Royal Caribbean expands its loyalty program as Carnival’s plan continues to cause pain

• Royal Caribbean is introducing its new Points Choice Program.
• This offers cruisers more freedom to earn points on and switch between different cruise lines owned by Royal Caribbean.
• Carnival Cruises is a different story. Cruisers continue to complain about the loyalty cutbacks associated with the new Carnival Rewards program, set to come into effect this year.

Royal Caribbean has officially announced its new Points Choice program, which will begin on January 30. 

The new program allows not just a status match between Royal Caribbean’s cruise lines, Royal Caribbean, Silversea and Celebrity Cruises, but it also allows you to choose which loyalty program you will put your points towards when sailing on any of these three lines.

This means if you are a loyal Royal Caribbean cruiser and want to cruise with Celebrity, not only can you status match and instantly have some perks, but you can also decide to put your points earned from sailing with Celebrity back into your Royal Caribbean loyalty program.

So you could focus on just building up one of the loyalty programs, and use those consolidations to status match across all lines. For example, rather than having some points with Royal, some with Celebrity and some with Silversea, you can consolidate them all together to the line of your choice, and status match when you sail with other lines. 

It’s an impressive change from Royal Caribbean and the expanding of their loyalty offerings may particularly raise some eyebrows given that many feel Carnival is currently moving in the opposite direction. 

Last year Carnival announced ‘Carnival Rewards’, a new type of loyalty program for Carnival that more closely resembles the typical loyalty program of an airline or hotel. It rewards spending and status resets every two years. Furthermore, you can redeem loyalty points on things like spa treatments and shore excursions.

The initial announcement said that all loyalty members would be removed from their status and an uproar began, with thousands of Carnival cruisers expressing their displeasure. Since then, some concessions have been made, with higher tier members getting to keep some of their perks. 

While changes have been made, the program arrives this year and it appears that Carnival could be done with listening. The program will officially start in September. 

However, the overall sentiment appears to remain negative. 

Popular cruise blogger Midships said: “Carnival Rewards has been a disaster, full stop. The second they announced it, loyal cruisers raged, social media exploded and cruisers threatened to cancel sailings, some even did. The community feedback was overwhelmingly negative.

“Since then, Carnival has been re-adding perks, changing earning rules, tweaking timelines and now delaying the program once again. What this all says to me is that this is not a company that is confidently rolling out a major update. What it seems like is a company scrambling to prevent a loyalty revolt from turning into a booking collapse that will anger their shareholders.”

The comments are filled with cruisers sharing stories of despair and saying that they will consider cruising with other lines.

However, the other perspective to consider is that despite the loyalty announcement, Carnival continued to hit record booking levels through 2025. Furthermore, if the loyalty cuts help keep prices lower than other lines, they will likely maintain the majority of their base, and continue to attract the new to cruise market.

The reality is that for now, Carnival’s loyalty program doesn’t quite measure up to that of NCL or Royal Caribbean, particularly given both of the other lines offer status matches and Carnival does not. 

The biggest loser of the new program at Carnival will be loyal cruisers, who aren’t crazy big spenders. This means people who generally only cruise once a year or less, and do spend onboard, but aren’t huge spenders that get a drinks package, gamble frequently, enjoy spa treatments and more.

For the basics of what you should know as the transition to Carnival Rewards nears and how it may affect you, we’ve got you covered below.

• The new system will be implemented from September 1, 2026.
• Based on Carnival’s formula. Earning Gold Status would take USD$3333, Platinum Status would take USD$16,666 and Diamond Status USD$33,333. In Australia dollars this is approximately $5000, $25,000 and $50,000 over a two year period, which then resets at the end of the period.
• If you are currently a gold status, you will lose this and start from zero.
• Platinum members will lose their status, however, not this September, but rather on May 31, 2028. Then they will get a 10,000 star boost each two years in the new program, which starts them at gold status. This means it would cost about $20,000 more in total to earn Platinum and $45,000 more to earn Diamond. 
• Diamond members will keep their lifetime status and current perks until 2032, and be guaranteed lifetime status as Diamond in Carnival Rewards.
• Under the new system, you also earn points which can be redeemed onboard. Every $20,000 of spend per person is enough to redeem one shore excursion or one spa treatment approximately. 
• Casino spend is more valuable than general spend under this system, meaning casino players will accumulate points faster.