Funpoints Calculator Warning

[scottcruises]

I wanted to give cardmembers a heads up so they don't fall into the trap that we did. As many of you know there is a "funpoints calculator" available on the carnival/barclays funpoints card site. We relied on that based on some of the comments here about it's accuracy/usefulness to book a cruise. To this moment all over the site are buttons and text saying "see what your funpoints are worth" and as most of you know that launches the popup calculator.

 

That calculator will tell you 135,000 points is worth $2000. It will give you similar figures +/- depending on the input. It's a great tool - if it were accurate.

 

We went ahead and booked a cruise, great room, great ship, the process was painless. Following the instructions I went ahead and used the carnival card. A day later it hit the statement online and I was able to click on the handy button to redeem the points. One problem, the dollar value was a little off from the calculators and phone reps. Not $10 or $100, 50% off. The calculator was totally wrong.

 

Calls and emails to Barclay's pin the blame on Carnival. Calls to Carnival result in calls back to Barclay's. We've been told the plan changed after we booked the cruise which is false, we were told the calculator was "just" changed which is false, the same errors exist today. In short there's no economic incentive for either company to react to fix the problem because they both benefit financially. Carnival gets people booking cruises based on a false expectation of rewards points or people that upgrade the length or level of cruise like us. Barclay's gets people to use their cards which generates revenues for them in the form of the merchant fees. When the payout isn't what people expect it's not like we can go back and reverse out the 100k we just ran on the card on which they generated revenue in fees they charge to the merchants.

 

We're members in lots of rewards programs. I've never come across one where the requirement is that you book a non-refundable cruise, have that non-refundable cruise hit your statement and then and only then can you accurately know what the "rewards" are worth. A linear points based system would make much more sense.

 

To tell people via the online tool they actively promote on their site that they can expect $xxxx dollars only to deliver 50% of that...well heads up to all Carnival travelers using this card. It could happen to you and if the percentages are as far off for you as they were for us that $4000 cruise you thought was going to be free may well be $2000 still.

 

I'm sure the cruise will be fantastic, but the funpoints program needs some clarity fast and someone to take responsiblity in the event of difficulty. I've cruised on Carnival before and been thrilled and I'm sure I will be this time. The most frustrating aspect of the ordeal so far is just that nobody seems to "get" the problem or they are just trained to delay and stall until people give up. This isnt hard to grasp the reps on the phone and the calculator on the site isn't accurate and it is misleading. Fix it!

[tytan]

Try disputing the charges with the CC company as you were not expecting or willing to authorize the additional amount. Opening a dispute might force someone to deal with the problem sooner rather than later.

[MEOWSMURPHY]

Did you book on Carnival? When you use the calculator it automatically enters Carnival and that indeed comes out close to the 2K for 135K miles., acutally when I did it the points were 133,333, but if you are on any of the other lines then it changes points required...for instance I just entered Holland America and for a 2K cruise price it's telling me I need 266,667 points...just wondering if that might be the confusion......

[jcool]

I have this card to when I was opening this card I was told that I would get 2points for ever Carnival ship and on their sister ship then when I got this card my Sister was making plans to go on a Princess cruise I told my Sister to us my card so she did when I got the bill I saw all I got was 1point for ever dollar spend so I card the card up and ask them what happened to my other points they told me that it is 1point on any other cruise line I told them that someone at your office told me that it is 2points on sister cruise ship. And that their was a mistake so all I get was 1point for ever dollar spend.

[MEOWSMURPHY]

I have this card to when I was opening this card I was told that I would get 2points for ever Carnival ship and on their sister ship then when I got this card my Sister was making plans to go on a Princess cruise I told my Sister to us my card so she did when I got the bill I saw all I got was 1point for ever dollar spend so I card the card up and ask them what happened to my other points they told me that it is 1point on any other cruise line I told them that someone at your office told me that it is 2points on sister cruise ship. And that their was a mistake so all I get was 1point for ever dollar spend.

 

WOW..someone steered you wrong...all the literature I received with my card indicated any charges for Carnival would have double points and all the rest would be 1 point per $$..have they stopped including that literature with the card? If so I'm sorry for the misinformation you received..some people swear by the card..I'm one of them...last year we took a trip to the Panama Canal in an aft cabin and the price of the cruise, all excurions and our S & S card were paid with points...it was fantastic..others swear by different cards...guess it's "up to the beholder"...

[scottcruises]

Try disputing the charges with the CC company as you were not expecting or willing to authorize the additional amount. Opening a dispute might force someone to deal with the problem sooner rather than later.

I booked directly through Carnival and used the Carnival Funpoints Mastercard which is issued by Barclay's. Technically speaking we kept it all in house.

 

Did you book on Carnival? When you use the calculator it automatically enters Carnival and that indeed comes out close to the 2K for 135K miles., acutally when I did it the points were 133,333, but if you are on any of the other lines then it changes points required...for instance I just entered Holland America and for a 2K cruise price it's telling me I need 266,667 points...just wondering if that might be the confusion......

 

We booked on Carnival.com for a Carnival Cruise. We used the Carnival Funpoints Mastecard issued by Barclays. The calculator and their phone reps tell you exactly what you report, 133,000 points is worth $2000 in statement credits for a cruise on Carnival, 120,000 points is worth $1800. BUT that isn't the case at all, 133,000 points is worth about $1300 and 120,000 is worth a measely $1200. It's entirely misleading. And like I said even worse you can't find any of this out until AFTER you've booked the cruise (non refundable) and AFTER you've already been billed on the Mastercard.

 

We spent an hour on a conference call with someone we could barely understand from Barclays and a nice but unhelpful person from Carnival. I sent an email to an important person at the cruise line based on advice given, she just replied now asking for more information. I've posted on the Carnival forums and the carnival representatives have ignored it. To be honest I'm kind of shocked as a past Carnival cruise guest.

 

At one point if we understood the overseas representative they were going to remove all of our points? I'm not sure if we got put into the penalty box or if this was an error in translation.

 

We are looking forward to the cruise, but it'll be our last on Carnival if we aren't offered an explanation or the money owed. Anyone with the funpoints card can see what we are saying is correct. We were told we were correct by phone reps as well. I just can't believe it's even legal, I can only imagine if you were paying for one of the monster cruises with "rewards" at 7 or 8 grand only to find out...whoops sorry we're only going to give you 3500 worth of the 7,000 in reward dollars you have. I understand this isn't a direct reflection on Carnival but it is their program. They know this problem exists and aren't doing anything about it while customers take it on the chin.

 

EDIT: Updated to reflect a response from a rep.

[scottcruises]

Just throwing up the calculator values as pulled from the Carnivan Funpoints Barclays site at 12pm PT. Again some report these are the values they got, others say no such luck (like us). It's a sliding scale with the upper end of points being worth more in terms of dollars....supposedly.

 

[abitaturbodog]

I just redeemed 25,000 points and received a $250 credit on my mastercard. It appears that they give you 10% of your total points as a credit on your card. I was pleased because I never used the FunPoints Calculator. Kinda glad that I didn't, otherwise I'd be pretty upset, just like the OP.

 

Carnival and Mastercard need to get their act together and correctly represent the fun points cash value.

 

That being said, as soon as I pay off my balance, I'm done with the Carnival Mastercard. I'll be cutting it up very soon. I understand that there are other cards that your earn bonuses with that are much better than the one Carnival offers.

[scottcruises]

I just redeemed 25,000 points and received a $250 credit on my mastercard. It appears that they give you 10% of your total points as a credit on your card. I was pleased because I never used the FunPoints Calculator. Kinda glad that I didn't, otherwise I'd be pretty upset, just like the OP.

 

Carnival and Mastercard need to get their act together and correctly represent the fun points cash value.

 

That being said, as soon as I pay off my balance, I'm done with the Carnival Mastercard. I'll be cutting it up very soon. I understand that there are other cards that your earn bonuses with that are much better than the one Carnival offers.

 

Please let me know which ones as I'm utterly disgusted by Carnival corporate staff to this point. I'd gotten an email back mid last week asking for additional information and then have never even got an acknowledgement back that something was done. You all know where it's going, nowhere.

 

Carnival doesn't care because we already got roped into spending extra money like a lot of other "funpoints" card customers, the bank doesn't care because they've got the merchant fees.

 

If they ever do anything I'll update but like I said, terrible experience so far.

[CasualGeek]

While I won't comment on the Carnival MC (I don't have one, so no experience there), I have recently done some research on Reward cards, and found that the Amex Blue Preferred, and Chase Freedom look to offer the best point/dollar return. Should be receiving an Amex Blue Preferred this week. Both have fairly high interest rates, so I wouldn't want to carry a balance on them, but I just run everything through my reward card and then pay it off twice a month.

[okwriter]

Carnival has nothing to do with it other than the credit card carrying their logo. Your beef is with the credit card company.

[scottcruises]

Carnival has nothing to do with it other than the credit card carrying their logo. Your beef is with the credit card company.

 

Partially true. It's Carnival's name and trademark being used to promote the card and they are the beneficiary of cruises booked because of their partnership with Barclay's.

 

It's pretty clear to me now from reading the web that this is a known issue and has been for more than a year. What they've done is intervened as needed but hundreds, probably thousands of customers have not gotten the rewards they should have per the calculator.

 

I'm going to bet a phone call from the CEO at Carnival would get this issue cleared up pretty quickly for all customers forever, but again the economic incentive just isn't there to FIX the problem.

 

EDIT: I have two other branded cards from Barclays both of which I use all the time. Both of the programs are easy to use and clearly spelled out which demonstrates to me at least after 5 years of having each card that Barclay's is perfectly able to adminster an effective rewards program. There's something about the interaction between the two that prevents them from being up front with the customers but instead requires them to book and pay for a cruise before they're told what their points are worth.

[iceleven]

There's something about the interaction between the two that prevents them from being up front with the customers but instead requires them to book and pay for a cruise before they're told what their points are worth.

 

If this is what is happening then I will most certainly not be using our card when it comes in the mail. We decided to sign up for one during our last cruise a couple weeks ago. Why would anyone allow big corporations to continue to put the screws to us?

[Tbay-eh]

all of these reward cards: dollars, points, airmiles, free items, rooms, gas,cruises etc - there is nothing free, someone is paying for all of this. Who - the credit card companies - I think not. If you take a look - all of these cards carry a high interest rate - anywhere from 19.5 to 27% and most (not all) have annual fees.

[scottcruises]

There's something about the interaction between the two that prevents them from being up front with the customers but instead requires them to book and pay for a cruise before they're told what their points are worth.

 

If this is what is happening then I will most certainly not be using our card when it comes in the mail. We decided to sign up for one during our last cruise a couple weeks ago. Why would anyone allow big corporations to continue to put the screws to us?

 

This is 100% true as of tonight. You cannot determine what your points are worth when it comes time to redeeming as a credit for a cruise until AFTER you book the cruise and AFTER it hits your card statement. A day or two after that you will have the options of applying a credit to the item and at that point you finally know what the points are worth. According to Carnival the hangup is that partial redemptions...let's say you book a $6,000 cruise and the calculator shows you have enough points for $3,000....well that won't happen. You may get $1200, you maybe get $1300, you may get $1500 but in all cases you cannot find out until AFTER you've been billed.

 

Keep in mind I booked directly on Carnival.com and paid directly and in full (only option given) using the Funpoints card...so it shouldn't be this difficult.

 

all of these reward cards: dollars, points, airmiles, free items, rooms, gas,cruises etc - there is nothing free, someone is paying for all of this. Who - the credit card companies - I think not. If you take a look - all of these cards carry a high interest rate - anywhere from 19.5 to 27% and most (not all) have annual fees.

 

So long as you pay the bill off in entirety most of the time it's beneficial. BUT you are right, with a program like this where we just accrued nearly 150,000 points - 150k in dollars spent on their card to find out it's worth a measely $1000ish....we would have been much better off using one of our credit union cards where even the cash rewards are a solid 1% and travel rewards are closer to 2%. What's brutal about this program is you cannot tell to make a decision.

[abitaturbodog]

Please let me know which ones as I'm utterly disgusted by Carnival corporate staff to this point. I'd gotten an email back mid last week asking for additional information and then have never even got an acknowledgement back that something was done. You all know where it's going, nowhere.

 

Carnival doesn't care because we already got roped into spending extra money like a lot of other "funpoints" card customers, the bank doesn't care because they've got the merchant fees.

 

If they ever do anything I'll update but like I said, terrible experience so far.

 

I remember seeing a lengthy thread here about the best rewards card to use for cruises. Maybe you can do a search for it.

 

I'm about 8 months away from paying off the Carnival card. I'll start looking for a replacement soon after.

[blue_water]

While I won't comment on the Carnival MC (I don't have one, so no experience there), I have recently done some research on Reward cards, and found that the Amex Blue Preferred, and Chase Freedom look to offer the best point/dollar return. Should be receiving an Amex Blue Preferred this week. Both have fairly high interest rates, so I wouldn't want to carry a balance on them, but I just run everything through my reward card and then pay it off twice a month.

 

Dollar for dollar and no annual fee we chose the Capital One Venture card, such a relief to see no restrictions or blackouts as compared to airline cards we had been using anong with 1.25 points / $1.00 spent.

[scottcruises]

Dollar for dollar and no annual fee we chose the Capital One Venture card, such a relief to see no restrictions or blackouts as compared to airline cards we had been using anong with 1.25 points / $1.00 spent.

 

We got the auto-deny for that card a year ago but only because we have several Cap 1 products each. The cash rewards are actually very fair, but the venture card seems to be the way to go and we may have to prune the fleet and go for one like this. One of the major credit unions has a similar program where you can apply points to ANY airline ticket you book through their people. The rate is very fair and the rates their agents give you are usually better than what I can find.

 

I remember seeing a lengthy thread here about the best rewards card to use for cruises. Maybe you can do a search for it.

 

I'm about 8 months away from paying off the Carnival card. I'll start looking for a replacement soon after.

 

In the end Carnival was able to nudge this along. It's kind of hard to deny the calculator is misleading and poorly labeled. I really wanted to follow up and tell people Carnival cared and got the job done. We got nowhere with the bank. Like I said there's no incentive to fix this unless enough people complain. We are very happy with the Barclay's products we have and have been happy with Carnival. Together they can do better and should do better. Spell out clearly what on board credits and partial redemptions are worth so people can budget and plan their trips.

 

In the end all that I got was that partial redemptions are worth less, sometimes? Having not booked a cruise of a value that would supposedly be able to get credited in full I have no way of verifying what I was told was true. If you are on a budget and are relying on Carnival Funpoints I suggest that you call and/or email to get the value of the points as applied to your particular cruise before booking.

 

The program itself is great. The card is great, Carnival is great as well. It's the implementation that's poor. IF partial credits are indeed valued at a lower limit there should be a radio button selector on the calculator to make that an option.

 

Thanks!