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Some American Express cards offering $100 of $500 NCL Cruises

Sizzlechest

By Sizzlechest,
in Norwegian Cruise Line

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Vacationlover2

Vacationlover2

Posted
Posted

I sail the end of March and was hoping to spend $500 on my onboard account linked to my AMEX and get the $100 back. I noticed in the terms and conditions of the offer it is good on booking a sailing. Do you think I will get the $100 back using it onboard?

 

Thanks!

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Regguy

Regguy

Posted
Posted
I sail the end of March and was hoping to spend $500 on my onboard account linked to my AMEX and get the $100 back. I noticed in the terms and conditions of the offer it is good on booking a sailing. Do you think I will get the $100 back using it onboard?

 

Thanks!

 

I think you would want to know how onboard charges tend to post, but I think there's a decent chance that won't work. If you look earlier in the thread (post 73) there is a report of someone pre-purchasing OBC and having it post correctly, so that may be a better route. (Obviously, though, it's a small sample size.)

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dijid

dijid

Posted
Posted
I sail the end of March and was hoping to spend $500 on my onboard account linked to my AMEX and get the $100 back. I noticed in the terms and conditions of the offer it is good on booking a sailing. Do you think I will get the $100 back using it onboard?

 

Thanks!

 

I got the credit for buying $500 worth of OBC. (It appeared two days after making the charge.) No guarantee it will work with onboard spending.

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janepaul

janepaul

Posted
Posted
Bummer! I just updated my Costco card to a blue in hopes of getting this promo and it's not available :(

 

Yeah, we just got our new Blue Cash cards too. I was able to load it on DH's account last week because his online profile was already established from the Costco card. But, we just got our cards in the mail yesterday and I tried to load it on mine and it seems to be gone. Oh well, one offer is better than nothing.

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EllieinNJ

EllieinNJ

Posted
Posted

We have four different Amex cards, but only three had the offer. After paying in $500 increments per person ($1000 total each card), that left a $394 balance. Our TA was able to add one gratuity to bring the balance a little over $500 for the final payment. Grand total savings-$500.

 

Thank you Cruise Critic posters. We would never have known about this if I hadn't read it here.

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Kcruiser2014

Kcruiser2014

Posted
Posted
Yeah, we just got our new Blue Cash cards too. I was able to load it on DH's account last week because his online profile was already established from the Costco card. But, we just got our cards in the mail yesterday and I tried to load it on mine and it seems to be gone. Oh well, one offer is better than nothing.

 

 

Try unlinking the card that has the offer loaded from the online profile. Then log out and log back in, and it magically reappeared.I had to do that with another offer after I loaded to first card and the offer disappeared on the other. Then I loaded the offer, and linked the first card back to the online account. Still had offer on both cards and used them both.

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Regguy

Regguy

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According to this thread, they last did the offer in September. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2259167

 

Travel blogs have recently been all over Amex offers and how to use them, and in particular the strategy of how to add them to multiple cards and split up payments. So, my guess is this is going to end up being more costly to NCL than prior times they've offered the promo, and I imagine it may become clear the reason that's happening is spreading $500 payments across multiple cards. But, hopefully, the travel hacking community is still sufficiently small that they will continue to offer this promo in the future.

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Regguy

Regguy

Posted
Posted
My understanding is that this offer is from Amex--not NCL. Amex just trying to get people to make large charges on their card such as cruises.

 

My understanding is actually the opposite. I believe that vendors pay, in the main, for the Amex offers, not Amex. Yes, there's a synergy, so they don't pay dollar for dollar for the statement credits since Amex gets to keep its merchant fee, but these are largely funded by the underlying companies who are trying to get business through the offers. Even if you book a $5,000 cruise, Amex's merchant fee is less than $100, and they also have to pay at least $50 for the Amex points (or cashback) you earn on the transaction. Certainly, it's attractive for Amex because larger ticket purchases also include a higher chance that the customer will pay over time, but I don't think Amex would come close to recouping its money on this sort of offer.

 

From NCL's perspective, this probably seemed like a relatively cheap promo on paper -- it's really not all that different from the $100 off deal they essentially offer for onboard bookings if you assume people will use the offer for new bookings and not spread $500 payments across multiple cards. But whether it's Amex or NCL, I don't think we're going to see this promo again in quite this same format if NCL figures out how people are using it.

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EllieinNJ

EllieinNJ

Posted
Posted

Having 3 different cards with two names on each, a problem can happen and in our case did. Our TA accidentally billed two $500 payment on the same name and card. When we saw it on the Amex website, we immediately called the TA and she called NCL and fixed it. It took about two more days for the change to appear and about another week for the NCL credit on the wrong card to process. Everything now is good. $500 total in statement credits.

 

We usually pay the final balance with our AAA Travel card, which gives us around $75 back in cash for the cruise part of the trip. I think we did a little better.

 

For anyone still interested, our cards were the Blue Sky, Blue Cash and Business Platinum.

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pathubia

pathubia

Posted
Posted (edited)

Today I made two purchases on NCL.com, one was for an excursion and the other was for onboard credit for the same cruise. When the pending charges showed up online on my amex, it was list as two separate charges and I thought, oh crap, I wont get the $100 credit, then I got an email from AMEX telling me to watch for the credit!! Woo hoo!! Even if it hadn't worked, I was going to apply $500 towards an upcoming cruise, but now I don't need to!!:cool:

Edited by pathubia
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Mistizoom

Mistizoom

Posted
Posted (edited)

So I used one Amex card to buy $500 OBC for last week's cruise and it worked great. I still have the promo available to use on another Amex (should have used it for OBC on this cruise, as I went way over the $500 but too late now). I want to book Escape for March 2018 and have a Cruise Next certifcate to do so. What would be the best way to use the Amex offer on a new booking this far out - for payment on the cruise and/or pre-pay gratuities or to buy OBC? (is OBC even available to purchase far out?) I anticipate if the price goes down I would call and try to get the lower price and cancel and rebook if necessary - the bottom line price is much more important to me than any promos I would lose. So want to make that as smooth as possible and not lose the Amex promo a few months down the line if I have to change my booking.

Edited by Mistizoom
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zteamtwo

zteamtwo

Posted
Posted

As long as you have signed up for the offer on another Amex card, you should be able to charge at least $500 to NCL--perhaps the initial payment on your 2018 cruise. Just make sure you make the charge before the cutoff date.

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Mistizoom

Mistizoom

Posted
Posted (edited)
As long as you have signed up for the offer on another Amex card, you should be able to charge at least $500 to NCL--perhaps the initial payment on your 2018 cruise. Just make sure you make the charge before the cutoff date.

 

Thanks, that is what I will probably do. I have the future cruise certificate for the deposit (so $100 saved there also), but I will put another $500 on the Amex before April 30. Just trying to decide if I should book with NCL now or wait until my warehouse club TA posts March 2018 cruises. Looks like the current promos are good through April 10.

Edited by Mistizoom
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