Carnival Gift Cards - AARP

[Joe817]

7 minutes ago, Crickee81 said:

Be very, very careful!!! I purchased a $500 Carnival gift card with the new AARP gift card program, The Gift Card Shop, they charged my credit card $1,000.  I called the gift card company no live person so I left a message to cancel the entire order.  I don’t want to do business with a company that does this.  I then called AARP and my bank to dispute, AARP was very shocked and took all the info to escalate.  No one from the Gift Card Shop contacted me but they refunded the $1,000 today.  

Thanks for the heads up! sorry it happened to you, and I hope people here don't fall into the same trap.

[ChinaShrek]

On 10/10/2019 at 4:56 PM, terals2003 said:

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned because I didn't read through the entire thread, but Retailmenot sells Carnival gift cards with 8% instant cash back ($8 back on $100, $20 back on $250, and $40 back on $500).  Not quite as good as AARP or Allstate, but require absolutely no work.

 

How does their program work?  I went to the website, and I could not find answers to some basic questions.  How soon does the cash show up into my account? When do I get my cash? In what form? Reputable sites should have visible answers to these questions.

[terals2003]

18 minutes ago, ChinaShrek said:

 

How does their program work?  I went to the website, and I could not find answers to some basic questions.  How soon does the cash show up into my account? When do I get my cash? In what form? Reputable sites should have visible answers to these questions.

 

It is instant cash back that can be cashed out by PayPal. I bought several cards and cashed out less than a minute later. The answers are directly at the top of the gift card page as well as on each and every page where you can purchase the gift cards. I'm not sure how you missed it.

 

If you're still confused you can read through the help or live chat with someone who can answer your questions on their help page.

 

https://help.retailmenot.com/s/

 

 

 

[ChinaShrek]

52 minutes ago, terals2003 said:

 

It is instant cash back that can be cashed out by PayPal. I bought several cards and cashed out less than a minute later. The answers are directly at the top of the gift card page as well as on each and every page where you can purchase the gift cards. I'm not sure how you missed it.

 

If you're still confused you can read through the help or live chat with someone who can answer your questions on their help page.

 

https://help.retailmenot.com/s/

 

 

 

 

Thank you for the information. Perhaps, it will be useful to someone. Yes, I see the phrase "Instant Cash Back" but I do not believe it.  I have used many cash back sites over the years (Rakuten, Swagbucks, and MyPoints), and they all have catches and hidden terms. That's why I posted what I did. 

[terals2003]

1 hour ago, ChinaShrek said:

 

Thank you for the information. Perhaps, it will be useful to someone. Yes, I see the phrase "Instant Cash Back" but I do not believe it.  I have used many cash back sites over the years (Rakuten, Swagbucks, and MyPoints), and they all have catches and hidden terms. That's why I posted what I did. 

 

It is actually instant. The skepticism is unwarranted in this case, but I have nothing to gain by trying to convince you of that. I'll just share with others who may be interested that I got both the gift cards and the cash back within seconds of my purchase, no catch, no hoops to jump through.

[GroundHog1961]

I agree with terals2003 we recently bought $1250 worth of cards we received the ecards and the cash back within a couple of hours. We moved the cash back to our paypal account with no problem 

[ChinaShrek]

37 minutes ago, terals2003 said:

 

It is actually instant. The skepticism is unwarranted in this case, but I have nothing to gain by trying to convince you of that. I'll just share with others who may be interested that I got both the gift cards and the cash back within seconds of my purchase, no catch, no hoops to jump through.

 

Reading further, I found one interesting catch concerning Carnival Gift Cards on RetailMeNot:

 

"Gift card numbers and pins will only be stored with RetailMeNot for 100 days. After that time, the card will be no longer available on RetailMeNot. Please use the gift card or save the number elsewhere before then."

 

 

[terals2003]

17 minutes ago, ChinaShrek said:

 

Reading further, I found one interesting catch concerning Carnival Gift Cards on RetailMeNot:

 

"Gift card numbers and pins will only be stored with RetailMeNot for 100 days. After that time, the card will be no longer available on RetailMeNot. Please use the gift card or save the number elsewhere before then."

 

 

 

That's not really a catch, but if you insist on finding something...

 

If you can't print out or otherwise save the card number and pin within 100 days something is wrong. Do you ask gift card vendors who sell physical cards to keep track of the gift card numbers and pins for you, too? I think not.

[ChinaShrek]

8 hours ago, terals2003 said:

 

That's not really a catch, but if you insist on finding something...

 

If you can't print out or otherwise save the card number and pin within 100 days something is wrong. Do you ask gift card vendors who sell physical cards to keep track of the gift card numbers and pins for you, too? I think not.

 

So, now we are talking about physical cards?  You can continue to promote RetailMeNot and do business with them.  In any case, I want companies to make my life easier and not more complicated. That why I will shop elsewhere. One day, you will forget that you purchased a $1000 gift card and it will be 101 days and you will freak out. I will be here to help and commiserate.

[terals2003]

4 minutes ago, ChinaShrek said:

 

So, now we are talking about physical cards?  You can continue to promote RetailMeNot and do business with them.  In any case, I want companies to make my life easier and not more complicated. That why I will shop elsewhere. One day, you will forget that you purchased a $1000 gift card and it will be 101 days and you will freak out. I will be here to help and commiserate.

 

😂 Lol. Not promoting then just letting people know that there is another place to get discounted cards. If it isn't for you then disregard the information.

 

One day you'll misplace your physical card and you will freak out and, frankly, I won't care. 

[shoptom]

On 9/27/2019 at 10:30 AM, shoptom said:

Twice a day after logging into AARP, I go to rewards and click "get started."  Check mark the boxes and click continue:

Something went wrong. Please refresh your browser and try again.

 

 

My error message finally change to "update your birthday" and then I was able to get in for the first time.  Unimpressed!

[Organized Chaos]

On 10/17/2019 at 6:20 AM, ChinaShrek said:

So, now we are talking about physical cards?  You can continue to promote RetailMeNot and do business with them.  In any case, I want companies to make my life easier and not more complicated. That why I will shop elsewhere. One day, you will forget that you purchased a $1000 gift card and it will be 101 days and you will freak out. I will be here to help and commiserate.

 

AARP's old rewards program, Rewards for Good, and Allstate's rewards program used to issue e-gift cards all the time. To my knowledge, neither of them stored PIN numbers at all, and if they did, no one here knew about it. And a lot of people here use those programs. The PIN doesn't expire after 100 days, they simply no longer store it after that long. So it's up to each person to print it out, write it down, or both. Which countless numbers of people have done through the other programs I mentioned. Keeping track of our gift cards is a very small price to pay when we get to use them to save hundreds of dollars off the cost of a cruise.

[ChinaShrek]

9 minutes ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

AARP's old rewards program, Rewards for Good, and Allstate's rewards program used to issue e-gift cards all the time. To my knowledge, neither of them stored PIN numbers at all, and if they did, no one here knew about it. And a lot of people here use those programs. The PIN doesn't expire after 100 days, they simply no longer store it after that long. So it's up to each person to print it out, write it down, or both. Which countless numbers of people have done through the other programs I mentioned. Keeping track of our gift cards is a very small price to pay when we get to use them to save hundreds of dollars off the cost of a cruise.

 

I guess I worry that my the email will be deleted or hacked. This happens all of the time.  What if I forget that I bought one?  Why should the onus of responsibility and liability be on the buyer and not the seller?  I have just purchased one from RetailMeNot and will report back objectively how it goes.

[christyran1228]

On 10/10/2019 at 3:56 PM, terals2003 said:

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned because I didn't read through the entire thread, but Retailmenot sells Carnival gift cards with 8% instant cash back ($8 back on $100, $20 back on $250, and $40 back on $500).  Not quite as good as AARP or Allstate, but require absolutely no work.

Thank you for this!  Just got enough for Cheers with $68 back.  And they are e-cards, too - no waiting.  😁

Edited October 19, 2019 by christyran1228

[GalCruzer]

On 10/17/2019 at 7:28 AM, terals2003 said:

 

😂 Lol. Not promoting then just letting people know that there is another place to get discounted cards. If it isn't for you then disregard the information.

 

One day you'll misplace your physical card and you will freak out and, frankly, I won't care. 

 

Thanks for this reminder. But just to be sure the egiftcard you would get is just like physical gc's.  In that they don't expire.  We won't be cruising until 2021. Thanks 

[terals2003]

22 minutes ago, GalCruzer said:

 

Thanks for this reminder. But just to be sure the egiftcard you would get is just like physical gc's.  In that they don't expire.  We won't be cruising until 2021. Thanks 

Yep it says they never expire on the page where you purchase them.

 

Expiration Details

Carnival Cruises gift cards never expire.

[silversneakers]

20 hours ago, terals2003 said:

Yep it says they never expire on the page where you purchase them.

 

Expiration Details

Carnival Cruises gift cards never expire.

Anyone else having problems getting Carnival Gift Cards using points from various credit cards?  I tried this morning to use my points from two different credit cards but nothing.  Is something going on?

[Organized Chaos]

On 10/18/2019 at 4:57 PM, ChinaShrek said:

 

I guess I worry that my the email will be deleted or hacked. This happens all of the time.  What if I forget that I bought one?  Why should the onus of responsibility and liability be on the buyer and not the seller?  I have just purchased one from RetailMeNot and will report back objectively how it goes.

 

If you forget that you bought one, that's on you, not the seller. Regardless of what any of us buy, or who we guy it from, it's not the seller's responsibility to keep track of it after it's sold. If the buyer loses what they buy, how is that the seller's responsibility?

 

If you're so concerned about your email being hacked, print our your gift card/PIN, write down the card number/PIN as a backup, and delete the email from your Inbox and Trash folder. The likelihood of it being stolen at that point is next to nothing. The likelihood of being hacked and having your gift card stolen is minimal.

[ChinaShrek]

1 minute ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

If you forget that you bought one, that's on you, not the seller. Regardless of what any of us buy, or who we guy it from, it's not the seller's responsibility to keep track of it after it's sold. If the buyer loses what they buy, how is that the seller's responsibility?

 

 

Yes, I agree, that in our current pro-seller environment, I am responsible for something that I bought online if lose it.  However, I am not sure if this is fair or the best way to do things.  I would like to see a different system that reduces the amount of things I have to worry about in life. 

[Organized Chaos]

On 10/19/2019 at 11:32 AM, GalCruzer said:

Thanks for this reminder. But just to be sure the egiftcard you would get is just like physical gc's.  In that they don't expire.  We won't be cruising until 2021. Thanks 

 

No, Carnival gift cards don't expire. The only problem I've ever read about them was when someone on here had experienced a gift card that went inactive after a very long period of time. They had to call Carnival and were told that, yes, sometimes the cards go into a state of being inactive if not used for a long time. The funds were still there, so all they had to do was re-activate the card or maybe re-issue a new one, I can't remember which. But I've only ever seen one or two people say that it happened to them, and that was probably a couple years ago, so I think it's very rare. Or maybe they just held onto them for an unusually long period of time.

[crabbdock]

I paid for an AARP subscription when they changed over, so I could buy the Carnival gift cards. Now thatyou can only buy one a month I will use Allstate. I was a little upset at wasting 12 bucks, but it paid off. I won this $129 Echo spot in their sweepstakes. I'm happy now!!! 

[Organized Chaos]

10 hours ago, crabbdock said:

I paid for an AARP subscription when they changed over, so I could buy the Carnival gift cards. Now thatyou can only buy one a month I will use Allstate. I was a little upset at wasting 12 bucks, but it paid off.

 

The monthly limit is ridiculous and completely undermines how many of us use Carnival gift cards. Meaning, many of us buy multiple cards at once to pay on cruises and whatnot. They made a huge mistake switching from Deluxe Rewards, who handled all of their gift cards under the old rewards program. Personally, I'd like to see a mass exodus away from the new AARP Rewards because that's the only way they'll realize how bad it really is.

[n6uqqq]

1 hour ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

The monthly limit is ridiculous and completely undermines how many of us use Carnival gift cards. Meaning, many of us buy multiple cards at once to pay on cruises and whatnot. They made a huge mistake switching from Deluxe Rewards, who handled all of their gift cards under the old rewards program. Personally, I'd like to see a mass exodus away from the new AARP Rewards because that's the only way they'll realize how bad it really is.

 

You can count me in for the exodus! 🤣. I used to log into aarp rewards for good every day. Now, not so much other than out of curiosity to see if things have improved. They have not.

[Joe817]

Well, I made a comment on the AARP forum about the lack of information coming out of AARP regarding the gift cards. And I received a comment back from an AARP Forum Moderator  last night:

 

10-21-2019 09:37 PM

@jc50748700   When posting it is always helpful to use the @ symbol so the person is notified. 

 

Yes, we will be returning the e-gift cards to the site but do not have a firm date to provide yet.  We are insuring they will work properly.

AARPTeri

 

[2wheelin]

9 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

The monthly limit is ridiculous and completely undermines how many of us use Carnival gift cards. Meaning, many of us buy multiple cards at once to pay on cruises and whatnot. They made a huge mistake switching from Deluxe Rewards, who handled all of their gift cards under the old rewards program. Personally, I'd like to see a mass exodus away from the new AARP Rewards because that's the only way they'll realize how bad it really is.

Maybe that was a problem to provide an unlimited amount. People get greedy and someone is losing money. The cards have become very popular. That doesn’t mean they need to be unlimited.

The limit may be a little low for each purchase, so maybe they could make it an annual limit so people could pay off one cruise. A mass exodus will only confirm that gift cards “are no longer popular so we should eliminate them completely”.

Yes, I know Allstate has no limit. Allstate can increase insurance rates anytime to cover losses.