Compass Rewards Program Ends

[*Wink*]

But the 5% is only on certain purchases. Most purchases will only be from 1/2% to 1 1/2%.

Exactly.. Not as great as it sounds. Hopefully there's a better option.

[d man]

The way I see it, since the original program said your certificate expired in one year, they're going to stick to that. Just because your cruise is after the year expiration date, doesn't mean you can't make payments on your cruise within that year with your certificate(s). Would that be a right assumption folks?

But you have to cruise within one year of the certificate issue date.

[Marlissa]

Here's another credit card comparison site http://cashbackprofit.com/credit/card/Regular/Cashback/sorted_by_cashback_value/cashback.php

[*Wink*]

My last $500 coupon said it was good for a sailing to TAKE PLACE within one year of recieving the coupon. :o That' date=' in fact, is why we had to find a cruise to spend the coupon on ... and are going to BERMUDA ... woo hooo![/font']

Okay ... the quest continues for a credit card with decent bennies ... maybe they don't exist anymore???

&%#@#$ .. Thanks Dianne.. we all know what happens when one assumes! LOL

[Lyman713]

The way I see it, since the original program said your certificate expired in one year, they're going to stick to that. Just because your cruise is after the year expiration date, doesn't mean you can't make payments on your cruise within that year with your certificate(s). Would that be a right assumption folks?

 

I believe the original terms was that your trip must *sail* within one year from the date of the certificate. Unless you get something different in writing from BOA, I wouldn't think otherwise (in writing, because, if you call about the rewards program, you may get different answers with each call!).

 

Good luck! This will me to look around for the best rewards card, or even diversify to some of the other cruise line cards if they are on par with the new program. While I enjoy NCL, the Compass Rewards program helped keep me loyal...

[Lyman713]

Wow, in about 8 minutes, a bunch of other folks have already commented about the 1 year expiration of the certificates!! Looks like this is the thread to watch today!

[terrymtex01]

Just a quick FYI to folks.. Stop using the NCL BOA card if you want, but don't cancel it. A lot of people do not realize (I was one until last month when my financial adviser told me), if you cancel or close out a credit card, that actually hurts your credit rating. I learned too late after I had closed out three that I never used.

 

This change will probably not stop us from sailing NCL as much or as often because we choose NCL because we liked NCL. Not because the benefits of their BOA card. The benefits of the BOA were WONDERFUL, don't get me wrong.. to me they had the best benefits in the business and we did extensive research on travel reward cards and honestly could not find one that came close.

 

So if we have points for a cert available at the end of Dec, we have to use them on a cruise that sails by Jan 2010? Is that how I'm understanding it? We have a cruise booked and paid for Nov 09. Can we use the Compass rewards for onboard credit since we have paid for the cruise already?

[d man]

I believe the original terms was that your trip must *sail* within one year from the date of the certificate. Unless you get something different in writing from BOA, I wouldn't think otherwise (in writing, because, if you call about the rewards program, you may get different answers with each call!).

 

Good luck! This will me to look around for the best rewards card, or even diversify to some of the other cruise line cards if they are on par with the new program. While I enjoy NCL, the Compass Rewards program helped keep me loyal...

I agree, I have been loyal to NCL becasue of the $5,000 - $7,000 in certificates per year. Time for some more land vacations. This was the best rewards card available. I knew it was just a matter of time before changes would be made.

[pgm2786]

Under the new rewards program can we be able to book a cruise with a travel agent and/or NCL, or will we have to deal directly with the World Points Redemption Center travel agent ?

Several years ago we have a Carnival Credit Card, when we accumalated enough cerdits we had to deal directly the credit card travel agent inorder to redeem the credits.

 

 

Cruise-Related Rewards

You may redeem Points and save on the cost of cabin accommodations or shipboard expenses. All reservations and payments related to WorldPoints Cruise Rewards must be made through the WorldPoints Redemption Center. For every 25,000 Points you redeem, you will receive a ($250) discount on the cost of your shipboard cabin accommodations. 25,000 Points = $250 MDV. For every ($100) of shipboard credit you request, you must redeem 10,000 Points. 10,000 Points = $100 MDV.

[*Wink*]

Don't cancel the cards per se, just have all the credit lines rolled together into 1. Never give up credit if you don't have to.

 

Just a quick FYI to folks.. Stop using the NCL BOA card if you want, but don't cancel it. A lot of people do not realize (I was one until last month when my financial adviser told me), if you cancel or close out a credit card, that actually hurts your credit rating. I learned too late after I had closed out three that I never used.

 

 

Great advice, Terry and Preds.. Many people don't know that it does not bode well to close an account. The way the credit card company people look at it, you've been trusted with this amount of credit from other companies, therefore you're not a risk. Suze Orman said that, not me. LOL

[WinnieinWA]

This news makes me very sad. :(

 

Here's a site that allows you to check out credit card reward programs.

http://www.creditcards.com/

[pajammies]

That is dissappointing!! We cruise on NCL and love it, but we would love any cruise so I guess this will give us an opportunity to cruise with other lines and not feel guilty because we could have gotten $$$ off with NCL's points. Still, that was an awsome card and it will be much harder to cruise without the discount:(

Anyone have the Carnival card? Or are there others that are better than RCL's

[Host Kewlguy]

I agree, closing the card will hurt your credit score so no one should do that. That goes for any credit card. Keep them open and use them occasionally to keep them active.

[Host Kewlguy]

That is dissappointing!! We cruise on NCL and love it, but we would love any cruise so I guess this will give us an opportunity to cruise with other lines and not feel guilty because we could have gotten $$$ off with NCL's points. Still, that was an awsome card and it will be much harder to cruise without the discount:(

Anyone have the Carnival card? Or are there others that are better than RCL's

 

RCL's was a distant second to NCL's. Now they will be about even. 50,000 points gets you $500. Carnival's and Celebrity's credit cards are no comparison from what I understand. I don't have either one.

[Warm-Water Diver]

I didn't even receive my first statement and they cancelled the 500 Cert program.

 

Things are bad but I don't believe that was a smart move for BOA and NCL. I was leaning towards taking more cruises on Princess and Celebrity due to the waning service and never ending "nickel and dime" price increases that NCL's been providing. The card and bene's were the only thing that was going to keep me loyal. Now that's going to change. I have several other credit cards that do more for my money than NCLs new policy.

 

I don't care how bad the economy is. Lots of subscribers cancelling cards because the companies changed the rewards just does not make good business sense to me. I guess the Execs at NCL and BOA will have to deal the repercussions of this and I would guess they're going to see a SIGNIFICANT decline in business with less returning cruisers booking and less carrying the BOA card. You'd think they'd want to open every avenue to keep loyal customers coming back to their ships when times get tough. Not the opposite! Guess not....

[Bennett'sCruise]

Well drat! When we retired we closed out some cards and consolidated ... thought it best in this day and age of identity theft. Now I know ... uggghhh :(

[WinnieinWA]

Well drat! When we retired we closed out some cards and consolidated ... thought it best in this day and age of identity theft. Now I know ... uggghhh :(

 

I didn't know that either.:(

[brokenarrowhd]

I got my NCL BOA card in March of this year . Took my first cruise with NCL in June. I was looking forward to earning rewards to off set the cost of future cruises. Now that this program is ending I don't need to be loyal to either.

 

This is not a smart business decision by these to companies. In these tough times you would think they would not alienate their current customers.

 

Who knows , we just might end up taking HAL to Bermuda after all.

[Bennett'sCruise]

You know ... when BoA took over the NCL MBNA cards, we all thought there were going to be some changes ... just didn't think it would take THIS LONG to see the changes ... and just when we had become comfortable with BoA ... Waaaaaaa :(

 

PLUS: I had sold some cruises to folks because of the great NCL cc deals. Double waaaaa

[14ersco]

Might look outside the basic cash rewards credit cards for a better deal. Since we use Hampton and others within the Hilton chain for both pre/post cruise stays and for land vacations this may be the credit card from Citi we go to:

 

Make the most of your next vacation with the Hilton HHonors® Visa® Signature Card. Use your card for purchases and earn HHonors bonus points that can be redeemed for free nights at more than 3,000 Hilton Family hotels worldwide, Experience Rewards, car rentals or exchange HHonors points for airline miles with participating airline partners.

With the Hilton HHonors® Visa® Signature Card you’ll earn:

 

• 15,000 Hilton HHonors® bonus points after making $150 in purchases within 2 months of account opening – enough for 2 free nights at participating Opportunity Category Hilton Family hotels2
  
• 6 HHonors bonus points for each $1 spent at Hilton Family hotels including Hilton®, Conrad®, Doubletree®, Embassy Suites Hotels®, Hampton Inn®, Hampton Inn & Suites®, Hilton Garden Inn®, Hilton Grand Vacations Club®, Homewood Suites by Hilton® and The Waldorf=Astoria Collection® hotels worldwide2
  
• 3 HHonors bonus points per $1 spent on purchases at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations2
  
• 2 HHonors bonus points per $1 spent on all other purchases2

 

https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/cardDetail.do?screenID=933&origincontentId=CONSUMER&CONTENT_TYPE=constituency_detail

[Preds]

Might look outside the basic cash rewards credit cards for a better deal. Since we use Hampton and others within the Hilton chain for both pre/post cruise stays and for land vacations this may be the credit card from Citi we go to:

 

Make the most of your next vacation with the Hilton HHonors® Visa® Signature Card. Use your card for purchases and earn HHonors bonus points that can be redeemed for free nights at more than 3,000 Hilton Family hotels worldwide, Experience Rewards, car rentals or exchange HHonors points for airline miles with participating airline partners.

With the Hilton HHonors® Visa® Signature Card you’ll earn:

 

• 15,000 Hilton HHonors® bonus points after making $150 in purchases within 2 months of account opening – enough for 2 free nights at participating Opportunity Category Hilton Family hotels2
  
• 6 HHonors bonus points for each $1 spent at Hilton Family hotels including Hilton®, Conrad®, Doubletree®, Embassy Suites Hotels®, Hampton Inn®, Hampton Inn & Suites®, Hilton Garden Inn®, Hilton Grand Vacations Club®, Homewood Suites by Hilton® and The Waldorf=Astoria Collection® hotels worldwide2
  
• 3 HHonors bonus points per $1 spent on purchases at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations2
  
• 2 HHonors bonus points per $1 spent on all other purchases2

 

https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/cardDetail.do?screenID=933&origincontentId=CONSUMER&CONTENT_TYPE=constituency_detail

The HiltonHhonors American Express Card is a much better card than the Cititbank Visa.

 

* Earn 10,000 bonus points with your first purchase.1

* Earn an additional 10,000 Hilton HHonors bonus points - that's 2,500 Hilton HHonors bonus points for each of your first four stays at any Hilton Family Hotel.2

* Earn 30,000 Hilton HHonors bonus points when you spend $5,000 in your first 5 months of Cardmembership - that's 15,000 bonus points in addition to the 15,000 points you would earn for your Card Spending.4

* Get 5 HHonors bonus points for every eligible dollar you charge at over 3,000 Hilton HHonors hotels worldwide and for select everyday spend categories.3

* Get 3 HHonors bonus points for every eligible dollar you spend on purchases.

* No annual fee.

* Flexibility to pay over time.

 

Other benefits include Gold VIP Status with $20,000 in annual spending, and discount award codes (i.e. 5 nights at a cat 5 for 125,000pts instead of 175,000) using the AXON code.

 

I have this card, the Gold VIP stauts alone makes it great, add in the value of the points, and the ease of redeeming them, and after the NCL cards this is my 2nd favorite card.

 

The Starwoods Amex card is another one to take a close look at, although it has a $45 annual fee.

[Bennett'sCruise]

What's the conversion? 20,000 points converts to how much in spendable $$$.

[14ersco]

What's the conversion? 20' date='000 points converts to how much in spendable $$$.[/quote']

 

It varies by hotel brand, day of stay, etc. We usually stay at either Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites, or Embassy Suites for the free breakfast and business center. For our next cruise when we booked it was 25,000 points at the Homewood Suites for a $240 per night room and 30,000 points at the Hampton Inn for a $230 per night room. We try to get as close 1 point per dollar so we chose the Homewood Suites.

[terrymtex01]

Great advice, Terry and Preds.. Many people don't know that it does not bode well to close an account. The way the credit card company people look at it, you've been trusted with this amount of credit from other companies, therefore you're not a risk. Suze Orman said that, not me. LOL

 

Sometimes her advise is hard to hear, but I LOVE HER. Also, something I have actually known for years but didn't think about when I closed my unused credit cards is, part of your credit rating has to do with your debt to available unused credit. So that is another reason not to close a credit card. I think I heard Suze say that you should charge one thing to each credit card every year just to keep them active.

 

I do agree that I think this is a bad thing for NCL to do (and believe me, this falls squarely on the back of NCL, they are the ones that basically paid for this benefit). BoA would have continued the program as long as NLC paid for it. That is my biggest frustraition with NCL is they seem to often do the wrong thing at the wrong time. As much as I hate to say this, I do think NCL is grasping at straws right now due to their bottom line financial status. I guess it is better for them to cut this program than loose the company all together. I have no statistics to back that up, just my gut feeling after being in corporate America for so long.

[MrLee]

It varies by hotel brand, day of stay, etc. We usually stay at either Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites, or Embassy Suites for the free breakfast and business center. For our next cruise when we booked it was 25,000 points at the Homewood Suites for a $240 per night room and 30,000 points at the Hampton Inn for a $230 per night room. We try to get as close 1 point per dollar so we chose the Homewood Suites.

 

So each point is approximately $.01?