Loyalty Programs - Do past passenger programs keep you coming back for more? Episode 5

9 out of every 10 people who take a cruise go on to book another and every cruise line wants to encourage people to book that cruise but now most every cruise line is willing to reward loyalty with perks up to and including the gift we all want a free cruise I'm Billy Hirsch And I'm Rick Ross we're talking about loyalty clubs on this episode of the cruise have a pod cast. Your vote have to set sail on the cruise have it put cast on would be a voyage through the will of ship's pullets and beyond welcome a boat so even if you're not familiar with Cruise Line loyalty programs you can probably guess what it means and before we start explaining it to talk about some of the different programs that are out there this being our 5th episode of the cruise have a podcast I want to thank you for being loyal and listening to the others and if you haven't yet that's OK go back check those out there are some good stuff out there and we've got lots more to come so thank you for listening but now we should probably get to the topic at hand right and that is what these loyalty programs are you hear is you several terms loyalty club past passenger programs all sorts of things past passengers kind of an industry standard but you know what we'll use them interchangeably and they're designed to reward frequent cruisers and they do that through a number of different means a lot of cruises are cruise lines rather will base your status on the number of nights that you've sailed with them there are a couple that will base it off of number of cruises and sometimes other factors like the category of state room that you're an OR if you book a cruise tour can come into play also when it comes to establishing status with these. Yeah and the as you move up through these different tiers and you build up more and more points or stars or whatever the given line calls them you get more rewards with more benefits more perks and some of them listen they range to be honest with you some of them a rather insignificant but some of them are pretty cool. The this is similar to what you might see in other industries like like hotels or airlines and in fact Rick I believe if I'm not mistaken that's actually where this kind of originated from right is that they needed parity across industries people have expectations about these loyalty programs you know in the in the travel industry and I think it was it was United Airlines that started this a long time ago that sounds right to me it was a I think it was in the early seventy's they did that to to retain you know retain customers and keep people that's it for any business it is cheaper it is better if you will for the business to keep existing customers then to continuously get more and cruising is a very competitive thing there there are multiple lines out there but they all want your cruise dollar and unlike some products you can only take so many crews as well. Not all of us are so most of us can only take so many cruises. You know that's a sad truth only so many days in the year so only so many acres we can we can go on I guess we're ready to dive into the different programs and kind of cover what they cover are we good to go Yeah let's let's do that we're not going to talk about every single one of them here because we really want you to stay awake throughout the podcast that's that's one goal that Rick and I talked about back before up so one you knows is keep you awake but we did want to mention some of them some of the names and some of the things that are maybe unique about the individual ones and I'll start out mentioning one carnivals program they call it VI F.P. very important fun person kind of a hokey name in my opinion but it seems to work for them they are by volume among the most popular cruise lines in the world I was going to say that that F. had to mean fun that's such a word that they bandy about with the Fun Ship and faster to the fun I just saw of the I.F.B. and I was like that's a very important fun person. So you know that's I think they're brimming right that whether you whether you like it or not that's that is the 6 that is the mark of success for a brand when when people know the consistency even if they're not familiar with the details. Haven't even thought of that So applause then to carnivals marketing team so there's a as a point based system a point means a night so that's pretty easy to to occur there your very 1st one are going to get to Blue level and you basically got some offers and A newsletter and then if you go on to the red gold platinum and then up to Diamond level you've got things like a bottle of water appreciation drink a pen one of my favorite perks priority check and boarding those go on and then also the kind of parties where you could like meet other people who are frequent cruisers on that cruise line I'll tell you and we don't even talk about this earlier Rick something with Carnival that I did want to mention that priority boarding is perhaps more valuable with Carnival than with a lot of other cruise lines because that's a pretty standard perk of a lot of these programs with Carnival they have over the years really started enforcing the check in time. That that are trying to guess where is a lot of cruise lines oh yeah show up at 130 to 22 o'clock that you're checking time you show up at you know 1045 and as long as everything's going as planned the playwright on the ship you might have a little bit of a wait but you're not waiting for that time Carnival makes you wait so so anything whether it's there faster the fun program the there's the fun thing again or parity check or know anything that you can use to shave off minutes you get to start your cruise faster and that's always a good thing. So now Rick you yeah you had a thought oh yeah I was just I'm scrolling through the page of the Carnival cruise on benefits and one of the things I see here that I have not seen and the other loyalty program is a one time donation to St Jude's Children's Research Hospital see that as a as a dime an ill person that's 200 nights or more. If you don't know St Jude's Children's Hospital was founded by Danny Thomas and I'll just tell a quick anecdote here St Jude painter say to a lost cause he was not getting any jobs prayed to St Jude for some kind of job a promise that if he did get work in Hollywood he would dedicate his life to helping children and he did get the job and he opened the hospital and now there are a network of hospitals including one right next door to where I went to school and no one pays anything at St Jude's for any kind of medical treatment not a dime. Well I feel far more educated on this topic than I was before if I had. But that's actually pretty cool I knew I knew what St Jude Hospital was but I didn't know the facts were there so a pretty pretty cool in an interesting perk of not seen anything like that. It you know it's nice because it for the line it's a tax write off. But it's still nice thing to do and makes everyone feel good to go to a good cause so pretty cool I know Rick last year you took a couple cruises with a particular line that. Has you I guess navigating north within their their loyalty program and that is Norwegian Yes So I got to move up from bronze to Silver on Norwegian but one of the reasons that I was able to do this is I booked a cruise that was select for people who are already in the latitudes program which is what they call their loyalty program so they'll have a few cruises for well let me say for every cruise you get one point for every cruise night for special latitudes members cruises you get an additional point for every night that you're on board so that's what helped me increase my status a little bit faster was I and this was I didn't book the cruise for that reason but I was happy to take that perk when they offered it and what we'll talk about that in a few but that's a lot of these things is. To me at least comes down to not something that I'm aiming for but perks that I'll gladly take when I get them. And I believe so this is. Kind of an aside here is I have been on Norwegian Cruise Line more than any other however. A lot of those failings were when I was a little kid and it was a very different company back then so I believe I am I think some copper latitude if I'm not mistaken with that with Norwegian but the man who made the work towards towards changing that something cool is they are the only as far as I could find Norwegian is the only contemporary line that includes a free cruise as a top tip or now we see that perk on a number of cruise lines but not contemporary lines like Caribbean and and Carnival if you want to know by the way how different lines kind of how they're categorized within the industry and what that what that means or what that generally signifies There's an article in our 1st time cruiser section and it's guides on how to choose the right line for you but we explain in there what lines are considered contemporary versus premium Ulta pre ultra premium and so on to I know I tend to throw those terms on lots of figured I'd I tell you where to where you can find out what that actually means. I'm glad you mention that because I'm sometimes a little bit. Without a guide when I'm talking about cruise lines that are other than the main ones that I'm told that I know of which are carnival Norwegian Disney celebrity world Caribbean those would be like my main 5 G.'s Rick you only have 5 main cruise lines. Get up to speed. Here I am co-hosting a podcast but that that free cruise is at their ambassador level which they put it 700 points another way that you can get up to the ambassador level is by booking in a suite that's not a mini suite but a genuine suite or above or in the haven which is their kind of suites only. Ship with an a ship on the breakaway and breakaway plus cautions it's good to be king. I think you can afford it it's an awesome back. Much like the what we talk about Carnival Norwegian offers kind of like the cocktail parties with the officers and party with other people who have achieved the higher statuses on the line so mix and mingle with people who like that line as much as you do I'm sure it's a blast I honestly I never end up going to those events not on purpose I just I go on cruises the lake kind of do my thing and I have the internet and an entire website for meeting other all some cruisers so. Once I get into this mode once I'm on a cruise that every moment that passes. I put so much value in but maybe I'll go to one of those someday now a deed the next line I want to talk about is when you mention one of your. One of your 5 main cruise lines you know what it is that is and that is Disney with their castaway club there are a couple rather unique things about the castaway club and a lot of unique things about Disney Cruise Line in general for one D. the rewards you earn are based on the number of cruises so you you get the same number of points whether you took a 3 night cruise to Nassau or a I don't know the longest cruise of details ever done but you know if you did let's say a 10 night repositioning. Across the Atlantic or something like that same number of points and that's. That can be great for you know for some people but truth be told if I if I was really working my way up to platinum which does not take very long to get to and I had just taken a long cruise with them I'd probably think that was a little weird I don't know you know what are your thoughts on that. Yeah if I was dropping the kind of money that like an $11.00 night Norway and Iceland Cruise would cost and someone was getting the same benefit from a $3.00 night Bahamas Yeah that might perturbed me a little bit but one of the things about Disney's tears was there's only 3 of them there's silver gold and platinum and it's I think what up to $0.00 to $4.00 cruises $5.00 to $9.00 cruises and 10 and above is the breakdown on Levi That's correct there might be after a 10th or platinum something like that it's really not compared to other lines getting to that top tier is not very difficult however. It's. Obviously it still costs a lot of cruising the benefits aren't quite as spectacular as some other lines though even the gold benefits there I don't know I guess to me D.C.L. is program with some of the perks is right in the middle nothing extraordinary but there are some nice to have I think I'm I'm golden You can tell because I have a lot of those lanyards around. Yet though that you just mentioned some of that I was thinking of which is when you check in if you have some kind of status with Disney you get a lanyard that will tell everyone what level you are do you know the difference between the lanyards that for example Disney hands out with your level and the pins that other lines use no I have no idea tell me I've never got out of bed tired in the morning and stepped on a lanyard because person OK I'll be here always OK Oh wow. So one of our favorite lines here of Royal Caribbean that's another one that's got a pretty well established Crown and Anchor society as as their loyalty club and one of the benefits that I've really seen from that is their diamond Lao their Diamond Club Lounge where once you hit a certain level you can go there and during certain hours your drinks are free and you also get some coupons for drinks on board to have at other times and one of our good friends Matt Hodge were from the. Royal Caribbean blog he has maybe decided there are times when he doesn't need to buy a drink package anymore because you can get pretty much a lot of free drinks in the day between these coupons and the drink package Yeah there are. There's a long list of perks for the Crown and Anchor Society for the different levels but it seems like the the one that everyone's looking to attain is diamond so that you can get the drinks now it's a it's a somewhat somewhat limited menu it's not terribly restrictive or anything like that but hey free free drinks great if you're not if you don't have a drink package that's pretty cool and what they used to do is used to have this happy hour at the the lounge just for Diamond Club members but over time more and more people sailed the cruise line got bigger people more people worked up to Diamond and above and there are the diamond level and suddenly it got pretty crowded so they said OK you can go to any bar during these period of time and during this period of time and have however many drinks. I think that's a really good way to solve that problem I still see people sometimes complain about the crowds and I think. Everyone once a bigger and bigger space to make more and more people feel like they're special for having cruise more and at some point you just have a ship full of people and if everyone special nobody special you know that's the. Little bit of a maybe controversial tangent you can leave comments there again my name is Rick Ross. And know your belly Hersch I'm Ricker OK. So they like the other lines oh sorry go ahead Billie I know I was just going to say that maybe what you are is that there are a couple other ways of earning points with chronic recited So it's based on than the nights in the sailing but also there's a there are 2 ways you can double that if I'm not mistaken yet so if you're booking a grand suite or above a you can get double points for that but also if you're cruising solo in a double occupancy room and you paid that single supplement you will get double points for that sailing now when I so recently sailed on Mariner of the Seas I was in a solo cabin so I wasn't entitled to those double points and I just got 4 points for the 4 nights that I sailed so I believe 2. You can combine the so if you were to sail in a sweet. And you and you were to be solo I believe you get you get essentially you know what they don't double you end up you get an extra point so you get 3 points per night and by the way I think it's actually junior suites and above that I think I'm pretty sure Junior Suite to get oh OK well that's a little bit more affordable than I could be wrong and send your complaints to Matt and wrote now. If you want to learn more advice out of my. If you want to learn more about Roker Crown and Anchor society and really anything rollkur and make sure you check out world Caribbean Blog dot com That does a fantastic job of running really in my opinion the best brand crew site out there and I'm not just saying that because occasionally he has a guest cancel and I end up on the spot cast of the kind of funny exe about. A program is you can sign up for it before you go on your 1st cruise and just so you don't feel like you have our status Celeste's or you're floating around not in a category you can be considered pre gold I love the I love the nomenclature because more and more lines are doing this to have you sign up before and it's just a way of enticing people to sign up for emails I think you know and starting a different marketing drip but yeah the fact that they call it pretty cold I think is is funny you know once the names on a lot of these for a lot of these programs are musing to me but something that we should mention it's a it will segues into the next cruise line celebrity is that so row Caribbean Cruise Line Limited Cruise Lines limited owns Royal Caribbean International Celebrity Cruises and as a Mara club cruises and they also own part of its overseas as well as things with to Ian Pullman TER But we're not going to get into that So if you have there's a certain level of reciprocity with within. In Royal Caribbean brands so if you let's say you are a I don't remember how. Let's say your platinum on in Crown and Anchor side on Royal Caribbean you can be a select member and celebrities captains club Now what's interesting is let's say you do that you take your very 1st sailing as as select on celebrity it's going to take your a long time to advance past that because you still have to start at 0 points with celebrity and they actually accrue points differently they they do him. They they have more they factor in with celebrity more of your room category I think it's it's different Rick reckon if I'm wrong depending on like if you're an insider in versus a veranda for example yet the the inside room is going to get you 2 points per night whereas if you work up to like a concierge level room that's going to be 5 points per night this worked out great for some friends of mine and I when we went to when we went on the celebrity reflection we got to bump up our rooms from ocean view to concierge without an increase in price like 2 weeks before the sailing so suddenly not only were we getting room with a veranda and I think a better crew to passenger ratio in terms of the the statement tendence We also got way more points for the sailing so that's been I mean if you can work it like that maybe that's a pretty good way to approach the little tickle. If if I recall I think you also got a different pillow selection and it's something that you really can't put a price on which is the ability to text me throughout that entire cruise reminding me how great of a deal you got upgrading the concierge while I was not there so you can't put a price on I'm bragging or just you can't. I was going to say you can't put a price on the envy of your friends Yeah yeah well that's not brag you're not bragging for your health area. If old life. So celebrity is one of the lines that includes a complimentary cruise once you get to their their highest of levels and and their top levels called zenith and Zenith is actually the name of A was the name of a Celebrity ship now its heels and her Pullman tour which is a related Spanish brand. Personally never thought the Zenith was a very attractive ship from the outside looked at it for years I'm sure it was lovely on the inside. Celebrity fanboys will now send me hate mail but that's OK So they that's what they call their top tier and it includes a number of perks that really can add value to sailings yet one of the things that I'm seeing as a I scroll through here and I've seen it on other lines is the laundry service I know on D.C.L. an on Disney Cruise Line you have access to self-service laundry but that's about I think the only person I never ever seen it on so part of the perks on these other cruise lines is discount to the laundry services yet and I like when cruise lines have the self-service facilities available it's a nice option Seana does or a number of lines that still do but not all of them but the laundry service is great because let's be honest you don't want to spend your vacation doing laundry and you may not see the value in this if you are if you tend to take you know 3459 cruises once you get like Pat especially past 7. Night and or your flying internationally and tacking on days to your trip man that becomes a really really nice perk but the zenith for example that they include laundry Internet I think I think a beverage package as well so that's when. Those perks really you can start putting high dollar values on but you spend a lot of dollars to get there there is a cruise line however that you don't have to spend dollars with to get those incredible perks and that is M.S.C. So I think I wrote a little bit about this in our seaside live blog this past July you can check that out over a cruise at cruise habit dot com We're excited to sail in the C. 4 for a number of reasons what's interesting is because they're new to the North American market they wanted to do everything they could to lure people in to try them you know that dip your toe into the M.S.C. cruise experience and we promise you'll like it so what they did is they started status matching other cruise lines airlines hotel chains. Pretty sure that they would basically status match of if there was like a. Loyalty Program for your landscaping company they'd match it what if what if I have like 12 punches on my subway card at 13 actually is where yeah it's so close you should have stopped on the way in you should have stopped on the way and. 5 dollar footlong would have gotten maybe who knows what right so the way this works is it can be a little bit of a mystery and they won't tell you it's not that it's a secret but you can find a list on them if he's Web site if you have for example gold castaway club level what does that make you want to see and it's tricky because you can only status match once so you want to if you have multiple loyalty levels with different cruise lines you want to pick the right one to match interestingly and to that point when I was getting ready to sail M.S.C.. I. I was trying to you know I'm looking at all my little deeper into thought which one gives me the best benefit and I noticed that if I would have asked them to match my Platinum level with roll Caribbean Crown and Anchor society I would have got I think embassy Voyager club but I think it's over if I recall however because I am a platinum member with the Royal Caribbean that means that I am inherently a select member with with celebrity and select on celebrity is will get you gold in embassies voice your club so you should if you look to Salem a C.N.A. encourage you to it we check out the live blog it was a really great time just think think strategically so it's nice though that you could have you never maybe sailed M.S.E. ever maybe you hadn't heard of them until your booking but you can get some really great perks you can even status match up to black which is the highest level Oh have you I keep that in mind when I when I go to book an M.S.C. sailing on the well is that the sea side that you want on your side their very 1st ship designed specifically for the North American market this is not an embassy commercial but we just we would like that it was a cool experience. So other lines that want to talk about Holland America. They they have. And I'm forgetting the name here members at Commodore club this is why we should make notes people. At that sounds reasonable Commodore club. That this is fun this is where you guys get to hear in real time what happens when Billy forget something Mariner society Commodores one of the levels I think that's what I was thinking Mariner society so Holland America and Princess are both owned by Carnival Corporation as are other lines such as Costa canard. And others but despite that. They there's not currently reciprocity between any of those programs and this is something that comes up a lot if you search you know there are certain hot topics on the Internet and if you search this one you'll find all sorts of people that say he's I've taken all these crews on Hall in America and now I want to try Princess Why am I starting at 0 We'll see if that's anything that they ever do there have been rumors but it's never panned out another line we've we're looking at is Princess and I know you're naive talked about like oh there's we haven't actually sailed that I think you said that's like the one major line that you have not failed yet when I'm scrolling through their benefit benefits one of the things they have once you got up to their elite level which is from your 16th cruise on or over 151 cruise days is advance booking access and I think that they are not the only line that does this where if you've sailed with them before you can get like you've got a 24 hour jump on everybody else to make the bookings you want to make Yeah that's a that's a great point there are several cruise lines that do that some of them just say OK ever if you've ever sailed with us you know you get a day lead or something like that Disney you get a different amount of lead time on bookings depending on what level you are in CAS and when Bob and I'll say where that can make a difference is really highly desirable sailing whether they're over holidays or really unique itinerary so just recently if you read over on the Disney Cruise Line blog Disney announced that they were going to be sailing out of. New Orleans and that was a new port for them a lot of fanfare. If I recall it sold out in an hour. So if you if you are not a member or a high ranking member of Disney's cast to a club you're going to have some trouble sailing on that so that can be something valuable again especially if you are looking for. A holiday sailing or other unique sailing and just to get the lowest price because on busier sailings the lowest price is the day that I to marry comes out so so that that is not nothing so we've talked about some of the benefits of these different programs and I should mention you mention princess that I had sailed I need to change that and need lots of pressure to people telling me Billy go sell Princess It is the only cruise line that has shipped home ported in North America that I have not yet sailed. Gotta change it and he who we talked about the different benefits and how some of these programs work you've got to get started it doesn't work if you don't start so how require you to tell us how do you go about making sure that your your points are stars or whatever the case may be are tracked and that you get these perks. I'd say 2 ways one go to the cruise line's Web site and they've usually got like a sign and sign up here kind of log in create an account they're going to want your e-mail address and they're probably going to want to send you some e-mails which is understandable they want you to know about what's going to go on in their careers on the other is if you are booking through a travel agent your travel agent can sign up sign up for you I know when I booked mine or we 1st Norwegian sailing through a travel agent he created my latitudes account for me and just told me hey here's your law to it's number you're all set so that was very easy another part another benefit to using a travel agent and if you didn't sign up maybe maybe didn't know this is the thing maybe maybe you took cruises when you were a kid your parents were doing all the work and you weren't noticing or maybe or your spouse to care for whatever the case may be all is not lost you can go sometimes it's an online thing sometimes you have to call or email or you can always have your travel agent help they can look up past cruises that you took with you know just with some very basic information about you and connect those to a newly created account for a passenger program account and that's a good thing to do because even those cruises that again you took with family might have a long time ago there's usually most lines of a cut off here so I'm not getting credit for all those N.C.L. cruise that I took in the late eighty's for example but it's not as if oh you know well you didn't claim in the last 90 days it's too late so you know make sure you get credit for what you have. The cruises that you have sailed. All of all of this in mind that we've talked about how to get started how you know some of the perks how these things came to be how they're ranked. It is important. I think to make sure we keep in perspective so I for example may not value some of these things like others that everyone values different. Values things differently. I think Rick and I are on the same page when I say you should take advantage of these perks when their offer to make sure that you get access to all of the perks in the incentives that you I don't say that you deserve but yes that you deserve based on the cruise line's rules right don't lock yourself into a line don't cruise for the purpose of getting these perks I see people to from my friends people that I like a lot metric and other people have a have done this and I'm like wow so you're going to take your you just spent you know an extra $2000.00 and took a few extra vacation days that you weren't planning on and yet you took a cruise and that was fun but like your your motivation was making it so that you can get your laundry done for free on your next cruise I'm not sure they are a lie here I'll tell you what I tell people a lot is that despite some of these programs having really great perks I don't think any of them have perks that come in at a time that in my opinion is makes them more valuable than experiencing new things with new cruise lines. I totally agree with you here when I am on a Celebrity ship I am going to get my free agent scoop of July Auto at the same time I will cruise lines other than celebrity I'm still going to cruise celebrity I like their product a lot but I'm also looking at Norwegian and I'm also looking at Disney and I'm also looking Earl Caribbean and even though I haven't found them yet I'm going to be looking at Holland America on Princess too so I'm A.O. loyalty. Yes I appreciate being rewarded for it but it's not going to lock me end any time and Cruise Lines know this really so we actually reached out to a couple cruise lines of. You know I'm like this with some of these cruise line people that's not true I reached out to some contacts different cruise lines and I said hey tell me tell me what makes your loyalty program special Tell me what you know why yours is the best and I got a lot of nice responses with with some helpful information but what was interesting is in pretty much every case and I know I actually read you verbatim something for example that celebrity sent me. All that being said I'd say the number one thing that sets liberty in Captain's club apart is our service Captain Captain clubs member I can't speak Captain club members or family they're treated as such when you ask why do you keep sailing with celebrity The answer is always because of the way the crew onboard makes them feel and that's a common thread that all of the all the cruise lines that I spoke with and reached out to they talked about how great their loyalty program was but they said the reason to keep sailing with them is because they feel they offer a great product and you know as I've said before I don't think there is a best or worst cruise line it's what's best or worst you know the right one for you in the trip you're willing to take so even the cruise lines will tell you cruise for the experience take the perks but cruise for the experience. I think we're totally in agreement on the point and I think this would be a good place to wrap it up with a little 2 clubs and if you have any questions about them probably the best person to reach out to her best thing to do is go to the various cruise lines website all these cruise lines that we've been talking about have the great details on the end so now it's what the perks are how you accrue the points for the night all on their websites it's pretty clearly laid out for all of them so maybe this is a time we could get to some thank you's it because as I mentioned at the top of the show you guys have been loyal to us and I appreciate that so I'll all start out Kim cleaner MN wrote said Love the podcast keep up the amazing work thanks thanks for the great periscopes of sailor ways too and that's a great reminder we do live broadcast from ship and shore we try and do it every weekend but we've got a lot of live broadcast coming up from Symphony of the seas from celebrity edge from Port Everglades Port Miami and I have a feeling Rick's going to be surprising us maybe with some some pictures maybe even a periscope from somewhere else soon too so so thank you very much Kim and you guys can all write to us a podcast and crews have it dot com. We'd also like to thank crazy cat lady 5 main Jeep girl kayak otters sea start G I C I Minnesota critter Nik flex a bearish Tom sands and my undersea girl for the reviews that they left us on i Tunes We are glad that you like our podcast However you are listening to us a favor and search crews have it in i Tunes and leave us serve you there any number of stars you want to give us an error if you want to leave us some kind of text review we'd appreciate that if you have any questions for us go ahead an e-mail pod cast at cruise habit dot com and we'll see if we can get to that on a future episode we appreciate you listening. Hi this is Jessica from Halifax Nova Scotia a friend of Cruz habit dot com Follow the guys on Twitter Instagram and Facebook subscribe to the crews have a podcast on i Tunes Google Play or ever you enjoy podcast search crews have it in the periscope app to join the broadcast from ship and shore they love to talk shit with you real soon.