Anger as Carnival Corporation confirms it won’t merge its loyalty programs

• Carnival Cruise Line has confirmed it has no plans to merge the loyalty programs across its multiple brands.
• This means that the current system will continue, where cruisers who cruise on one Carnival Corporation, don’t receive benefits on their other lines.
• Royal Caribbean does offer this.

Popular Carnival Cruise ambassador John Heald recently confirmed in a Facebook comment that Carnival Corporation currently has no plans to combine the loyalty programs of its various cruise lines. 

Some parent cruise brands offer loyalty programs that can be used across multiple lines. Royal Caribbean Group allows its passengers to accumulate points and use those to redeem benefits across its brands, like Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, as well as the upscale Silversea.

The benefit of a loyalty program scheme across Carnival Corporation’s huge portfolio of brands is that guests who sail on Carnival Cruise Line, Princess, Holland America Line, Seabourn, and Cunard would be able to acquire enough points to redeem perks.

Some cruise line loyalty programs offer priority boarding, discounts on laundry services, discounts at the spa, onboard purchases, exclusive member events, and even free cruises.

However, Heald clearly stated: “Please know that at this time there are no plans to do this. Each cruise line is run completely separately at different pricing with different loyalty based for us. 

While this is a fair explanation, the cruise lines are separate and very different to one another, there a few situations to consider in wondering whether it might be more fair for the loyalty programs to either combine, or at least for some kind of cross-benefits to be offered between different cruise lines under the Carnival umbrella. 

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Considering the case of P&O Australia

The first consideration is that it offers passengers protection if certain lines stop sailing, or if certain areas stop receiving ships from one of the Carnival lines.

For example, many P&O Australia cruisers were disappointed to find out they wouldn’t have any of their loyalty benefits transferred over to Carnival, meaning they’d be sailing on the same ships they’d been enjoying for years, but any loyalty benefits would be starting from day one.

It’s also worth noting that these P&O Australia points could be transferred to and used for Princess cruising, which raises the question – why create the distinction there? If the points could be used for cruises on Princess, then why not for cruises on Carnival as well?

This would mean in any future situations where a Carnival line goes under, or withdraws from a region, loyal cruisers from that line may at least have the chance to sail on a different Carnival line and keep at least some of the benefits that they’ve earned from being a loyal customer to the larger Carnival brand. 

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If Royal Caribbean can do it, why not Carnival?

Since 2024, Royal Caribbean has offered a status match across its three cruise lines, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea.

The loyalty programs over Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea are not combined, but they offer a fair system for those who sail regularly on any of the three cruise lines.

How the status match works is that if you have reached a certain tier of loyalty on any of the three cruise lines, you can access the equivalent benefits of this tier when sailing on a different line owned by Royal Caribbean.

This does not mean you can accumulate points on another line, but rather that if you have sailed a lot on at least one of the lines, you will always have these benefits on other ships.

For example, if a Royal Caribbean passenger has sailed 250 days on Royal Caribbean ships and achieved Diamond Status, when they sail on a Silversea ship, they will receive benefits as if they have sailed 250 days on Silversea. However, their sailing days on Silversea won’t be added to their overall total with Royal Caribbean.

This gives cruisers benefits across all three Royal Caribbean lines and encourages cruisers to try something new. It also makes sense financially for Royal Caribbean, as if, for example, a Celebrity cruiser wanted to try something new, they are more likely to try Royal Caribbean or Silversea, as they’d already have some benefits. 

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Should Carnival offer cross-benefits across its lines?

Keeping in mind what happened to P&O Australia cruisers when the line went under, and that Royal Caribbean already runs a similar program, do you think that Carnival loyalty programs should be merged?