MBNA Visa or AMEX Card

[charlielinda]

Has anyone recently signed up for either of these? Where did you do it? Do you still get 5000 points for signing up (which would translate in $50 onboard credit?). Any information would be helpful.

 

P.S. I have the cards but was thinking that maybe my husband should sign up. Thanks!

[infoprof56]

I signed up for the Celebrity MBNA Amex card shortly after putting down a deposit on my summer cruise about two months ago. I went through the Celebrity website. I got the bonus points a month or so after my first charge on the card. I also used the card to charge the rest of the cruise balance when it came due...you get double points for Celebrity charges so I will be getting a very nice on-board credit hopefully. I have the points but I am waiting until closer to crusie time to cash them in to see if I can get more points. I can't see how there is anything to lose.

[Bruin Steve]

One thing that is somewhat frustrating (actually several things):

Before Celebrity came out with this card, Royal Caribbean came out with one...

I am a Diamond RCCL C&A member and an Elite X CC member...

I prefer X to RCCL...though I like ANY cruise...

 

BUT, when RCCL came out with theirs, I jumped in and signed up...

By the time X came out with one, I already had a pretty hefty number of "points" on the RCCL card...

 

I am now at around 100,000 points on the RCCL card...125,000 points gets me a free 7 night Caribbean cruise on RCCL...

 

But reading the material on the X Amex card, for 125,000 points, I can get up to a 10 night cruise free!!

 

And, on foreign purchases, the RCCL card charges a 3% surtax, the X Amex only charges a 1% fee (and we'll be in Europe for three weeks this summer!)...

 

We're too far along on the RCCL card to give up...I figure, at the rate we rack up charges, some time around December or January...amybe March at the latest, we'll have the 125,000 free cruise...and will take it in July...

 

In the meantime, I have applied for the X Amex...and I guess, as soon as we hit the free cruise on RCCL, we stop using that card and switch over to the X Amex...

 

Of course, I may need a crystal ball to look three years or so down the road to know if I'll really be able to use the Celebrity Award...

 

You see, my wife works for a school district...Any long cruise we go on usually means July/August...Celebrity's rewars program ALSO appears to be restricted to Mexico or the Caribbean...Both of which they don't seem to sail to in July/August!!!

 

Why can't they just give us a credit (equal to the Caribbean/Mexico value) toward a cruise in Alaska or Europe or somewhere they actually do cruises when we can take vacation? Why won't RCCL let us use their award as a credit toward a cruise that doesn't go to the Caribbean (they don't go to Mexico in July/August either)????

[SheilaNC]

Steve,

Are you sure about the 1% Amex charge. When we sailed the Med. last year we called all our credit card companies to check out the % and found that the AMEX charge was 2% and, possibly, changing to 3%. Still used it, of course, to get more points but it was a bit disconcerting. Of course, in the grand scheme of cruise prices, it's not worth obsessing about.

[SheilaNC]

Check out this site:

http://europeforvisitors.com/europe/articles/credit_card_surcharges.htm

[CStorm]

We got the American Express however, if I had it all to do over again, I think I would have gotten the Visa. American Express is famous for making the retailer call them when you try and use your card and you are not in your home city. Happens to us all the time when we ski in Colorado. I tried to use my Am Ex online the other day and it was declined. I used another card and called Am Ex. They explained that anything "suspicious" is declined. However, I did get the 5000 points for my first transaction and will use it to pay our balance on our cruise next month. We should have $150 in credit after that which is great!