Gift cards for gratuities payment?

[Hsmama]

Can I use carnival gift cards to pay my onboard gratuities? thanks

[amyotravel]

Yes. It an be for any onboard expense, which includes gratuities charged to your onboard account. The monies just apply as a credit to your overall balance and are not specific to any one thing. 

[christyran1228]

I used discounted gift cards to purchase cruise cash on my account to cover gratuities - instead of waiting in line at guest services to apply them once on board.  🙂

[cruisingguy007]

You can prepay for gratuities, drink packages, bubble packages and add cruise cash with gift cards. I just did it yesterday. When you log in click the "booking and order details", scroll down to "your bookings" and "view balance details". You can then "Add gratuities" and check out after that. Drink packages and other add-ons can also be purchased with gift cards. You can also use multiple gift cards to complete any of these transactions. 

 

Hope that helps! 

[Hsmama]

Thank you! this is great!

[bluehengal]

I just tried to prepay gratuities with a gift card and when I got to the check out portion, it only gave me the options of PayPal or a credit card.  Where can I enter the gift card information?

[Hsmama]

When I prepay gratuities in this way, do I have the option to prepay only the entire amount?  Carnival site doesn't work on chrome browser,only thru firefox on my computer.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Hsmama

[serene56]

3 minutes ago, Hsmama said:

When I prepay gratuities in this way, do I have the option to prepay only the entire amount?  Carnival site doesn't work on chrome browser,only thru firefox on my computer.

you get to pick the person to pay the entire amount 

[serene56]

8 hours ago, cruisingguy007 said:

You can prepay for gratuities, drink packages, bubble packages and add cruise cash with gift cards. I just did it yesterday. When you log in click the "booking and order details", scroll down to "your bookings" and "view balance details". You can then "Add gratuities" and check out after that. Drink packages and other add-ons can also be purchased with gift cards. You can also use multiple gift cards to complete any of these transactions. 

 

Hope that helps! 

where do I see that Grats were paid?

[cruisingguy007]

15 minutes ago, serene56 said:

where do I see that Grats were paid?

Same deal. Booking and order details, scroll down to and click "view balance details", look to the right and you will see gratuities in the totals. When you haven't paid them you have the option to "add option" (blue highlighted), that goes away once you pay and will be shown on the right in the totals. It can take a bit for it to reflect (system update) when you pay it but it will reflect.

 

All other purchases (drinks, bubbles, excursions, fun shops ect) will show up by clicking "booking and order details" and scrolling down below the booking. Everything that has been purchased will show in a "ACTIVITIES & SERVICES ORDER HISTORY" list below booking. 

 

Hope that helps! 

Edited December 5, 2019 by cruisingguy007

[serene56]

27 minutes ago, cruisingguy007 said:

Same deal. Booking and order details, scroll down to and click "view balance details", look to the right and you will see gratuities in the totals. When you haven't paid them you have the option to "add option" (blue highlighted), that goes away once you pay and will be shown on the right in the totals. It can take a bit for it to reflect (system update) when you pay it but it will reflect.

 

Hope that helps! 

i see everything except those grats.    Been paid a while ago.   Just checked my bank to make sure it was charged.   I dont see view balance details  

 

[cruisingguy007]

35 minutes ago, serene56 said:

i see everything except those grats.    Been paid a while ago.   Just checked my bank to make sure it was charged.   I dont see view balance details  

 

This is what I see after I click on the balance view details that is to the right of the green in all caps PAID IN FULL.

Totals

 

$0.00

$195.86

Remove

 

 

That $195 is the grats  and should look the same for you (but may be different of course depending on how many are booking in your room and cruise duration.

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by cruisingguy007

[serene56]

Maybe I cant see that since I booked using an outside agent?

[shof515]

2 minutes ago, serene56 said:

Maybe I cant see that since I booked using an outside agent?

correct..that is only problem with booking with a agent. it prevents you from seeing usefull info in your cruise manager

[cruisingguy007]

4 hours ago, serene56 said:

Maybe I cant see that since I booked using an outside agent?

Yup. Booked my last cruise through a travel agent and called Carnival with a question and the lady wouldn't even talk to me. I was a bit angry at first and thought she was being rude but I guess it's some policy. Supposedly transferring your booking to Carnival is the only way they can talk to you if you've used a travel agent. 

[Hsmama]

On 12/4/2019 at 6:34 PM, christyran1228 said:

I used discounted gift cards to purchase cruise cash on my account to cover gratuities - instead of waiting in line at guest services to apply them once on board.  🙂

Ok I'm curious how to do this- How do you turn a gift card into cruise cash? And that can be used for gratuities also? When I try to checkout to prepay gratuities I only get a choice of a credit card or paypal also. What am I doing wrong?

[thenexus2k]

You don't even need to bother with cruise cash. Take the gift cards with you on the cruise. Charge everything as you normally would, then on the last night of your cruise, take the cards down to guest services and have them applied to your balance. 

 

Conversely, I believe you can post the gift cards to your S&S at the beginning and if there is an unused balance at the end, they will mail you a gift card. 

Edited December 24, 2019 by thenexus2k

[Elaine5715]

On the payment page, you just click gift card

Edited December 24, 2019 by Elaine5715

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

49 minutes ago, Hsmama said:

Ok I'm curious how to do this- How do you turn a gift card into cruise cash? And that can be used for gratuities also? When I try to checkout to prepay gratuities I only get a choice of a credit card or paypal also. What am I doing wrong?

You can use the gift cards to buy cruise cash. And then, the cruise cash will be used towards all on board expenses (including gratuities).

[Organized Chaos]

1 hour ago, Hsmama said:

Ok I'm curious how to do this- How do you turn a gift card into cruise cash? And that can be used for gratuities also? When I try to checkout to prepay gratuities I only get a choice of a credit card or paypal also. What am I doing wrong?

 

Cruise Cash can be bought through the online Fun Shops. When you login to your Cruise Manager, there should be a drop-down menu in the upper left corner that says "Categories." Click that and choose Cruise Cash from the menu. You can't use Cruise Cash to pay for pre-paid gratuities. Only when you're onboard. If you don't pre-pay grats, you can buy the Cruise Cash ahead of time (it'll be on your S&S account when you get onboard) and use it to pay for the gratuities that are charged to your S&S the last night.

 

If you'd rather pre-pay gratuities, you can use a gift card. Pre-paid grats are just added to your overall cruise balance, so when you pay it down with the gift card, pre-paid grats get paid off too. As Elaine's image shows, one of the option when you choose to make a payment will be to use a gift card. When I use one, I first choose "Other Amount," then type in the amount of the gift card...or the amount I want to pay at that moment. You don't have to enter the entire amount that's on the gift card. Whatever you don't use will be left on the card for something else later.

[Joe817]

1 hour ago, thenexus2k said:

You don't even need to bother with cruise cash. Take the gift cards with you on the cruise. Charge everything as you normally would, then on the last night of your cruise, take the cards down to guest services and have them applied to your balance. 

 

Conversely, I believe you can post the gift cards to your S&S at the beginning and if there is an unused balance at the end, they will mail you a gift card. 

This is exactly what we did. I took my 2 x $100 Carnival gift cards to Guest Services as soon as we got on the ship. It was added to our S&S cards, and at the end of the cruise, we received the unused portion of our S&S account in the form of a Carnival gift card that we are going to put on our S&S account when we cruise on the Freedom in Sept. 2020. Couldn't have worked out better for us.

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

1 hour ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

Cruise Cash can be bought through the online Fun Shops. When you login to your Cruise Manager, there should be a drop-down menu in the upper left corner that says "Categories." Click that and choose Cruise Cash from the menu. You can't use Cruise Cash to pay for pre-paid gratuities. Only when you're onboard. If you don't pre-pay grats, you can buy the Cruise Cash ahead of time (it'll be on your S&S account when you get onboard) and use it to pay for the gratuities that are charged to your S&S the last night.

 

If you'd rather pre-pay gratuities, you can use a gift card. Pre-paid grats are just added to your overall cruise balance, so when you pay it down with the gift card, pre-paid grats get paid off too. As Elaine's image shows, one of the option when you choose to make a payment will be to use a gift card. When I use one, I first choose "Other Amount," then type in the amount of the gift card...or the amount I want to pay at that moment. You don't have to enter the entire amount that's on the gift card. Whatever you don't use will be left on the card for something else later.

If you use a travel agent, it Iis different.

 

If your travel agent takes carnival gift cards, you can call the travel agent to have gratuities added, and then use gift cards. 

 

If you have a travel agent, you can still go on the website to pay the gratuities then and there, but it will not be added to your overall balance. I have no clue why, but this screen does not give the option of using gift cards. I just looked, and the two choices were credit card and master pass. 

[coevan]

On 12/5/2019 at 11:27 AM, Hsmama said:

When I prepay gratuities in this way, do I have the option to prepay only the entire amount?  Carnival site doesn't work on chrome browser,only thru firefox on my computer.

 

 

I have never used anything but Chrome and been on Carnival too many times, always works fine. It has nothing to do if you have a Dell or HP it's the browser not the device

[Organized Chaos]

2 hours ago, Joe817 said:

This is exactly what we did. I took my 2 x $100 Carnival gift cards to Guest Services as soon as we got on the ship. It was added to our S&S cards, and at the end of the cruise, we received the unused portion of our S&S account in the form of a Carnival gift card that we are going to put on our S&S account when we cruise on the Freedom in Sept. 2020. Couldn't have worked out better for us.

 

How long did it take for you to get the new gift card with the remaining balance on it? We debarked Dec. 7th and still haven't gotten our balance back yet. It's only $35, but that's our money.

[Joe817]

54 minutes ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

How long did it take for you to get the new gift card with the remaining balance on it? We debarked Dec. 7th and still haven't gotten our balance back yet. It's only $35, but that's our money.

I honestly don't recall exactly. Just asked the wife, and she doesn't recall either. But I'm thinking it was around 2-3 weeks. Sorry I can't be of more help. Does your settlement statement give you any clues as to when the refund will be mailed out?