Carnival Mastercard

[elsplace2]

Exactly! I remember getting the card thinking that would be easy money until I read the fine print about the transfer fee.

 

I use my Carnival MC for all my purchases and pay it off each month. I do not use it for OBC, rather I simply take the $ value off my MC bill. I've gotten $700 back from mine.

 

If you use it for OBC, then you kinda screw yourself. If you were to run up $400 worth of spending that was offset by the OBC from the card, then you get no new MC point. Instead, if you rack up the charges of $400 and have put to your MC, then you get $800 in benefits. Then simply pay off the card when the bill comes using the $400 you accumulated.

 

 

 

It is actually VERY easy to use. The deal is you don't apply it for a Carnival cruise purchase at the time you book the cruise. Rather make the cruise purchase and then when the cruise hits your MC activity, you redeem accumulated points against any qualifying purchase. You have months to do this after the fact and can use it for other travel related things such as hotel rooms with qualifying hotels. If you have 37,500 points at the time you book a cruise, the value of the cruise will add to those points. So, after booking a $1,250 cruise, you now have 40,000 points which is redeemable for $400 off of your MC bill. Remember Carnival purchase are worth double points. It takes no time, just a few mouse clicks and nobody else gets involved.

 

You can only cash in your points for a statement credit if you have a charge from Carnival on your account within the last 180 days. Also, you can only get a statement credit that will cover up the amount of the Carnival charge on your account.

 

For instance, if you have a charge from Carnival for $200 in the last 180 days, then you can only get a statement credit up to $200 (provided you have enough points). You can't get a credit of over $200, even if you have enough points to do so.

 

If you do have a qualifying Carnival charge within the required time period, go to Rewards, Redeem FunPoints, then Pay with FunPoints. That will take you to a screen that shows all eligible travel charges which you can use your FunPoints to pay for, and how many points it will cost to reimburse you for each charge.

 

 

I'm a bit confused? I haven't cashed in my points yet and have been waiting for the cruise to get closer....but we have about 35,000 points which I was going to get $400 OBC once I hit 40,000 points. But then after reading this thread, I was thinking of taking some of the suggestions here, to just have it go towards the statement balance after I purchase some OBC. (Which I didn't even know that was an option, because I never saw a statement balance option there and still don't.)

 

Of course all my purchase on the card were NOT Carnival purchases...just every day stuff like gas, groceries, etc. with some Carnival purchases including the down payment and a regular payment.....

 

Anyway, JW said they cashed their points for $700 statement credit. So JW were all your points via Carnival purchases?

[suzycruiser2]

Wow...I never knew that you could redeem for travel other than Carnival. I just went in and checked and I had several hotel stays listed that I could redeem points for a statement credit. I pay my card in full each month, so I am just going to wait and earn some more points and file for a credit after my October cruise.

[Mizzouaholic]

Did you have to pay the cruise off, then use your points to get the statement credit, or did you use the points to pay for the cruise directly? If you used them to pay for the cruise - how did you go about doing this? Did you have to call the credit card company or could you do it yourself online?

 

You just have to put have a Carnival purchase on your card in order to redeem your points towards your credit card statement. So if you wanted to, you could just put down the deposit on your criuse of say $400 on your Carnival Mastercard and then usually within 48 hours it will be posted to your card, and then you can either go online or give the credit card company a call and get your credit applied. If you have $1000 worth of credit you can go ahead and apply it to your credit card bill even though you have only put $400 down!

[sweetcurves]

Someone talked us into applying while were on board as just as I was about to finish the form he told me it was for Americans only. Boo.

[Brittasbay]

I just got the card on my September cruise this year and I already have enough points between the 5,000 points for the first purchase and regular purchases to get $100 OBC. DH and I are using the card to pay all utility bills, to put gas in the cars, buy groceries, and the day to day purchases. Then we pay off the card weekly so we never are paying interest. At this rate I figure we will have about $500 or more in OBC when we cruise sometime next year. You just need to be careful not to carry a balance on the card to make it worth while.