Questions about becoming platinum

[Illbcruzn4life]

3 hours ago, Drew B 58 said:

My short cruise definitely wouldn’t cost $1,000!  The 11-day one wouldn’t even cost that.  Most likely, it would be “free” under a casino offer, and I’d just be paying taxes, port fees, tips & expenses…

Yeah I don't live near a Florida port so my short cruise and airfare would be about $1500 for my wife and I. Royal doesn't have any $149 cruises unfortunately.

 

Whatever you decide....enjoy!!!!

[Wennfred]

Carnival has the worst loyalty plan compared to the rest, the only thing worth while is the laundry and that’s it. Suite guest trump platinum members. So forget about getting onboard first. There’s no incentives for me to get me back on Carnival with their loyalty clubs.

[CruizinSusan70]

On 3/24/2023 at 6:27 PM, cruisin*tigger said:

Don't forget the laundry benefits; you can get 3 free bags of laundry done on the 11 day.

 

Hot water laundry.....👎

[Guest BasicSailor]

3 hours ago, Wennfred said:

Carnival has the worst loyalty plan compared to the rest, the only thing worth while is the laundry and that’s it. Suite guest trump platinum members. So forget about getting onboard first. There’s no incentives for me to get me back on Carnival with their loyalty clubs.

Good to see you posting again 👍 This being a new direction/ face lift for Carnival is driving even the Platinum/ Diamond people away. Makes a person wonder if that's their intention.😉

[Drazil65]

There’s no incentives for me to get me back on Carnival with their loyalty clubs.

 

That is what is so great about having choices, the ability to make them according to YOUR wants and needs.  Looks like you have done that so you must be very happy and have obviously moved on.  Happy cruising!!!

[thodges]

We tried something similar in 2021.   It went bad.

We had a 16 day Panama Canal transit cruise scheduled.   It left us 3 days short of Platinum level.   So we decided to book a short 4-5 day cruise beforehand to make the longer cruise all Platinum.

 

On the short cruise I caught Covid.   2 miserable days quarantined at the end of the cruise.   

 

Based on that we decided to cancel the Panama Canal cruise.  (Just so happened that the final payment was due a couple of days after getting off the short cruise.)

 

It turns out that PC cruise ended up with alot of Covid cases on board and even made the national news.   So maybe it worked out for the best.

 

I hated 2 days stuck in a cabin, could you imagine 10 or 12.

 

We are finally scheduled to sail again next month, crossing our fingers.

[CruizinSusan70]

12 hours ago, BasicSailor said:

Good to see you posting again 👍 This being a new direction/ face lift for Carnival is driving even the Platinum/ Diamond people away. Makes a person wonder if that's their intention.😉

Carnival's game plan is to A) go for new blues B) give away reduced price or free cruises to the gamblers. This has been the backbone of their marketing strategy for awhile now.

[Guest BasicSailor]

7 minutes ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

This has been the backbone of their marketing strategy for awhile now.

Yes, I know. But this is not going to fill all those ships now is it.

[BlerkOne]

1 hour ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

Carnival's game plan is to A) go for new blues B) give away reduced price or free cruises to the gamblers. This has been the backbone of their marketing strategy for awhile now.

Carnival wants cruisers who cruise for the brand and not for the bribes. Cruisers who sell themselves to the highest bidder are not worth fooling with.

[CruizinSusan70]

1 minute ago, BlerkOne said:

Carnival wants cruisers who cruise for the brand and not for the bribes. Cruisers who sell themselves to the highest bidder are not worth fooling with.

Really?  The gamblers are not bribed with greatly reduced balcony cabins, "free" inside cabins and depending upon their gambling status either free drinks in the casino or all over the ship?

[staceyglow]

2 hours ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

Carnival's game plan is to A) go for new blues B) give away reduced price or free cruises to the gamblers. This has been the backbone of their marketing strategy for awhile now.

DH and I were on a cruise last week that had many, many blue cards.  Anytime we asked any of them if they were having a good time, without exception we got an enthusiastic "Yes!"

 

So as a business, who would you rather cater to: A) New customers who think your product is great (and also spend more money that the average repeat customer) or B) Long time customers who continually complain about your product in public foruma and who aren't as profitable as new customers?

 

Perhaps the strategy is indeed to get rid of the griping, unprofitable plats and diamonds and replace them with people who actually like cruising with Carnival.

Edited March 27, 2023 by staceyglow

[BlerkOne]

1 hour ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

Really?  The gamblers are not bribed with greatly reduced balcony cabins, "free" inside cabins and depending upon their gambling status either free drinks in the casino or all over the ship?

Gamblers are not a large percentage of Carnival cruisers and filling unsold cabins brings in some onboard spend vs nothing.

[BlerkOne]

30 minutes ago, staceyglow said:

DH and I were on a cruise last week that had many, many blue cards.  Anytime we asked any of them if they were having a good time, without exception we got an enthusiastic "Yes!"

 

So as a business, who would you rather cater to: A) New customers who think your product is great (and also spend more money that the average repeat customer) or B) Long time customers who continually complain about your product in public foruma and who aren't as profitable as new customers?

 

Perhaps the strategy is indeed to get rid of the griping, unprofitable plats and diamonds and replace them with people who actually like cruising with Carnival.

Carnival has said time and again they get sufficient repeat business, so yes, they should give whiny, me me me entitled cruisers the boot. This Diamond has many cruises and yes, I enjoy cruising on Carnival 

Edited March 27, 2023 by BlerkOne

[Guest BasicSailor]

46 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

. This Diamond has many cruises and yes, I enjoy cruising on Carnival 

But do you truly love Carnival ? As in have you ever cruised on another line/brand. 🙃 Yes, we know that answer 😁

[CruizinSusan70]

1 hour ago, staceyglow said:

DH and I were on a cruise last week that had many, many blue cards.  Anytime we asked any of them if they were having a good time, without exception we got an enthusiastic "Yes!"

 

So as a business, who would you rather cater to: A) New customers who think your product is great (and also spend more money that the average repeat customer) or B) Long time customers who continually complain about your product in public foruma and who aren't as profitable as new customers?

 

Perhaps the strategy is indeed to get rid of the griping, unprofitable plats and diamonds and replace them with people who actually like cruising with Carnival.

Couldn't agree more, stick with the naive blue cards who are 100% clueless and like to spend frivolously adding to the bottom line and combine them with those that like to make nightly donations in the casino.  Combining these two factions on paper would be the best road to chipping away at the billions that were bled during Covid.

The fact that platinums and diamonds complain about things does not necessarily mean that they don't like cruising on Carnival.  They have just been around long enough to realize that there are many different things over the years that have been chipped away or taken away and it diminishes to a certain degree how cruising was.

[CruizinSusan70]

1 hour ago, BlerkOne said:

Gamblers are not a large percentage of Carnival cruisers and filling unsold cabins brings in some onboard spend vs nothing.

The casino on my last 5 Excel Class sailings, which as you know has far and away the largest casino square foot wise in the fleet was always packed to the gills.

[BlerkOne]

6 minutes ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

Couldn't agree more, stick with the naive blue cards who are 100% clueless and like to spend frivolously adding to the bottom line and combine them with those that like to make nightly donations in the casino.  Combining these two factions on paper would be the best road to chipping away at the billions that were bled during Covid.

 

Just because someone has a blue card does not mean it is their first cruise. All cruise line have cutback and otherwise have some dissatisfied customers.  The major cruise lines all have serious long term debt and the stocks are all seriously overvalued.

 

6 minutes ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

The fact that platinums and diamonds complain about things does not necessarily mean that they don't like cruising on Carnival.  They have just been around long enough to realize that there are many different things over the years that have been chipped away or taken away and it diminishes to a certain degree how cruising was.

Those pesky egos of many get bruised so easily. Any imagined cutbacks have nothing to do with marketing/loyalty programs. If Carnival didn't retain a target number of repeat cruisers, they would have changed the program years ago.

 

The reality is that resources on cruise ships are limited and need to be shared by all. The existing number of P/D cruisers can easily overwhelm the available resources leaving nothing for people who actually spend money. Some P/D cruisers need to go to make room for more.

[BlerkOne]

34 minutes ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

The casino on my last 5 Excel Class sailings, which as you know has far and away the largest casino square foot wise in the fleet was always packed to the gills.

What is the capacity of the casino compared with the capacity of the ship?

[Honolulu Blue]

2 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Gamblers are not a large percentage of Carnival cruisers

I wonder about this, and not just on Carnival.  I wonder how many are casino offers with comped/deeply discounted cabins (almost certainly heavy gamblers) vs. those who gamble casually vs. those who never gamble at all.  We might be surprised by the percentages.  It would be a good question to ask the CEOs, except 1) I can't figure out a way to ask the question to get a direct answer, and 2) I'm not sure even they know the complete alchemy behind casino comps corporation-wide.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Honolulu Blue

[momof3cruisers]

2 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Gamblers are not a large percentage of Carnival cruisers and filling unsold cabins brings in some onboard spend vs nothing.

Except how do they know if those cabins would have been unsold? They allow them to be booked out long into the future from what I have seen.  

[BlerkOne]

17 minutes ago, momof3cruisers said:

Except how do they know if those cabins would have been unsold? They allow them to be booked out long into the future from what I have seen.  

 

Well, I'm seeing more "last" minute offers - for example $100 inside cabins on the Venezia transatlantic.

 

31 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said:

I wonder about this, and not just on Carnival.  I wonder how many are casino offers with comped/deeply discounted cabins (almost certainly heavy gamblers) vs. those who gamble casually vs. those who never gamble at all.  We might be surprised by the percentages.  It would be a good question to ask the CEOs, except 1) I can't figure out a way to ask the question to get a direct answer, and 2) I'm not sure even they know the complete alchemy behind casino comps corporation-wide.

Gamblers claim the casino pays Carnival something for the cabins so there's that.

 

As Corp doesn't release numbers for individual cruise lines, good luck with that.

 

I doubt everyone in the casino is cruising on a free cruise and the casinos don't take up the majority of space on a cruise ship.

[CruizinSusan70]

15 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Just because someone has a blue card does not mean it is their first cruise.

But it is a bonafide fact that it's their first cruise on Carnival and as we both know, blue card holders will spend more on board than more experienced cruisers.  Combined with the gamblers that lose in the casino means that both of these factions add to the bottom line and that is why Carnival's marketing campaign is aimed at these two groups of cruisers.

[CruizinSusan70]

15 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

What is the capacity of the casino compared with the capacity of the ship?

I wouldn't know since the only time I step foot in the casino is to quickly spend my 25.00 free chip.  But I do know that the casinos on the two Excel Class ships are substantially larger than any other ship in the fleet.

[BlerkOne]

4 minutes ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

But it is a bonafide fact that it's their first cruise on Carnival and as we both know, blue card holders will spend more on board than more experienced cruisers.  Combined with the gamblers that lose in the casino means that both of these factions add to the bottom line and that is why Carnival's marketing campaign is aimed at these two groups of cruisers.

John Heald sometimes has a Blue Card and I'm certain it is not his first cruise.

 

Many people lose in the casino and never get offers. When cruising restarted, gamblers were targeted because it was a way to jump start onboard spend which was needed since occupancy was so low. That is no longer the case.

[BlerkOne]

5 minutes ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

I wouldn't know since the only time I step foot in the casino is to quickly spend my 25.00 free chip.  But I do know that the casinos on the two Excel Class ships are substantially larger than any other ship in the fleet.

The ships themselves are substantially larger than the other ships in the fleet.