AARP Carnival Gift Cards

[patcruise1]

 I have tried for the last two months, but every time I try to make payment it says there is a problem with the payment.  I had to get my IT person to speak to them.  They 1st say that it is my banks problem.  Then they say to clear cookies/cache, etc.  Come to find out that it is looping.  It is AARP-Rewards problem.  After several chats and I don't know how many phone calls over the last couple of months - I said this has been going on for several months when I have tried to purchase.  The rep finally admitted that there is a problem on their end and it has been going on for several months and they don't know when it is going to be fixed.

[patcruise1]

1 minute ago, patcruise1 said:

 I have tried for the last two months, but every time I try to make payment it says there is a problem with the payment.  I had to get my IT person to speak to them.  They 1st say that it is my banks problem.  Then they say to clear cookies/cache, etc.  Come to find out that it is looping.  It is AARP-Rewards problem.  After several chats and I don't know how many phone calls over the last couple of months - I said this has been going on for several months when I have tried to purchase.  The rep finally admitted that there is a problem on their end and it has been going on for several months and they don't know when it is going to be fixed.

I have yet been able to purchase one since they have switched over to the new rewards.  I have also joined AllState and have enough points to buy what I need.  I was just trying to get a couple of the ecards to give to the grandkids for our Christmas Cruise.

[Joe817]

2 minutes ago, patcruise1 said:

 I have tried for the last two months, but every time I try to make payment it says there is a problem with the payment.  I had to get my IT person to speak to them.  They 1st say that it is my banks problem.  Then they say to clear cookies/cache, etc.  Come to find out that it is looping.  It is AARP-Rewards problem.  After several chats and I don't know how many phone calls over the last couple of months - I said this has been going on for several months when I have tried to purchase.  The rep finally admitted that there is a problem on their end and it has been going on for several months and they don't know when it is going to be fixed.

Sorry to hear about your problems. Seems like AARP is fraught with problems. That's why people are migrating from AARP and going exclusively with the All State Rewards. Much easier with NO problems.

[bury me at sea]

3 minutes ago, patcruise1 said:

 I have tried for the last two months, but every time I try to make payment it says there is a problem with the payment.  I had to get my IT person to speak to them.  They 1st say that it is my banks problem.  Then they say to clear cookies/cache, etc.  Come to find out that it is looping.  It is AARP-Rewards problem.  After several chats and I don't know how many phone calls over the last couple of months - I said this has been going on for several months when I have tried to purchase.  The rep finally admitted that there is a problem on their end and it has been going on for several months and they don't know when it is going to be fixed.

 

In my opinion the new and improved AARP Rewards Program has been a fiasco since the day it was launched.

[mbarker10]

46 minutes ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

If you're talking about funding your S&S account, then yes. You can set it up as a credit card during online check-in, then switch to depositing gift cards. Or you can simply wait until the last night of your cruise and pay off your S&S balance with the gift cards, because they don't actually charge your credit card until the last day.

Thanks. We're last minute cruisers and literally looking at a cruise for three weeks from now, and the gift card wouldn't be here yet since we want to book in the next day or so. So I'd love to purchase the gift card, then add that to my S&S account to help pay for the cruise.

[bury me at sea]

25 minutes ago, mbarker10 said:

Thanks. We're last minute cruisers and literally looking at a cruise for three weeks from now, and the gift card wouldn't be here yet since we want to book in the next day or so. So I'd love to purchase the gift card, then add that to my S&S account to help pay for the cruise.

 

If I understand you correctly, you want to partially pay for your cruise with discounted gift cards.  You can do that only before your cruise.  Your booking will be cancelled if not paid in full on a date certain prior to embarkation day.

 

You can use your gift cards on board to pay for gratuities, alcohol, and anything else you purchase on board.  If you wish to use them for gratuities, don't add them to your cruise price, just wait until you are on board and they will be added to your S&S account.

 

I apologize if I'm misunderstanding your question.

[mbarker10]

6 minutes ago, bury me at sea said:

 

If I understand you correctly, you want to partially pay for your cruise with discounted gift cards.  You can do that only before your cruise.  Your booking will be cancelled if not paid in full on a date certain prior to embarkation day.

 

You can use your gift cards on board to pay for gratuities, alcohol, and anything else you purchase on board.  If you wish to use them for gratuities, don't add them to your cruise price, just wait until you are on board and they will be added to your S&S account.

 

I apologize if I'm misunderstanding your question.

Ohhh I see now. Thank you. That clarifies things.

[Organized Chaos]

1 minute ago, mbarker10 said:

Ohhh I see now. Thank you. That clarifies things.

 

Sorry about that. I thought you were talking about putting funds in your S&S account for onboard spending, not paying for the cruise itself.

 

If you bought $500 or more worth of gift cards, they'll be shipped UPS. Many of us have gotten them in three days. I understand you want to book it now since it's so close, but you could order your gift cards now and see if they come that quickly, then book the cruise. That wouldn't be so bad. There's a chance they'd come Friday. A couple times that I've ordered them in the morning, they processed and shipped that day, and came two days later. Otherwise, since they don't do Saturday delivery, they might come Monday. But in full disclosure, there's no guarantees they come in three days. That just seems to have been common lately.

[EllaDuChien]

1 hour ago, helene109 said:

Does everyone still buy their once a month card through AARP? I like that it is an e-card 

 

I do.  Only for paying off my 2021 cruise.  But I use Allstate for On Board Spending.

[Organized Chaos]

1 hour ago, helene109 said:

Does everyone still buy their once a month card through AARP? I like that it is an e-card 

 

We bought a few of them for our upcoming cruise. One we used on the balance and the other two for Cruise Cash. I told the story about a couple people on the forum not being allowed to deposit e-cards to their S&S accounts. They were probably fluke cases of Guest Services reps. who had their own idea of how to do things, but I really don't want to take any chances. I'm going to stick with taking physical cards onboard.

 

[Ellaleah]

What us the benefit of an e-card?  I don’t see why anyone is still messing withAARP.

[teknoge3k]

1 minute ago, Ellaleah said:

What us the benefit of an e-card?  I don’t see why anyone is still messing withAARP.

 

Get them instantly and it's much easier to copy and paste them over to your account rather than typing the long number, scratching the pin, etc. I prefer ecards over physical cards any day.

[helene109]

Just now, Ellaleah said:

What us the benefit of an e-card?  I don’t see why anyone is still messing withAARP.

I am still paying off my cruise so the type of card/ecard doesn’t really matter. I was able to buy a card and apply it to my balance in a matter of minutes. Physical card takes a week in the mail.

 

 I can also use either one and buy cruise cash before the cruise and apply it to my sail and sign card so I am not waiting in line on board!

[Saint Greg]

4 minutes ago, Ellaleah said:

What us the benefit of an e-card?  I don’t see why anyone is still messing withAARP.

 

I love ecards. I haven't been able to get any since AllState stopped carrying them. But you can get them instantly. Not have to worry about how long delivery takes, signing for them, picking them up. No shipping charge.

 

Back when they had them I used to wait until I was on the ship to figure out how much $ I needed and I could buy it on the ship and apply it to my account. Now I have to plan ahead with physical cards.

[Organized Chaos]

2 minutes ago, Ellaleah said:

What us the benefit of an e-card?  I don’t see why anyone is still messing withAARP.

 

I'd say the convenience of getting it right away without waiting a few days to a week for the physical cards. Sometimes people are in a pinch for time and those e-cards sure do come in handy. Been there, done that. That and not having to pay shipping on them. They still have their uses, but that 1/month limit, and the fact that they only sell $100 cards, seriously affects their usability.

 

For those who don't know, if you and your spouse are both on the same AARP membership account, you can each have your own AARP Rewards account and are then able to buy two e-cards per month.

[Organized Chaos]

1 hour ago, patcruise1 said:

 I have tried for the last two months, but every time I try to make payment it says there is a problem with the payment.  I had to get my IT person to speak to them.  They 1st say that it is my banks problem.  Then they say to clear cookies/cache, etc.  Come to find out that it is looping.  It is AARP-Rewards problem.  After several chats and I don't know how many phone calls over the last couple of months - I said this has been going on for several months when I have tried to purchase.  The rep finally admitted that there is a problem on their end and it has been going on for several months and they don't know when it is going to be fixed.

 

I can't think of anything to say other than to make sure your shipping address and your billing address are exactly the same. We had that problem one time and it will not let you buy the cards unless they're the same. That was with the old AARP Rewards for Good, which is exactly like Allstate Rewards, so I'm not sure if AARP's new system has the same requirement.

[patcruise1]

4 minutes ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

I can't think of anything to say other than to make sure your shipping address and your billing address are exactly the same. We had that problem one time and it will not let you buy the cards unless they're the same. That was with the old AARP Rewards for Good, which is exactly like Allstate Rewards, so I'm not sure if AARP's new system has the same requirement.

Thank you Organized Chaos.  Yes, everything is correct.  It is a looping problem on their part.  They finally admitted it today.  That it is a known problem for the last several months, but they don't want to say.  They would rather waste their customers time and tell them anything but the problem.  My IT guy saw it as it was happening and spoke up.  Otherwise AARP would never had admitted to it.  He said you can use PayPal.  If I wanted to use PayPal, I would have.  I get no benefits for using PayPal.  They also can't take the information and issue a card.  They are useless.  I am glad that I signed up for Allstate back when they were changing and messing up everything.  Thank you for your thoughs.

[n6uqqq]

The good thing about allstate is you can ship your cards to a different address than the billing address of the credit card. Convenient to ship directly to my work. I personally do not mind the physical cards because I get a card for 1000 dollars shipped for 59 cents. Hard to complain about that. Buying 100 dollar cards from AARP would take many to pay a cruise off. To the poster above you can call Carnival and get back your credit card payment and have them process the gift cards instead. I have had Carnival send back many credit card payments so I could use the gift cards instead.

[Organized Chaos]

4 minutes ago, n6uqqq said:

The good thing about allstate is you can ship your cards to a different address than the billing address of the credit card. Convenient to ship directly to my work.

 

No kidding? Deluxe Rewards was still running Rewards for Good when it wouldn't let us order them without shipping & billing addresses being the same, so that must've been an AARP policy and not a Deluxe policy.

[bury me at sea]

6 minutes ago, n6uqqq said:

. . .

To the poster above you can call Carnival and get back your credit card payment and have them process the gift cards instead. I have had Carnival send back many credit card payments so I could use the gift cards instead.

 

This is good to know.  It could help mbarker10 and many others waiting for delivery.

[Organized Chaos]

1 hour ago, mbarker10 said:

Thanks. We're last minute cruisers and literally looking at a cruise for three weeks from now, and the gift card wouldn't be here yet since we want to book in the next day or so. So I'd love to purchase the gift card, then add that to my S&S account to help pay for the cruise.

 

Mbarker, I just wanted to make sure you saw n6uqqq's post (below). This seems like a solution to your problem. Good luck, hope everything works out for you.

 

10 minutes ago, n6uqqq said:

To the poster above you can call Carnival and get back your credit card payment and have them process the gift cards instead. I have had Carnival send back many credit card payments so I could use the gift cards instead.

 

[mbarker10]

34 minutes ago, n6uqqq said:

The good thing about allstate is you can ship your cards to a different address than the billing address of the credit card. Convenient to ship directly to my work. I personally do not mind the physical cards because I get a card for 1000 dollars shipped for 59 cents. Hard to complain about that. Buying 100 dollar cards from AARP would take many to pay a cruise off. To the poster above you can call Carnival and get back your credit card payment and have them process the gift cards instead. I have had Carnival send back many credit card payments so I could use the gift cards instead.

Oh thank you. Good information.

[n6uqqq]

27 minutes ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

No kidding? Deluxe Rewards was still running Rewards for Good when it wouldn't let us order them without shipping & billing addresses being the same, so that must've been an AARP policy and not a Deluxe policy.

I think it indeed was an AARP policy. My last three orders I shipped to my work and my billing address for credit card is my home.  On AARP it would not work that way at all. LIke you said everything has to match exactly or the order will not go through. Works out great because UPS comes right to my desk and I don't have to worry about being home because UPS always comes to my house while I am at work.

Edited February 20, 2020 by n6uqqq

[Petersonfcu]

On 2/19/2020 at 8:44 AM, bury me at sea said:

 

 

Also still working on accumulating enough cash to buy the gift cards I still need!

 

 

Now that was funny.  Thanks for the laugh!

 

And thanks to St Greg, BMAS, and Cabo Bob for the codes!!

[Petersonfcu]

On 2/20/2020 at 7:39 AM, helene109 said:

Does everyone still buy their once a month card through AARP? I like that it is an e-card 

I will throw in my two cents as well.  I much prefer the hard cards, for several reasons:

 

1)  I buy and use a lot of these cards, and it would take me forever to accumulate what I want at $100/month (even if I got my wife, brother, and cat their own AARP  accounts . . . ).  I also store these cards before using them, and its nicer to have a solid card then to have some electronic list of cards.

 

2)  I have no interest in making a $2,000+ cruise purchase in $100 increments.   And that is the only size the ecard currently comes in.  Lol

 

3)  I worry about the security of these ecards.   With an ecard that came to me through the ether, if I tried to use the number and someone said "its not good" or "its already been used," or "there is no such card," I would have no evidence to rebut that.  With a hard card, I can at least show someone (like at guest services) that yes the card exists and also that the pin number was not exposed, so there is no way it could have been used.  

 

But each to his own!

Edited February 21, 2020 by Petersonfcu