BOGO Sale

[Don Pedro]

You Better Read The Fine Print!

 

If you booked your cruise with the BOGOHO pricing, then you CANNOT use the points for free cruise. You may ONLY use points for free cruise if you pay FULL PRICE for that cruise.:eek:

 

We got stabbed with this when I tried to use my points last year. RCI is destroying perks that they offer and then take away. :mad:

I have stopped using my BOA card, and I called BOA and told them that RCI is "Hosing Them". :rolleyes:

 

The irony is that with the BOGOHOAX you are still paying FULL PRICE. RCCL just adjusted the base price up so the price stayed about the same as pre BOGOHO.

[rudeney]

The irony is that with the BOGOHOAX you are still paying FULL PRICE. RCCL just adjusted the base price up so the price stayed about the same as pre BOGOHO.

 

Yeah, the BOGOHO really seems like a scam to keep people from using their credit card points or other discounts. There are FTC regulations that prohibit "continuous sales", but all they have to do is have one day per year where the sale ends and they skirt that rule.

[MNfamilycruiser]

Yes, I just did that today. It was a little bit cheaper ($60) to remove the BOGO and then use the free cruise than it was to keep the BOGO and take $500 off. (This was for a 3 day Bahamas cruise). I went through a travel agent and they needed to call Royal to figure it out, but it was suggested to my by the people at the "My Cruise Points" redemption call center. As far as I can figure, the best value is when the difference between the minimum OV and the room you want is the smallest.

I discovered one glitch - using the free cruise coupon you can not use a balcony/suite discount, using the money off the cruise you can. Using the travel agent website it wasn't obvious that my original booking included that discount. And the agent thought we would be able to keep it. Oh well - it was still $10 cheaper this way and we got more money in OBC from the travel agent.

[KelJ]

I too am waiting for the BOGO to end, even just for one day! I have 50,000 points, so I can get a free 3 or 4 night cruise in the cheapest outside cabin (up to $1,000) or $500 off the cruise price, so the $1,000 is clearly more valuable to me than the $500. When they remove the BOGO, which has a $300 value, the $1,000 doesn't cover the cost of the cruise I'm interested in.

 

As an aside, on the 4-night cruise I'm looking at, balconies are cheaper than the outsides!

 

Let's say the BOGO disappears and I book my free cruise with points. Can I then upgrade to a balcony and use my diamond balcony discount??

[MNfamilycruiser]

I too am waiting for the BOGO to end, even just for one day! I have 50,000 points, so I can get a free 3 or 4 night cruise in the cheapest outside cabin (up to $1,000) or $500 off the cruise price, so the $1,000 is clearly more valuable to me than the $500. When they remove the BOGO, which has a $300 value, the $1,000 doesn't cover the cost of the cruise I'm interested in.

 

As an aside, on the 4-night cruise I'm looking at, balconies are cheaper than the outsides!

 

Let's say the BOGO disappears and I book my free cruise with points. Can I then upgrade to a balcony and use my diamond balcony discount??

You can upgrade, but you can't use your discount. You can combine the discounts with money off, but not with a free cruise - even if you are then upgrading and paying more.

I don't think the BOGO is going to end anytime soon....

I was afraid the points would expire before the BOGO ended - so we used them for a quick trip this year.

[foxgoodrich]

same here, switched to the Barclay's Arriva Plus. yes I pay $89 a year for it, but get 2 points for every dollar spend, not just royal. We charge everything and pay it off every month so the annual fee pays for itself very quickly. Can redeem it for any travel, not just Royal. And when used for travel, they immediately give you 5% of the redemption points back

 

Other thing I love about the new card is points are instant. The minute I spend the $$, the points show up. When I redeem them it is immediate

 

Not like Royal where I redeemed the last of my Royal points for OBC months ago and am still waiting for them to get applied to my Oct and Nov cruise. It is a pain to have to keep checking to see if they finally put the points on.

 

As soon as my final Royal points are done, I will cancel the cards or take them down to the lowest $ limit I can. Will probably just cancel as the hit to my credit score will be minimal. Have not used the Royal cards in months-as soon as I found out they were going to restrict the free companion fares, the card became worthless to me.

 

I could be wrong about this, but I don't think you'll see the OBC from point redemption on your reservation. We've used points for OBC several times, and it's never shown up on the reservation. I just bring my copy of the confirmation with me on the cruise. Our OBC obtained this way has always been applied to our account onboard on the 2nd day of the cruise. (except one time…see below…)

 

I did have a problem only once - actually it was about a year ago on NOS. I had redeemed points for two $50 OBCs and only got ONE $50 OBC applied to the account. I went to Guest Services - they could see what was wrong, but they could not fix it on the ship. They said all OBC is applied in Miami now (probably through Royal's stellar IT system...:rolleyes:) so they kept calling, faxing, and emailing Miami and calling me to report the progress which was nil. Miami's response was canned "The OBC has already been applied to the customer's account." The GS people were more upset than I was! Finally on day 6 the GS Supervisor asked me to bring my documentation back and he faxed it again, this time to a supervisor in Miami. That night we got a response that Miami could now see the error but it was now too late in the cruise to apply the OBC to the shipboard account, so they would credit $50 on the credit card. We got the $50 credit on the credit card a few days later.

 

The irony of the situation is…I'd have spent that $50 on the ship if they'd given it to me! As it turned out I never got it onboard. So I got 50 actual bucks back instead of that much worth of RC goods/services. And it cost Royal $50 to give it to me on my credit card. Had I spent that $50 on the ship, their cost probably would have been about $15!

 

So…lesson to be learned is ALWAYS TAKE A COPY of the confirmation of your OBC order and the email you get from them.

Judy

[Goodtime Cruizin]

same here, switched to the Barclay's Arriva Plus. yes I pay $89 a year for it, but get 2 points for every dollar spend, not just royal. We charge everything and pay it off every month so the annual fee pays for itself very quickly. Can redeem it for any travel, not just Royal. And when used for travel, they immediately give you 5% of the redemption points back

 

Other thing I love about the new card is points are instant. The minute I spend the $$, the points show up. When I redeem them it is immediate

 

Not like Royal where I redeemed the last of my Royal points for OBC months ago and am still waiting for them to get applied to my Oct and Nov cruise. It is a pain to have to keep checking to see if they finally put the points on.

 

As soon as my final Royal points are done, I will cancel the cards or take them down to the lowest $ limit I can. Will probably just cancel as the hit to my credit score will be minimal. Have not used the Royal cards in months-as soon as I found out they were going to restrict the free companion fares, the card became worthless to me.

 

I'm interested in the card. How can I determine the number of points needed for a cruise? Can this be determined on the RCL site?

[MNfamilycruiser]

I'm interested in the card. How can I determine the number of points needed for a cruise? Can this be determined on the RCL site?

Yes - they have a link. If you look at the bottom of a page you will see the Royal Caribbean Signature Visa. Here is the page that list the rewards:

 

 

http://media.royalcaribbean.com/content/en_US/pdf/visa/royal_web_rewards_chart_6-17-15.pdf

Edited August 26, 2015 by MNfamilycruiser

[granddutchess]

I believe you can also use your RCCL Visa points on Celebrity which does not seem to have BOGO sales.