise of your choosing (though must be used within a year). We have to pay the difference of anything beyond that amount (totally fine!) based on our cruise/category choices and taxes/fees/gratuities.

My question is- the certificate says NOTHING about whether you can earn Crown and Anchor points and everyone I've spoken to at C&A and with Comp Cruises gives me a different answer. There seems to be a lot of confusion because the old program didn't, which sort of made sense because you weren't paying for it. None of the fine print says anything and I've had people adamantly tell me will earn points and others adamantly tell me we won't. It also says nothing about combining it with other programs, and our current booking combined easily with the current "sale" and OBC offerings.

The reason I ask is because we're looking at booking a JS, which we'll forego unless we get the C&A points (as we try to tier climb before they change the levels again, we care way more about the points than the size of the room). We're stoked to win, we just don't see the need to pay extra unless we're getting the cruise nights. If not, we'll happily sail in an inside room.

So my questions are:

1) Has anyone booked and taken a cruise under the NEW comp cruise program and did you earn C&A points? Or any anecdotal stories you avid cruisers may have.

2) Does anyone have a good contact email for either someone high up in C&A or with oversight of Comp Cruises that can give me an actual definitive answer? My attempts to move up the "supervisor" ladder haven't been too successful.

Hi all! I have asked about a dozen people at Royal Caribbean and I have gotten a dozen different answers, so I thought I'd come to the experts :)

 

I won a "free" cruise playing BINGO on my Alaska cruise in May. Apparently this was right around when RCI changed the program to not be a free cruise (previously limited to an inside cabin on a 7 night or less Caribbean sailing), to be essentially a gift certificate to be used towards any cruise of your choosing (though must be used within a year). We have to pay the difference of anything beyond that amount (totally fine!) based on our cruise/category choices and taxes/fees/gratuities.

 

My question is- the certificate says NOTHING about whether you can earn Crown and Anchor points and everyone I've spoken to at C&A and with Comp Cruises gives me a different answer. There seems to be a lot of confusion because the old program didn't, which sort of made sense because you weren't paying for it. None of the fine print says anything and I've had people adamantly tell me will earn points and others adamantly tell me we won't. It also says nothing about combining it with other programs, and our current booking combined easily with the current "sale" and OBC offerings.

 

The reason I ask is because we're looking at booking a JS, which we'll forego unless we get the C&A points (as we try to tier climb before they change the levels again, we care way more about the points than the size of the room). We're stoked to win, we just don't see the need to pay extra unless we're getting the cruise nights. If not, we'll happily sail in an inside room.

 

So my questions are:

1) Has anyone booked and taken a cruise under the NEW comp cruise program and did you earn C&A points? Or any anecdotal stories you avid cruisers may have.

2) Does anyone have a good contact email for either someone high up in C&A or with oversight of Comp Cruises that can give me an actual definitive answer? My attempts to move up the "supervisor" ladder haven't been too successful.

I haven't had experience with this "new" program you speak of, but I did win a cruise playing BINGO onboard Oasis in 2014. I can tell you some of the info you have posted here about the old program (which you have undoubtedly been told by Royal) isn't even correct. Lol

First (this is all the old program, but I would think it would be similar)... The certificate was for an Oceanview room (not inside). Second, you were partially correct in that if you simply took the "free" Oceanview cabin, you would not earn points, However if you paid Anything at all to upgrade you received the points for whatever room you upgraded into. In my example we upgraded to a JS for about $500 and did indeed receive the double points. Third, there was a dedicated "Comp Cruises" department which exclusively handled free cruise bookings, does that still exist? Or did they dump all of those responsibilities on the regular booking agents under this "new" program? I ask because those Comp Cruises booking agents (there were few and only open M-F) were very knowledgeable about the process. No other agents could book or modify our "free" reservation.

Hopefully that helped, even if only a little. Lol

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You won a trip.

But you really just want C&A points instead?

I haven't had experience with this "new" program you speak of, but I did win a cruise playing BINGO onboard Oasis in 2014. I can tell you some of the info you have posted here about the old program (which you have undoubtedly been told by Royal) isn't even correct. Lol

 

First (this is all the old program, but I would think it would be similar)... The certificate was for an Oceanview room (not inside). Second, you were partially correct in that if you simply took the "free" Oceanview cabin, you would not earn points, However if you paid Anything at all to upgrade you received the points for whatever room you upgraded into. In my example we upgraded to a JS for about $500 and did indeed receive the double points. Third, there was a dedicated "Comp Cruises" department which exclusively handled free cruise bookings, does that still exist? Or did they dump all of those responsibilities on the regular booking agents under this "new" program? I ask because those Comp Cruises booking agents (there were few and only open M-F) were very knowledgeable about the process. No other agents could book or modify our "free" reservation.

 

Hopefully that helped, even if only a little. Lol

I have a friend who had a similar experience with a "free" cruise won in a slots tournament. He won a 5-day cruise in an OV stateroom. All he had to pay were "taxes", which were much more than the taxes shown on Royal's website. I think in this case "taxes" also included non-commissionable fees. He chose to upgrade to a JS and had to pay the difference in fare and received double C&A points.

Although not a won comped cruise, but does speak of a free cruise and getting points. When we used credit card points from a RC credit card they charged us $1/per person for cruise fare so that we would get the points. This was last March, we were told if we paid nothing we would get no points but if we paid even $1 in cruise fare we would get the points for the cruise. We paid the $1 + port fees + taxes + gratuities and we did get the points.

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We won a free 7 day cruise on bingo. Had a year to take it and booked a Western Carribean balcony cabin. Great deal, but we did not get points for the cruise. Since you don't pay for it, you do not get the points. Keep in mind, it a free cruise!

We won a cruise in March of 2015 on Quantum playing bingo. Not sure if that falls under the old or new. Restrictions were inside, 6-8 night caribbean sailing, ship over 365 days old, no sailing over holidays or during peak season, but sail within a year. Our cruise was pretty eventful, with a huge norovirus or something outbreak the week before resulting in delayed embarkation, top to bottom scrubbing, chemical cleaning product smells, people not getting into staterooms until after 11pm, to name a few issues. Oh, and the ship was starting to transition to the Asian crew in preparation for the trip to China and there was a lot of training happening, reduced number of English-speaking crew members, and to make a long story short we were told we just needed to BOOK the cruise within a year, not complete it. It did say it on the certificate but what we were told and what was printed was different.

I followed the instructions on the back of the certificate for booking by calling the number listed 11 months after winning the certificate and was told I was too late. They even pointed out to me exactly where on the certificate it said complete the cruise within 12 months. But after explaining that we were told something different they gave me an e-mail address where I could contact someone who could approve an exception for me and extend my cruise certificate's expiration date. I sent an e-mail to: compcruises@rccl.com and explained the circumstances of our sailing and the Revenue Manager approved an extension.

We did pay for an upgrade to a balcony room, so I expect to receive C&A points for this cruise. I can report back when we return next month if we did receive them.

Free Cruise Certificates

If you pay ANYTHING extra for your room besides port fees, taxes & gratuities YOU WILL receive C&A points.

That means if you pay ANY amount for your upgrade you will receive the correlated amount of points.

JS and up will receive double points.

Just to upset everyone............if you get a completely free cruise from the casino, you still get C&A points. If you get a completely free cruise from the casino in a JS or higher, you get double points.

Just to upset everyone............if you get a completely free cruise from the casino, you still get C&A points. If you get a completely free cruise from the casino in a JS or higher, you get double points.

I guess they figure you've paid for it one way or another.

Just to upset everyone............if you get a completely free cruise from the casino, you still get C&A points. If you get a completely free cruise from the casino in a JS or higher, you get double points.

This is completely correct, and here is the reason: The casino and Royal are run as separate entities. When the casino gives you a "free" cruise, the casino actually pays the full fare to Royal for your cabin (with anticipation you will gamble more, the same as any land-based casino). Because of this, your "free" room is considered a full-fare room by Royal.

I've won 2 free cruises playing poker onboard and this was explained to me both times (several years apart by different people). I got points for both "free" sailings as well.

Unfortunately BINGO is not a casino game, hence the different rules... Although I upgraded my free BINGO cruise to a JS and got the double points.

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Free Cruise Certificates

 

If you pay ANYTHING extra for your room besides port fees, taxes & gratuities YOU WILL receive C&A points.

 

That means if you pay ANY amount for your upgrade you will receive the correlated amount of points.

 

JS and up will receive double points.

I did not receive C&A points and I paid to upgrade to a balcony. I called multiple times to ask and was told each time that no points are awarded for the bingo cruise.

Hi all! I have asked about a dozen people at Royal Caribbean and I have gotten a dozen different answers, so I thought I'd come to the experts :)

 

I won a "free" cruise playing BINGO on my Alaska cruise in May. Apparently this was right around when RCI changed the program to not be a free cruise (previously limited to an inside cabin on a 7 night or less Caribbean sailing), to be essentially a gift certificate to be used towards any cruise of your choosing (though must be used within a year). We have to pay the difference of anything beyond that amount (totally fine!) based on our cruise/category choices and taxes/fees/gratuities.

 

My question is- the certificate says NOTHING about whether you can earn Crown and Anchor points and everyone I've spoken to at C&A and with Comp Cruises gives me a different answer. There seems to be a lot of confusion because the old program didn't, which sort of made sense because you weren't paying for it. None of the fine print says anything and I've had people adamantly tell me will earn points and others adamantly tell me we won't. It also says nothing about combining it with other programs, and our current booking combined easily with the current "sale" and OBC offerings.

 

The reason I ask is because we're looking at booking a JS, which we'll forego unless we get the C&A points (as we try to tier climb before they change the levels again, we care way more about the points than the size of the room). We're stoked to win, we just don't see the need to pay extra unless we're getting the cruise nights. If not, we'll happily sail in an inside room.

 

So my questions are:

1) Has anyone booked and taken a cruise under the NEW comp cruise program and did you earn C&A points? Or any anecdotal stories you avid cruisers may have.

2) Does anyone have a good contact email for either someone high up in C&A or with oversight of Comp Cruises that can give me an actual definitive answer? My attempts to move up the "supervisor" ladder haven't been too successful.

I’m curious how you went about booking your cruise. We also won a bingo cruise and have emailed the comp cruise department to book but haven’t heard back. Did you book directly through them? Thanks!

I’m curious how you went about booking your cruise. We also won a bingo cruise and have emailed the comp cruise department to book but haven’t heard back. Did you book directly through them? Thanks!

You have to actually mail in the certificate you won, but don't forget to write your contact info on the cert and your crown and anchor number. It sounds obvious but there isn't a place for it... and I may have forgotten.

Once you mail in the cert someone from Comp Cruises will contact you in a week or two. It was a really frustrating process. I was used to having flexibility and control over my bookings by doing them online. With Comp Cruises you're dealing with having a person book for you and they aren't really clear on how the certs work, they have apparently revamped the program and the people in Comp Cruises don't necessarily know/understand all the details.

A few things I learned:

1) You will get Crown and Anchor Points.

2) You can make changes to your booking once it's been made but those changes still need to be made through the Comp Cruises department, and will still be subject to the limits of the cert (i.e. cruise must be 1 year from when you won). It's frustrating and the only way to contact them is their email address... even the C&A can't help.

3) You need to pay your $500 deposit to confirm your booking (or whatever difference there may be between the cert value and the cost of your cruise).