Celebrity casino won best cruise line player's club for 2022 but dropped to 3rd place for 2023

[fstuff1]

I'm Sapphire casino tier level.

They revoked my tier privilege of the Retreat Lounge access in 2022 because Covid but they gave me $100 freeplay instead.
I was disappointed because i'd rather have Lounge access than $100 freeplay but i understood because of social distancing rules.

but Then they took away the $100 freeplay starting summer 2023! 🙁😡

 

Also, you now need $500 adt or avg $500/day loses to qualify for end of cruise additional OBC. 😮 

It used to be much less in early 2022 when these Awards were evaluated.

 

(Plus now they're experimenting with reducing the unlimited photos package to just 10 free photos but that was after the 2023 Award's list was published.)

 

But even with those 2 downgrades, i'm surprised they went from #1 to #3.
I can't believe Carnival has upped their game that much? 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by fstuff1

[LaCal]

The 2-3 hour wait times when calling Blue Chip would drop them wayyy down from being #1 or #3 in my book and the constant mis or different info you’d get from each rep including types of comps you qualified for was very poor customer service 

[Georgia_Peaches]

$500 per day losses to qualify for end of cruise OBC makes me feel queasy just thinking about it. 😵‍💫
 

I’m currently at the Amethyst level. Priority embarkation (a listed perk) apparently isn’t a thing, unlimited digital photos (another perk) isn’t really of interest to me, I do appreciate the free play, tho.
 

Agree about the frustration of getting a live person on the Blue Chip line. 

[JackE]

9 hours ago, fstuff1 said:

I'm Sapphire casino tier level.

They revoked my tier privilege of the Retreat Lounge access in 2022 because Covid but they gave me $100 freeplay instead.
I was disappointed because i'd rather have Lounge access than $100 freeplay but i understood because of social distancing rules.

but Then they took away the $100 freeplay starting summer 2023! 🙁😡

 

Also, you now need $500 adt or avg $500/day loses to qualify for end of cruise additional OBC. 😮 

It used to be much less in early 2022 when these Awards were evaluated.

 

(Plus now they're experimenting with reducing the unlimited photos package to just 10 free photos but that was after the 2023 Award's list was published.)

 

But even with those 2 downgrades, i'm surprised they went from #1 to #3.
I can't believe Carnival has upped their game that much? 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting, thanks for sharing. What publication is this?

[Oldsweets]

I believe it. We have 1 Celebrity Cruise Booking on the Nov Ascent sailing which we elected to book without any Blue Chip offer as it was the cheaper option. At the same time we have 8 Carnival Casino bookings through May 2024.  Clearly Celebrity and Carnival Ships are not the same but the Casino Offers and treatment is clearly better for us.  I was surprised how well NCL did with 1st place as they have been more difficult for us to work with then Blue Chip.  Guess it shows that Too each there own. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

12 hours ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

$500 per day losses to qualify for end of cruise OBC makes me feel queasy just thinking about it. 😵‍💫
 

I’m currently at the Amethyst level. Priority embarkation (a listed perk) apparently isn’t a thing, unlimited digital photos (another perk) isn’t really of interest to me, I do appreciate the free play, tho.
 

Agree about the frustration of getting a live person on the Blue Chip line. 

 

And after all that, this is what they offer and 75% of these are unavailable even if you call within 5mins of receiving the email...lol

 

[kwokpot]

5 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

And after all that, this is what they offer and 75% of these are unavailable even if you call within 5mins of receiving the email...lol

 

You're not getting the good offers. We're doing B2B on the Ascent in January, 1st room Aquaclass with all included, 2nd in Concierge Class. 

Edited November 8, 2023 by kwokpot

[NutsAboutGolf]

25 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

You're not getting the good offers. We're doing B2B on the Ascent in January, 1st room Aquaclass with all included, 2nd in Concierge Class. 

 

Salt in the wounds!  jk/lol  I don't play slots is the main problem

[Georgia_Peaches]

1 hour ago, Oldsweets said:

I believe it. We have 1 Celebrity Cruise Booking on the Nov Ascent sailing which we elected to book without any Blue Chip offer as it was the cheaper option. At the same time we have 8 Carnival Casino bookings through May 2024.  Clearly Celebrity and Carnival Ships are not the same but the Casino Offers and treatment is clearly better for us.  I was surprised how well NCL did with 1st place as they have been more difficult for us to work with then Blue Chip.  Guess it shows that Too each there own. 

We are on the November sailing as well.  Regarding Carnival, I really liked their offer of a comped balcony stateroom for 7 nights...much better than the inside category X is offering.  I turned the Carnival offer into a Celebrity offer using URComped.  They honored it!  Only difference was it was for 6 nights instead of 7.  Point is, perhaps you could take one of those Carnival offers and do the same!

[Oldsweets]

We use ur but we are not eligible for celebrity bookings with them because of being a customer of celebrity.  Have some good to great offers through ur showing on celebrity so took a chance and asked ur comped and they said a hard no.  Thanks for the kind suggestion though.

[DingoMom]

@Georgia_Peaches, I am in the same boat (haha) as @Oldsweets. How can I use ur on Celebrity when I am a frequent cruiser on Celebrity? For my offers, I have to sign that I haven’t cruised with X in the past year. Thanks!

[DingoMom]

@kwokpot, I think I get the same offers as you. How can I differentiate the offers that are AI and those that are not? Is there any way to tell without calling BCC? Thank you!

[Georgia_Peaches]

3 hours ago, Oldsweets said:

We use ur but we are not eligible for celebrity bookings with them because of being a customer of celebrity.  Have some good to great offers through ur showing on celebrity so took a chance and asked ur comped and they said a hard no.  Thanks for the kind suggestion though.

 

50 minutes ago, DingoMom said:

@Georgia_Peaches, I am in the same boat (haha) as @Oldsweets. How can I use ur on Celebrity when I am a frequent cruiser on Celebrity? For my offers, I have to sign that I haven’t cruised with X in the past year. Thanks!

I'm not sure because I was an established Celebrity cruiser when we used them for the comp.  To my knowledge it doesn't matter if you have sailed Celebrity before  I think the rule is that you cannot have already sailed Celebrity on a  UR casino comp within a year of the next UR casino comp.  In other words Celebrity will accept 1 casino comp made with ur per year.  But @kwokpot has much more knowledge in this area. 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Georgia_Peaches

[PTC DAWG]

On 11/7/2023 at 7:37 PM, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

Salt in the wounds!  jk/lol  I don't play slots is the main problem

I’m strictly a table guy too..should I be playing some slots? I have heard they accumulate points better at times. 

[Georgia_Peaches]

10 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

I’m strictly a table guy too..should I be playing some slots? I have heard they accumulate points better at times. 

DH only inserts his card into a machine when they announce that $5 free play has been loaded onto the sea pass card.  That's it.  He plays his free play then goes to the bar to obtain a cocktail for dear me while I do the real playing..  As such, Every. Single. Offer. has been addressed to him...not me.  No rhyme or reason IMO.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Georgia_Peaches

[NutsAboutGolf]

3 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

I’m strictly a table guy too..should I be playing some slots? I have heard they accumulate points better at times. 

 

Correct; this is almost always the case whether land or sea

[kwokpot]

2 hours ago, DingoMom said:

@kwokpot, I think I get the same offers as you. How can I differentiate the offers that are AI and those that are not? Is there any way to tell without calling BCC? Thank you!

You really can't at first glance unless it actually says it in the email/postcard offer. Otherwise you need to call and ask. 

[Oceansails]

Currently on Beyond. BCC changes starting on next cruise. Updates to BCC page next week. 
Casino host said that staff had a meeting about it today. I believe it will adopt some of the RCCL Casino Royale guidelines. 
Future cruise sales have not been allowed to book Blue Chip sailings onboard for a while.

There is not currently a specific BCC loyalty individual in place after Patrick Jaquot left Celebrity, and the junket department only handles the junkets, so the players just have the call center dept and emails.

I’ll be interested to see the changes as to what each tier will receive. This cruise ends on Monday, so by the end of next week, it should be available to view.

[kwokpot]

2 hours ago, DingoMom said:

@kwokpot, I think I get the same offers as you. How can I differentiate the offers that are AI and those that are not? Is there any way to tell without calling BCC? Thank you!

 

3 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

You really can't at first glance unless it actually says it in the email/postcard offer. Otherwise you need to call and ask. 

For example in this mailing we chose the Jan 7th sailing in AQ on the Ascent and when we called it had All Included, and this one includes the gratuities since we booked it in August so we lucked out. But you can't tell from the mailer that it incudes all included.

[kwokpot]

2 hours ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

 

I'm not sure because I was an established Celebrity cruiser when we used them for the comp.  To my knowledge it doesn't matter if you have sailed Celebrity before  I think the rule is that you cannot have already sailed Celebrity on a  UR casino comp within a year of the next UR casino comp.  In other words Celebrity will accept 1 casino comp made with ur per year.  But @kwokpot has much more knowledge in this area. 

I know we ran into this qualification with URComped with Royal last year, but at least with us, starting in 2019 when we first used URComped for a Celebrity cruise it's never been an issue between BCC and URComped. Our first booking with URComped was for an Edge sailing in 4/2019 yet we had already sailed on the Edge on the Inaugural sailing in 12/2018 on a fully comped BCC offer.   In 2021 we had both URComped and BCC comped sailings. In 2022 we had only URComped Celebrity sailings. And this year as I said it was both BCC and URComped booked sailings.  Whether this changes next year I can't be sure because so far the two Celebrity comped bookings we have booked for next year have been with BCC. Strangely last year Celebrity BCC had occasionally been using URComped to do the casino bookings for BCC offerings. The way we found out about this unusual arrangement was when BCC was trying to fill the Solstice Mexican Riviera itineraries due to the last minute cancelation of the Solstice sailing Japan in late 2022 into 2023.  I personally received a free cruise offer(My husband is the gambler so he's the one in the family that gets ALL THE OFFERS, NEVER me) on the Solstice summer 2022 from BCC and in taking advantage of the offer to my surprise the booking and correspondence came from Urcomped. So BCC's arrangement with URComped was different than with Royal.

Edited November 9, 2023 by kwokpot

[kwokpot]

1 hour ago, Oceansails said:

Future cruise sales have not been allowed to book Blue Chip sailings onboard for a while.

 

I guess it depends on what you mean by BCC sailings. On our Feb. Solstice and July Apex sailings we went to Future Cruise onboard both ships and inquired if there were any comped cruise offers from the casino dept that they can book for us onboard. On both ships they did indeed have an OFFER for us for a free 7 day veranda that could be booked out to 11 months. This offer was only available onboard through Future Cruise and won't be available once we disembarked. The offer was severely capacity controlled so we didn't take advantage of it (and bookings also included an administration fee which booking directly with BCC doesn't have) so you're correct that they don't necessarily book BCC offer codes but they have or at least HAD a different arrangement with BCC for complementary sailings for gamblers.  

Edited November 9, 2023 by kwokpot

[PTC DAWG]

2 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

Correct; this is almost always the case whether land or sea

I’ve always figured this..I just can’t stand at a slot that long, I like the interaction on the tables too much. 

[kwokpot]

3 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

I’ve always figured this..I just can’t stand at a slot that long, I like the interaction on the tables too much. 

You should play what you want to play. If you want to maximize comps, then you have to include slots in the mix. But if $2 in the slots doesn't bring you the same enjoyment as $2 on the tables then don't worry about the comps and just play for your enjoyment. 

Edited November 9, 2023 by kwokpot

[fstuff1]

5 hours ago, kwokpot said:

 

For example in this mailing we chose the Jan 7th sailing in AQ on the Ascent and when we called it had All Included, and this one includes the gratuities since we booked it in August so we lucked out. But you can't tell from the mailer that it incudes all included.

 

wow.. nice offers for 103 code back in Aug.
the current postcards for 103 offers are just regular veranda or ocean view. 😞

Edited November 10, 2023 by fstuff1

[PTCruizer]

On 11/9/2023 at 8:56 AM, Oldsweets said:

We use ur but we are not eligible for celebrity bookings with them because of being a customer of celebrity.  Have some good to great offers through ur showing on celebrity so took a chance and asked ur comped and they said a hard no.  Thanks for the kind suggestion though.

I've had three comped Celebrity cruises booked at the same time through Ken Froom. I currently have 2 booked for the remainder of this year. You may want to reach out to them. I've had great service with them for about 4 years now.