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If you are like most people, a relaxing cruise, with most of your activities and meals included, is an ideal way to spend your coveted vacation time. Years ago, my husband and I had gone on a couple of cruises and really enjoyed the laid-back, low-planning approach to vacation. If only there was an easy way to use points and miles to get free cruises like we do with hotels and flights!
Cruising seemed outside of the points and miles world. Then, last year, I learned that I could use casino and hotel status to match my way to an almost-free cruise through the Carnival Players Club Fun Match Program.
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Casino Status Without Stepping Foot in a Casino
The Carnival Fun Match allows you to submit proof online of status with a land-based casino. Once matched, Carnival will offer free or highly discounted cruises. It may sound too good to be true, but Carnival’s hope is that guests with loyalty to land-based competitors will apply the same loyalty to the casino on board the ship.
If you already have status with a casino loyalty program, such as MGM Rewards or Caesars Rewards, simply upload a copy of the front and back of your loyalty card to the Carnival Fun Match website and wait for your offers to come via email.
But…I don’t gamble much. I mean, I enjoy a slot machine as much as the next person, but I’m not exactly entering poker tournaments anytime soon. So how did I, a virtual gambling rookie, get Diamond status with Caesars? Wyndham Rewards matches status with Caesars, which means you can become a Caesars Diamond member without ever gambling or even setting foot in a casino!
Not a Wyndham Diamond member either? Since the Wyndham Rewards® Earner℠ Business Card offers Wyndham Diamond status to its cardholders, you can easily become a Caesars Diamond member by grabbing this card with a reasonable $95 annual fee.
So, how do you go from hotel loyalty to free cruises? Here's the process.
Tips on Completing the Carnival Fun Match
Before applying for the Wyndham Earner Business Card, you’ll need to sign up for both the Wyndham Rewards and Caesars Rewards programs. You will start out as a Blue member, but after getting the card, you’ll be automatically upgraded to a Wyndham Rewards Diamond.
One of the many perks of this card is the ability to match this status to Caesar’s Rewards as well, but it doesn’t come automatically. You’ll need to match your status on the Caesars website. This process took me a few weeks, so your patience may be required.
Once your Caesar’s Rewards Diamond status is reflected in your account, take a screenshot of your card and use that to submit to the Carnival Fun Match. Note: The submission page asks for pictures of the front and back of the card, but you will only get a physical card if you go to a Caesars casino guest service desk in person.
My experience — as well as numerous online data points — indicate that Carnival isn’t strict about this and usually accepts a screenshot of your card from the app or website. If you have any other casino loyalty status (MGM Rewards, Wynn Rewards, etc.), you can submit more than one to increase your chances of some good offers.
If a business card isn’t doable for you and you don’t already have status with a casino, alternate routes through hotel status matches may be able to get you there.
The Carnival Fun Match Offers Come Rolling In
A few days after I submitted my Carnival Players Club Fun Match, I started getting emails with offers from the Players Club. It is very common for the first few offers to be discounts rather than free cruise offers. My first offered up to $500 off. These are base offers, and you should continue to wait at least a few weeks for better offers to come through. Many people have noted that your entire profile must be complete before you’ll get good offers. Make sure you fill that out carefully!
About a month after my first emails from the Fun Match came through, I started to get the free cruise offers. My offer was for “Up to a Free Balcony Room.” You do not have to book the first offers you receive! Even though the email says you have to book by the end of the month, nearly everyone gets ensuing offers if you don’t book the first one; sometimes, the offers get better.
There were many available cruises included in this Carnival Fun Match offer: three-day cruises from Los Angeles to Mexico, a 16-day transatlantic repositioning journey, and many seven-day Western Caribbean options. There were even a few Alaskan cruises available. But very few of the bookable options were actually in balcony rooms. Note the important words in the offer: up to a free balcony room. Traveling during peak times will definitely limit the rooms available — especially now that the cruise industry is in a post-Covid boom.
I could have waited for other sailings to open up. However, since I’m a teacher, my vacation time is pretty restricted to peak travel dates. In the end, we were happy to snag an eight-day cruise to the Southern Caribbean on the Carnival Vista in a porthole room. It worked with my teacher's schedule, and I was able to book it over a year out, which worked well with our existing travel plans. We also could have paid to upgrade our room, but we decided we were fine with the room provided in the offer.
Free Isn’t Quite Free
The cruise may be “free,” but you will still have to pay a $100 deposit per person that you get back as onboard credit. Additionally, you will be responsible for port taxes and fees. For our eight-night Southern Caribbean cruise, we paid a total of $438 — with $200 of that available as an onboard credit. You are also responsible for daily gratuities for the staff, which are currently $16 per person per day in a non-suite cabin.
The Carnival Fun Match offers include passage for two guests, but you can pay to add family members if your room can accommodate them. This became our “anniversary cruise” to Aruba, so we didn’t add the kids for this voyage.
All in, our “free” Carnival Fun Match anniversary cruise costs $694. However, it covers eight nights for two people and even includes $50 free play in the casino, as well as free beverages while playing in the casino. We think it’s a fantastic deal. There is no requirement to play in the casino while on board, but with the free play and free beverages, you can bet I’ll find my way to a few slot machines. Why not? It’s an almost-free cruise!
Related: Best Credit Cards for Travel Purchases
Bottom Line
The Carnival Fun Match has opened up the world of cruising again to our family — without breaking the bank. From a single credit card application, we can enjoy eight days of almost-free (and kid-free!) cruising. So, if you're yearning for a nearly-free cruise, this status match may be the key to your next fantastic adventure on the high seas.
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