Help me Savvy Fun Points/Credit Card Users!

[partygirl43]

Hi All...

 

So my Grocery Chain sells Carnival Gift cards, and we get "Fuel Perks" towards gas on every $100 dollar purchase. Sometimes they have deals where they double the perks, or lower the $100 spending to $20 to receive perks. I used Carnival gift cards for my deposit and was able to save $1.20 per gallon of gas (and I have to feed my car premium gas...so it really helps)

 

 

Now I am thinking about opening a Credit Card to use to buy more Carnival gift cards at the grocery and pay the balance so I could get "Fuel Perks" AND "Fun Points". Then would I be able to use the "Fun Points" to pay my SS card at the end of the cruise?

 

I'm just trying to figure out if this is possible....TIA!!!!

[RecoveryDude]

I have the fun points mastercard, in fact I ended up with TWO credit cards, because I applied again for one cause I wanted the new duffle bag free gift, and I thought they would notice I already had an account ... but they DIDN'T and gave me another account!

 

I have found that these cards are NOT the best to accrue points. I DO use them for CCL purchases, and to pay my S&S bill ... but I no longer use them for my "everyday purchases." There are too many restrictions, and it takes too many points to really get anywhere, for example, spending $12,500 on your card will only get you a $100 OBC. You can get a slightly better "return" if you accrue the points and then redeem them for things purchased directly from carnival, but it's still not a good deal.

 

I also pay for my entire cruise using discounted CCL gift cards I buy from Verizon, AARP and Citi. The Verizon and AARP ones (which I could use my fun points mastercard to pay for) tend to sell out QUICKLY and I'm only getting single points for those purchases anyway, not double points. Mostly, I end up buying the gift cards from Citi, who almost always has them in stock cause you have to have a certain type of Citi card to access them.

 

I have a Capital One Quicksilver card, which awards me 1.5% cash back on all purchases. I use that for ALL my purchases and pay the bill in full every month. I'm racking up the cash back and "saving up" to pay for the balance due (after the $500 deposit) of my 2018 cruise. I should have no problem accruing enough to do that. I think that is a much better deal.

 

I'm still glad I have the Carnival Mastercards, as they have no foreign transaction fees. I like to use these cards to rent cars with, so they have plenty of available credit for the rental agency "authorization" and I'm not planning on using them for anything else.

 

Hope this helps!