adding gift cards to S&S card online yet?

[Brad1972]

I know Carnival was working on making it possible to add Carnival gift cards to your sail & sign account online during your online check in.  did this ever happen?  I would be really nice if this was possible instead of fighting with the people behind the counter at the cruise terminal telling me they only accept the physical gift card and they dont accept email e-gift cards or vise versa or telling me they can only load 1 card now and i will have to load the other cards at guest services or the Kiosks on the ship OR they just flat tell me they can do that here i'll have to do it on the ship.

[Organized Chaos]

No, you're not able to add them prior to the cruise. I haven't heard they were working on that and haven't seen anything about it on here. Where did you hear it?

 

For now, if you want funds waiting for you on your S&S account, you can use the gift cards to buy Cruise Cash.

[Mrgoodbar]

Can cruise cash be used on anything?  Like gratuities or in the casino?

I am sailing on my first Carnival cruise in a few months.

[WhaleTailFlCruiser]

Just now, Mrgoodbar said:

Can cruise cash be used on anything?  Like gratuities or in the casino?

I am sailing on my first Carnival cruise in a few months.

Anything and everything on the boat

[Organized Chaos]

1 hour ago, Mrgoodbar said:

Can cruise cash be used on anything?  Like gratuities or in the casino?

I am sailing on my first Carnival cruise in a few months.

 

1 hour ago, WhaleTailFlCruiser said:

Anything and everything on the boat

 

Mrgoodbar, just keep in mind that Cruise Cash is non-refundable. Use it or lose it. But you can add it to your player's bank in the casino, play a slot once or twice, then cash out.

[Brad1972]

heard carnival was working on it a couple years ago from a carnival rep on Carnivals forums before they took down their forums.  They said they were working on it for the near future with the new website updates..  guess they left it on a back burner or forgot about it. 
 

also last I heard you can only purchase a maximum of $500 cruise cash.  It works to at least get your S&S card loaded before boarding the ship then you can use the kiosks to load more gift cards or have guest services do it after the initial big rush embarkation day

[Organized Chaos]

I haven't tried it, but a lot of people on here have reported that they had all kinds of trouble trying to load gift cards onto their S&S from one of the kiosks. It's supposed to do it, but a lot of people can't seem to get it to work. Some have said something about the machines not wanting to accept it when you try to enter the amount on the card.

 

Earlier this month in NOLA, we had to load our gift card onto our S&S accounts in the terminal after check-in. They wouldn't let us wait until we were on the ship. It was a big mistake doing it that way because the lady took forever. Whether the system was giving her problems or she didn't know what she was doing, but it took 10-15 minutes. We had FTTF and by the time she finally got it taken care of, we were at the very end of the FTTF boarding group. We like to use our discounted gift cards to fund our accounts, so we'll be sure to use them to buy some Cruise Cash (at least some) so they don't make us do it at the terminal in the future.

[Brad1972]

On 12/27/2019 at 10:06 PM, Organized Chaos said:

I haven't tried it, but a lot of people on here have reported that they had all kinds of trouble trying to load gift cards onto their S&S from one of the kiosks. It's supposed to do it, but a lot of people can't seem to get it to work. Some have said something about the machines not wanting to accept it when you try to enter the amount on the card.

 

Earlier this month in NOLA, we had to load our gift card onto our S&S accounts in the terminal after check-in. They wouldn't let us wait until we were on the ship. It was a big mistake doing it that way because the lady took forever. Whether the system was giving her problems or she didn't know what she was doing, but it took 10-15 minutes. We had FTTF and by the time she finally got it taken care of, we were at the very end of the FTTF boarding group. We like to use our discounted gift cards to fund our accounts, so we'll be sure to use them to buy some Cruise Cash (at least some) so they don't make us do it at the terminal in the future.

that was the problem we had our last cruise,  we couldn’t get on the ship till we had our S&S card loaded with some money.  Then the lady behind the counter said she can’t accept the e-gift cards ones cause they are fake we only accept the physical gift card.  So after calling her bluff and asking for her supervisor she tried to input the gift cards but kept screwing up and saying see it won’t accept them. By this time 30 mins had passed and they were starting to board the ship. We also had FTTF.  I requested the supervisor again and when she came I explained everything that was going on and the supervisor you could clearly see was getting pissed while explained it too her, she turned and looked at the lady who “tried” to input our gift cards and said “REALLY?  Stand right there do not go anywhere”. She was pissed.  The super then input all of our gift cards no problem and waved for an assistant help us to board the ship immediately.   
I guess we just happened to get someone that just didn’t want to do her job that day.  Don’t know what her super did to after we boarded the ship but I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant.  
im thinking our next cruise we are going to purchase the cruise cash so we don’t have to go through that again and then if we have more gift cards we’ll have guest services load them on.   We have FTTF for our next cruise and we’re not going to waist nearly an hour or more on trying to get our S&S card loaded while priority boarding people are all boarding.

[Shaded Lady]

On 12/27/2019 at 11:06 PM, Organized Chaos said:

Earlier this month in NOLA, we had to load our gift card onto our S&S accounts in the terminal after check-in. They wouldn't let us wait until we were on the ship.

 

3 minutes ago, Brad1972 said:

that was the problem we had our last cruise,  we couldn’t get on the ship till we had our S&S card loaded with some money. 

 

If anyone tries that on you again, just tell them NO- I have set up my onboard account as cash only and will make my deposit once I board. They tried arguing with me about my account this way and I was adamant that the people onboard are much faster and more efficient than the staff in the terminal. They let me go, I boarded without incident and just found an open kiosk to deposit $100 gift card for the time being until Guest Services was quieter.

 

You DO have to have your onboard account set up, you DO NOT have to have it funded before you board. I know that for a fact.

[sandy toes]

The reduced cost gift cards are becoming harder to find.

Can someone provide a list of where they are currently hiding? 

Two places from the past no longer deal in Carnival and only issue other line cards. 

[Organized Chaos]

3 minutes ago, Brad1972 said:

that was the problem we had our last cruise,  we couldn’t get on the ship till we had our S&S card loaded with some money.  Then the lady behind the counter said she can’t accept the e-gift cards ones cause they are fake we only accept the physical gift card.  So after calling her bluff and asking for her supervisor she tried to input the gift cards but kept screwing up and saying see it won’t accept them. By this time 30 mins had passed and they were starting to board the ship. We also had FTTF.  I requested the supervisor again and when she came I explained everything that was going on and the supervisor you could clearly see was getting pissed while explained it too her, she turned and looked at the lady who “tried” to input our gift cards and said “REALLY?  Stand right there do not go anywhere”. She was pissed.  The super then input all of our gift cards no problem and waved for an assistant help us to board the ship immediately.   
I guess we just happened to get someone that just didn’t want to do her job that day.  Don’t know what her super did to after we boarded the ship but I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant.  
im thinking our next cruise we are going to purchase the cruise cash so we don’t have to go through that again and then if we have more gift cards we’ll have guest services load them on.   We have FTTF for our next cruise and we’re not going to waist nearly an hour or more on trying to get our S&S card loaded while priority boarding people are all boarding.

 

About a year ago, there were issues with people buying fraudulent Carnival e-cards from unreliable sites, like eBay. Not that eBay is unreliable, but I wouldn't buy a gift card from an individual seller. That's just asking for trouble. So when people tried using e-cards at Guest Services, what Carnival had to do was verify the e-cards with Carnival HQ. The dumb thing about it was, they'd tell people it took 24 hours to verify and to come back the next day to finally add it to their S&S accounts. Why did it take them 24 hours? Carnival's official gift card website has a balance checker on it. It takes a minute or two. If it shows there are funds on the gift card, then it should be legit.

 

You're the second or third person I've seen within the last few days say they're no longer accepting the e-cards. Maybe they decided it was easier to stop accepting them than to verify them. If they're that worried about them, why don't they just use their own balance checker to make sure they're funded?

[Organized Chaos]

16 minutes ago, sandy toes said:

The reduced cost gift cards are becoming harder to find.

Can someone provide a list of where they are currently hiding? 

Two places from the past no longer deal in Carnival and only issue other line cards. 

 

The new AARP Rewards still offers 10% off cards, but you now have to be an AARP member and we're limited to one per month. They are in the form of an e-card, but they only have $100 cards.

 

Allstate Rewards is exactly like the old AARP Rewards for Good program was because Allstate still uses the same company. If you're not an Allstate customer, you can still join the rewards program, but you first have to create a rewards account using the Allstate smartphone app. Once the account is created, you can use the website. If you're interested, check out my post in the Allstate Rewards thread for a rundown of how to create an account: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2363984-allstate-drive-wise-cards-too/page/66/?tab=comments#comment-58982270

[jdemps]

I just put a credit card on the account and go to load gift cards when there isn't a line.  it's really not a big deal unless you don't have a credit card at all.

[sandy toes]

Organized Chaos Thank you for the information. Great help. Will sign up today on App. 

Have a great NYs with lots of cruise time!

 

[isladonna]

On 12/29/2019 at 12:29 PM, sandy toes said:

The reduced cost gift cards are becoming harder to find.

Can someone provide a list of where they are currently hiding? 

Two places from the past no longer deal in Carnival and only issue other line cards. 

Citibank has them 10% off..not sure if you have a citicard to get this, but I have one.

[Turqoisblu]

I purchased the gift cards and called in to Carnival and they added them to my account. When I got onboard the money was already on my S&S card. No problem.

[Turqoisblu]

1 (800) 764-7419 This is the number I called.