Just off Infinity, pretty peeved at Blue Chip

[janetmojo]

So, I'm not sure when things changed but...we are used to spending $4-6K in the casino and usually at the end of the trip are presented with our free cruise certificate or discounts at the least...this trip we lost at least that much and went to see the host on the last evening and he said "we aren't doing that anymore"????  Really?  I haven't been getting hardly any offers through email or mail...has anyone gotten actual certificates lately? 

[WonderMan3]

7 hours ago, janetmojo said:

So, I'm not sure when things changed but...we are used to spending $4-6K in the casino and usually at the end of the trip are presented with our free cruise certificate or discounts at the least...this trip we lost at least that much and went to see the host on the last evening and he said "we aren't doing that anymore"????  Really?  I haven't been getting hardly any offers through email or mail...has anyone gotten actual certificates lately? 

 

The rules changed this past summer. The hosts don't issue any certificates at the end of the cruise anymore. Now you contact Blue Chip Club directly after your cruise to see what incentive you may have earned for your play. I've been told to wait at least a week before checking so they have time to process your play in their systems. Note that you cannot apply your incentive to a future cruise until it's within six months of departure. Now you can make your reservation further out than that and then once it's within six months you can apply the incentive. The 20% off suites still exists (except for Edge for the moment) and can be combined with a post-cruise incentive.

 

If you have not been receiving offers check in with Blue Chip and make sure they have your correct email and address info and also make sure in your Captain's Club profile that it is marked okay to receive offers. Once I did both of those things I've been getting a steady stream of offers when prior to that I had been getting none.

[levcruiser]

What is the name of the casino host?  We will be sailing on the Infinity in 2 weeks!

[janetmojo]

11 hours ago, levcruiser said:

What is the name of the casino host?  We will be sailing on the Infinity in 2 weeks!

Well we had Gary, but he was getting off when we were for vacation so I'm not sure...

[levcruiser]

Thank you Janetmojo!  You should definitely get in touch with Blue Chip.(As Wonderman3 said!)

[Paulras]

Suggestion. Challenge their first offer for a cruise discount. I called them over the summer and was told $90/night discount for my December cruise. I said I was expecting more since I played (and lost) alot in June. She put me on hold and came back with $270/night discount. That's a huge difference! The discount is based on the higher of actual loss or theoretical loss. But sometimes they only look at one and not the other. And in my case, she didn't look at June's sailing. 

 

Oh and they won't apply the discount earlier than 6 months before your sailing. 

 

Good luck! 

[dollydosh]

Beware of the new rules.

We are both Sapphire level.

 

 After our sailing in June  where we earned 110.000 points we asked to book the  Constellation for  May 2019, As Wonderman stated above you can reserve a cabin, with a $900 deposit,  but will not know what incentive they will apply until 6 months prior to the cruise.

 

We cruised again in July and earned a combined total of  86.500 points . We  would normally book another cruise at this stage with the incentive earned but as we were unsure of the new system thought we'd wait until we had the Constellation cruise sorted.

 We have just returned from a cruise on Eclipse, where we earned 83.000 points,  and as it's now within the 6 months phoned to enquire about the incentives we had earned from the last 3 cruises.

 

Shock horror, we were told that we can only use our last cruise towards the next comp. So it appears  we've lost out on  almost 200,000 points worth of comps and what they did give us was only a discount of $675 each.

 

 

 

[WonderMan3]

On 12/8/2018 at 11:36 AM, dollydosh said:

Beware of the new rules.

We are both Sapphire level.

 

 After our sailing in June  where we earned 110.000 points we asked to book the  Constellation for  May 2019, As Wonderman stated above you can reserve a cabin, with a $900 deposit,  but will not know what incentive they will apply until 6 months prior to the cruise.

 

We cruised again in July and earned a combined total of  86.500 points . We  would normally book another cruise at this stage with the incentive earned but as we were unsure of the new system thought we'd wait until we had the Constellation cruise sorted.

 We have just returned from a cruise on Eclipse, where we earned 83.000 points,  and as it's now within the 6 months phoned to enquire about the incentives we had earned from the last 3 cruises.

 

Shock horror, we were told that we can only use our last cruise towards the next comp. So it appears  we've lost out on  almost 200,000 points worth of comps and what they did give us was only a discount of $675 each.

 

 

 

 

This is what I figured would happen. We have a similar issue where we just got off of Edge and will earn some sort of incentive but our next cruise is on Summit only three weeks away. We would have to book a cruise before Summit and it would have to depart in the next 6 months (which is not possible for us to fit in) otherwise that incentive will vanish and be replaced by one based on our play on Summit when we finish that cruise. Now that might be okay because our Summit Cruise is 5 days longer than our Edge Cruise was and we will likely get a higher incentive. I want to call them and lay all this out. They should give you an option to turn your incentive into free play onboard instead of it having to be off the price of a cruise. That way we could use our Edge incentive as free play on Summit.

[Paulras]

18 hours ago, WonderMan3 said:

 

This is what I figured would happen. We have a similar issue where we just got off of Edge and will earn some sort of incentive but our next cruise is on Summit only three weeks away. We would have to book a cruise before Summit and it would have to depart in the next 6 months (which is not possible for us to fit in) otherwise that incentive will vanish and be replaced by one based on our play on Summit when we finish that cruise. Now that might be okay because our Summit Cruise is 5 days longer than our Edge Cruise was and we will likely get a higher incentive. I want to call them and lay all this out. They should give you an option to turn your incentive into free play onboard instead of it having to be off the price of a cruise. That way we could use our Edge incentive as free play on Summit.

Confusing but will they give you money off of Summit in a few weeks? I have a similar situation next year where one cruise ends after final payment for the next cruise and I can't seem to get them to tell me if they'll be able to refund any $ off incentive to my credit card if I've already made final payment. 

[WonderMan3]

18 hours ago, Paulras said:

Confusing but will they give you money off of Summit in a few weeks? I have a similar situation next year where one cruise ends after final payment for the next cruise and I can't seem to get them to tell me if they'll be able to refund any $ off incentive to my credit card if I've already made final payment. 

 

I can try but I doubt it because I already applied an incentive to the Summit cruise from a cruise earlier this year and because it has already been paid for and is within the final payment period. I'm going to call them next week as you need to give it about a week for the data from your cruise to transfer over to Blue Chip.

[Tyskie]

This is a very informative post for us as new cruisers to Celebrity. 

Question:  Our last cruise was booked with a TA.  We are looking to book another Equinox cruise and called the Blue Chip rep to see what comps would be available based on play in October.  We were told that since it was thru a TA legally they couldn't tell us.

 

So, do y'all book directly with Celebrity?,  this is where I'm confused.  Our TA said X doesn't have a casino rate.  Could someone please explain the process?  Thanks

[Paulras]

4 minutes ago, Tyskie said:

This is a very informative post for us as new cruisers to Celebrity. 

Question:  Our last cruise was booked with a TA.  We are looking to book another Equinox cruise and called the Blue Chip rep to see what comps would be available based on play in October.  We were told that since it was thru a TA legally they couldn't tell us.

 

So, do y'all book directly with Celebrity?,  this is where I'm confused.  Our TA said X doesn't have a casino rate.  Could someone please explain the process?  Thanks

Call them back at Blue Chip. I also go through a TA and they just told me last week what I earned for a comp and rebate from my recent cruise without the TA getting involved. I find that every Blue Chip rep gives you a different story (and numbers!) 

 

About a year ago, they refused to answer questions and apply comps to my reservations and said the TA needs to call them to get the discount applied. But that turned out to be disaster and mass confusion. I thought they did away with that process since the past 2 cruises, I booked through a TA and just called Blue Chip before final payment and they applied the discount to the reservation without the TA getting involved. 

 

Just call Blue Chip back and ask again. Just make sure it's a different rep who answers! Good luck! 

[Tyskie]

7 minutes ago, Paulras said:

Call them back at Blue Chip. I also go through a TA and they just told me last week what I earned for a comp and rebate from my recent cruise without the TA getting involved. I find that every Blue Chip rep gives you a different story (and numbers!) 

 

About a year ago, they refused to answer questions and apply comps to my reservations and said the TA needs to call them to get the discount applied. But that turned out to be disaster and mass confusion. I thought they did away with that process since the past 2 cruises, I booked through a TA and just called Blue Chip before final payment and they applied the discount to the reservation without the TA getting involved. 

 

Just call Blue Chip back and ask again. Just make sure it's a different rep who answers! Good luck! 

 

Thanks so much! 

 

I'm learning that they don't apply the discount/perks until 6mo before the cruise date. 

So, booking something for early 2020, can we find out the possible perks now?  or have to wait the 6mo.?

[Paulras]

17 minutes ago, Tyskie said:

 

Thanks so much! 

 

I'm learning that they don't apply the discount/perks until 6mo before the cruise date. 

So, booking something for early 2020, can we find out the possible perks now?  or have to wait the 6mo.?

Oooooh, yeah, they won't apply it this early. But they did just tell me how much of a discount I'd get on my cruise that's 8 months away. Just couldn't apply it yet. They may not give you info yet on 2020 because the current casino program ends on 12/31/19. And as many of us found out in July, they could drastically change the benefits and comps for the next 18 month period starting in 2020. Doesn't hurt to call and ask. 

Edited January 18, 2019 by Paulras

[Tyskie]

Sooooo,  we called back and still no go.  They refer us back to the TA - guess we'll need to book with X or get another TA, lol

Appreciate all your help, it has clarified many things.

[Tyskie]

One last question (I promise!):

To receive a casino perk, does it matter what tier level you are? 

 

One reason I ask is with NCL-CAS, even though we were not considered a "high roller", DH was able to get some very nice perks and free cruises.  I think we have this pretty much sorted out but the above question kept popping up.

 

Thank you all, especially Palras !

[Paulras]

10 hours ago, Tyskie said:

One last question (I promise!):

To receive a casino perk, does it matter what tier level you are? 

 

One reason I ask is with NCL-CAS, even though we were not considered a "high roller", DH was able to get some very nice perks and free cruises.  I think we have this pretty much sorted out but the above question kept popping up.

 

Thank you all, especially Palras !

See the attached from their website. You really don't get much except a waiver of fee to take out money on your sign and sail card, until you get up to amethyst after 25,000 points. Then you get a bunch of perks

Blue-Chip-Club-Benefit-Chart (3).pdf

[WonderMan3]

I thought that in order to get a discount through Blue Chip they had to take ownership of the booking? That's the case when I have initially booked a reservation onboard and then contacted Blue Chip to apply a casino discount. Blue Chip had to take over my reservation and it kicked out the onboard credit I got from booking onboard. Is that not the same with a TA booking?

[Paulras]

38 minutes ago, WonderMan3 said:

I thought that in order to get a discount through Blue Chip they had to take ownership of the booking? That's the case when I have initially booked a reservation onboard and then contacted Blue Chip to apply a casino discount. Blue Chip had to take over my reservation and it kicked out the onboard credit I got from booking onboard. Is that not the same with a TA booking?

I book either onboard which immediately gets transferred to my TA or directly with that TA. I get all the onboard perks and any that my TA gives. Then I call BC (6 months before) and they apply a discount to the booking but the booking stays with the TA. Happened that way for 4 cruises in the past 13 months. 

 

Prior to about 2 years ago, BC had to take the reservation but they can't anymore because of a contract with my TA. I belong to them

Edited January 20, 2019 by Paulras

[WonderMan3]

12 minutes ago, Paulras said:

I book either onboard which immediately gets transferred to my TA or directly with that TA. I get all the onboard perks and any that my TA gives. Then I call BC (6 months before) and they apply a discount to the booking but the booking stays with the TA. Happened that way for 4 cruises in the past 13 months. 

 

Prior to about 2 years ago, BC had to take the reservation but they can't anymore because of a contract with my TA. I belong to them

Are the Blue Chip discounts you are applying the incentives you earned from play on a prior cruise or the 20% discount on suites or both?

[Paulras]

1 hour ago, WonderMan3 said:

Are the Blue Chip discounts you are applying the incentives you earned from play on a prior cruise or the 20% discount on suites or both?

Discount based on my prior cruise. Last cruise they took off $270/day. Two cruises before that, they took off $90/day. Seems like they use multiples of $90 but for my relatively cheap Summit cruise this coming August, they told me my discount would be a weird number that was almost $200/day, $1350ish for a 7 nighter. They just couldn't apply it yet. They also told me what my rebate would be (well over the $500 since I lost alot last month, and well over the $1000 it would have been under the old program!). 

Edited January 20, 2019 by Paulras