Buying AARP Gift Cards To Use for Paying Cruise Fares

[mcrcruiser]

We ran into so many issues using $2500 in  (5) $500 Holland  America Gift Cards ,that if we ever buy them again ,we will only buy them to place them for on board credit . We had just too many issues when cancelling & rebooking a HAL cruise .   

Some folks   had no problems . We just need to play it safe in the future . much easier to live with several hundred dollars in gift cards for on board credits than $2500 . Just my personal experience

Cliff 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fox02554]

our Pre-covid AARP gift cards refunded back to giftcards, I wasn't happy having that much $$ in limbo during COVID ( finaly back on HAL 10/24 nice to have it paied for )  so have stayed away from them since , i see some people claiming refund to CC on file with HAL now ????

[Mary229]

I pay half of my fare on gift cards but I don’t pay until final payment.  By final payment I am usually 100% committed and only an insurable event would cause me to cancel.  So no I have no problem with using gift cards. 
 

refunds back to credit card only occur on ship if you end up with an outstanding credit on your onboard account 

[Haljo1935]

3 hours ago, Mary229 said:

...

refunds back to credit card only occur on ship if you end up with an outstanding credit on your onboard account 

@fox02554 Other than OP saying part of his was refunded to CC, I've not heard of that. My experience aligns with this - refund only goes to CC while onboard if you have leftover amount and if you cancel (onboard) an excursion, for example, that you purchased w/gift card. 

[mcrcruiser]

8 hours ago, Mary229 said:

I pay half of my fare on gift cards but I don’t pay until final payment.  By final payment I am usually 100% committed and only an insurable event would cause me to cancel.  So no I have no problem with using gift cards. 
 

refunds back to credit card only occur on ship if you end up with an outstanding credit on your onboard account 

Mary I  recall on one of your posts that you book using your Chase Sapphire  Credit Card to get the Trip cancellation & Trip interruption insurance from  the chase insurance agency  .So how do you get around that when you use  the Gift Cards ?  On our recent booking i paid $1200 on my chase Sapphire CC & will pay the balance $258 on that credit card  & $420 was on that Card as well. $1200 was transferred  from AARP Gift Cards to the booking  . We did buy the gift vcards with the Sapphire  CC

 

 Cliff

[mcrcruiser]

5 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

@fox02554 Other than OP saying part of his was refunded to CC, I've not heard of that. My experience aligns with this - refund only goes to CC while onboard if you have leftover amount and if you cancel (onboard) an excursion, for example, that you purchased w/gift card. 

 I can not explain what happened that $1200 wound up as a credit from the gifr cards .but ,this is what HAL's accounting dept did . Strange yes but it is true 

[Mary229]

2 minutes ago, mcrcruiser said:

Mary I  recall on one of your posts that you book using your Chase Sapphire  Credit Card to get the Trip cancellation & Trip interruption insurance from  the chase insurance agency  .So how do you get around that when you use  the Gift Cards ?  On our recent booking i paid $1200 on my chase Sapphire CC & will pay the balance $258 on that credit card  & $420 was on that Card as well. $1200 was transferred  from AARP Gift Cards to the booking  . We did buy the gift vcards with the Sapphire  CC

 

 Cliff

I called Chase and they indicated 40% was enough to cover, I do 50% to keep it safe.the line between purchasing gift cards and payment may be too convoluted to trust

[mcrcruiser]

6 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

I called Chase and they indicated 40% was enough to cover, I do 50% to keep it safe.the line between purchasing gift cards and payment may be too convoluted to trust

Thanks Mary  .Well we will have over 50 % billed on Chase Sapphire CC vs gift Cards that were unused 

[Famgel1956]

Hi I’m a 1st time cruiser & was planning on buying the AARP gift cards to pay off balance but confused! We did buy Allianz insurance to cover cruise but in case of cancellation would the amount of AARP GC’s we used go back to them or would insurance pickup? Ty! 

[Mary229]

2 hours ago, Famgel1956 said:

Hi I’m a 1st time cruiser & was planning on buying the AARP gift cards to pay off balance but confused! We did buy Allianz insurance to cover cruise but in case of cancellation would the amount of AARP GC’s we used go back to them or would insurance pickup? Ty! 

Whenever you file an insurance claim the insurance company pays you by check or direct deposit.  They have no access to your credit card/gift card information.  

[Famgel1956]

Great ty wasn’t sure if buying the HA AARP gift cards to pay balance off would prevent Allianz from paying a claim & just refund credit back to gift cards ty very much! 

[TAW1963]

6 hours ago, Famgel1956 said:

Great ty wasn’t sure if buying the HA AARP gift cards to pay balance off would prevent Allianz from paying a claim & just refund credit back to gift cards ty very much! 

I suggest you check with Allianz first.  After following some threads on here where some were saying that many insurance polices will not reimburse any payments made with a gift card, I checked with the company I had at the time for a cruise (Nationwide) and they said they would not reimburse payments made with a gift card.  I really don't know the true answers to this and I am afraid to risk it.  We purchase an annual GeoBlue policy that is for medical and evacuation only.  We also purchase the cruise lines cancel-for-any-reason cruise protection just prior to final payment to protect our investment in case we must cancel.  We pay our fare, and anything else we can, with AARP gift cards.  In fact, we had to use it just a couple of weeks ago for we had to cancel a cruise scheduled for last week (on Princess) due to my father-in-law having open heart surgery and taking a turn for the worse.  Everyone needs to feel comfortable with their insurance coverage and must do whatever they feel is best for their situation.  

[Famgel1956]

Ok ty very good advice! 

[CNSJ]

According to the fine print with Chase Sapphire Reserve, $1 charged to the card is enough to cover the entire trip for trip insurance.  This allows you to get coverage on award flights when you pay the taxes/fees with the card.  I but gift cards for cruise fare to the nearest $500.  Since you can only buy $2500 a month, buy them when you can for expensive trips.

 

I bought MedJet to supplement the coverage with Chase, as Chase gets you to the nearest hospital.  MedJet gets you to your hospital.  Since we are talking about AARP note that AARP has a discount on MedJet, offers up to $200 OBC for HAL, and of course has the gift cards that are subject of this thread.

[mcrcruiser]

After having some problems with AARP gift Cards on a cancelled HAL cruise O am very dubious about ever buying them again . I got $1600 back to my credit card & the rest we used on another cruise . sort of insane that HAL credited my credit card instead  of putting all the unsuded AARP credit card monies back on the original AARP gift Cards .

 

 Additionally ,we use Chase Sapphire Preferred to insure our cruise Trip Cancellation & Trip interruption & some baggage insurance they offer  .the big one is the trips cancellation & interruption protection up yo $20,000  .We then add Allianz Travel Insurance  .That is just the way you put it into search on the net . Here we get extra medical & med vac for $286 per yrear & more baggage insurance .At 85 years of age ,there is no way we would be able to but individual travel insurance plans for each cruise .Just too costly . Once people hit 70 the trip insurance cost zooms .  Yhis is the best & least way to insure trips ,BTW that allianz  insurance for medical & med vac is good for one full year of travel 

[Mary229]

2 hours ago, CNSJ said:

According to the fine print with Chase Sapphire Reserve, $1 charged to the card is enough to cover the entire trip for trip insurance.  This allows you to get coverage on award flights when you pay the taxes/fees with the card.  I but gift cards for cruise fare to the nearest $500.  Since you can only buy $2500 a month, buy them when you can for expensive trips.

 

I bought MedJet to supplement the coverage with Chase, as Chase gets you to the nearest hospital.  MedJet gets you to your hospital.  Since we are talking about AARP note that AARP has a discount on MedJet, offers up to $200 OBC for HAL, and of course has the gift cards that are subject of this thread.

It does indeed say that so I called and spoke with an insurance specialist for chase.  He felt to be make a claim easy (and attorney free) it was best to pay a substantial amount on the card that is why I use a 60/40 split.  I use Geoblue for health but am happy to be in any hospital if needed.  If I were planning a trip somewhere particularly remote or undeveloped I might have a different view. I am just back from Antarctica and my research indicated that even the hospitals in far southern Argentina/Chile were just fine so Geoblue was sufficient . 

Edited February 6 by Mary229

[Bocker3]

16 hours ago, mcrcruiser said:

After having some problems with AARP gift Cards on a cancelled HAL cruise O am very dubious about ever buying them again . I got $1600 back to my credit card & the rest we used on another cruise . sort of insane that HAL credited my credit card instead  of putting all the unsuded AARP credit card monies back on the original AARP gift Cards .

I don't understand why you keep complaining about this.  HAL's mistake actually left you BETTER OFF.  You got paid the 10% free OBC from the Gift Certificate.  So, by my calculations you are $160 ahead of the game, due to HAL's error.

[mawvkysc]

4 hours ago, Bocker3 said:

I don't understand why you keep complaining about this.  HAL's mistake actually left you BETTER OFF.  You got paid the 10% free OBC from the Gift Certificate.  So, by my calculations you are $160 ahead of the game, due to HAL's error.

Totally agree. Plus you could us that money now for any purpose you wanted. You’re not tied to a HA cruise 

[trk_koa]

In 2023, we needed to cancel a cruise before final payment that we had already paid using the HAL gift cards (wasn’t the AARP ones). Our PCC applied the money toward a cruise that we had on deposit for 2024. No problem and then I didn’t need to keep track of which gift cards had been refunded. 

[Will_Dieterich]

So how does that work for using as OBC?

 

Do you just take the gift card down to customer service and tell them to use it, then once it is used up take the next one down and have them use that? 

Edited February 11 by Will_Dieterich

[Mary229]

1 hour ago, Will_Dieterich said:

So how does that work for using as OBC?

 

Do you just take the gift card down to customer service and tell them to use it, then once it is used up take the next one down and have them use that? 

Yes.  You can have them apply all of them if you think you are going to spend them. I hand them my phone opened to my digital wallet where they are stored OR you can buy OBC in advance 

Edited February 11 by Mary229

[Haljo1935]

4 hours ago, Will_Dieterich said:

So how does that work for using as OBC?

 

Do you just take the gift card down to customer service and tell them to use it, then once it is used up take the next one down and have them use that? 

Since I use only digital gift cards, I have a word doc where I keep each of the GC numbers w/corresponding pins and $$ value. When I use a card, I record the date, amount used and remaining balance. Then once onboard, I give that sheet to GS to apply the GC to my account. It's an easy way to use up odd amounts. I do it in one trip, but have purchased additional GC mid-cruise and have them added as well.

[pghflyer]

Some great points in this thread I hadn't considered. I also use the Chase Sapphire Reserve for insurance....and do think just $1 charge would opt your trip in to cover most things but having submitted for coverage multiple times in the past (which worked great and fast), I am a little worried that in the event of cancelled cruise coverage (never used that portion).......they might try to only reimburse the cruise fare for the amount charged to the credit card.  I suppose it shouldn't be too hard to have Holland or your agent provide a paid in full invoice of some kind, but not sure how they will treat the multiple sources and if I want to be the first to test some rando CS agent's percentage picked out of thin air ha ha.

 

Just curious how you guys are applying these payments to your final payment? I always use an agency so does that mean I need to get on the phone and read off 20 gift card numbers (example in the case of a $10K fare) over the phone and then they are manually entering that on their side?  Yikes.  Would like to think there is a way I can just enter into my Holland account myself but I don't see an obvious place.......

[Nodakboiler]

I believe if you book through a travel agent, you must have the travel agent input the gift card numbers. If booking with a HAL PCC you can do it online.

[mawvkysc]

What I did was email my TA a list of all the gift card numbers and pin. Most of the numbers were fairly consecutive so the TA cut and pasted the numbers and edited the last few digits with each entry. So it didn’t take her too long. 

I felt comfortable with that, but some prefer to call and read it off.