$44 back on MSC (use for cheaper Internet?) with targeted Capital One offer

I recently noticed an offer in my Capital One account for $44 back on MSC. Since I have a cruise on MSC coming up next month, I decided to try using the offer to save on prepaid Internet access for the cruise. While the $44 offer requires having a Capital One account, those without a Capital One card might still be able to accomplish a similar savings via a shopping portal — though I suspect that I won’t know for sure that this worked out for quite a while.

The Deal

• There is a Capital One cardholder offer out for $44 back on an MSC cruises purchase. Alternatively, a few shopping portals are offering $30 or $40 back.
• You may be able to log in here to see if you’re targeted

Key Terms

• To earn the rebate you must make an eligible purchase at msccruisesusa.com. Not eligible for purchases or redemption of gift cards.
• To earn the rebate, you must be a Capital One cardholder or bank account holder, and logged in to your account on capitalone.com or the Capital One Mobile app.
• You will receive your rebate as a statement credit to your Capital One account within 3 billing cycles. Your account must be open and in good standing at the time the rebate is awarded to receive your statement credit.
• In the event you have more than one account, we may apply the statement credit to any active credit card or bank account that is open and in good standing. This offer is valid for consumer, non-commercial use only.
• To make a qualifying purchase, you must click the button above, and then complete a purchase at the selected merchant’s site, in the window opened by the Capital One Offers tile, within 24 hours. Offer is not valid by any other method.
• Use of other coupons, cash back, or promotional websites after selecting an offer and before making a purchase will invalidate your offer.
• Offer is not valid in-person or by telephone, and in-store pickup does not constitute a qualifying purchase.
• Purchases made without first being redirected by a Capital One Offers tile are not qualifying purchases.
• See your offer for full terms

Quick Thoughts

I have to lead by saying that I don’t know for sure whether this will work with an Internet package, but I figured it was worth a shot.

Several shopping portals offer rewards on MSC purchases. A couple of them offer flat-dollar amounts (see Cashbackmonitor). My Capital One Shopping account shows $40 back on MSC. I see other portals at $30 back at the time of writing.

However, Capital One has a confusing mish-mash of ways to save on purchases. Capital One Shopping is the public shopping portal that anyone can join (no Capital One card or account required). I see $40 back there (though CashBackMonitor shows $12 at Capital One Shopping, so my offer must be targeted).

However, Capital One cardholders have another place to check for deals. Within your Capital One card account, there are targeted shopping portal-like offers that do require having a Capital One card. And unlike the public Capital One Shopping portal, the Capital One Offers (which I think can alternatively be found at CapitalOneOffers.com) provide a statement credit.

In my Capital One Offers (from my Capital One credit card), I saw an offer for $44 back.

The details of the offer don’t state any specific restrictions about the offer having to be used for a new cruise booking, so I clicked through and entered a current booking reference number to check on the prices of Internet access. I’ll work from the ship and since our kids fall asleep relatively early, my wife likes to be able to surf after the kids have gone to bed. Prices for Internet access vary depending on how many devices and what type of access you want to have (and surely it also varies by cruise length and probably destination). For our coming cruise, the options started at $98 for the week-long cruise.

My wife didn’t need the “stream” package, but I wanted it in order to be able to zoom for a Frequent Miler team meeting, etc. For our needs, I decided to click through from her Capital One account and buy a “Browse 1 Device” cruise package for her for $98 (and I hope to get $44 back). Since I also have the offer in my account, I separately clicked through from my Capital One account (hopefully for another $44 back) and bought a Browse & Stream package for 1 device for me (while MSC doesn’t make it easy to switch which device has access, on past cruises, I’ve been able to buy access for my phone and then hotspot off of my phone to share access with my computer).

If that all goes according to plan, I paid $252 today and my wife will hopefully get $44 back and I’ll hopefully get $44 back for a net cost of $164. That’s obviously not cheap for a week of WiFi and I imagine that many people don’t need the Internet access (particularly if you’re in port each day since your cell service might do the trick for that), but since I’ll be working remotely, that was an acceptable cost for me (I paid more on last year’s MSC cruise in Europe because I didn’t prebook Internet access).

Again, I don’t know for sure that buying Internet access will trigger the $44 back, but I’m hopeful. I’ll republish this post with an update if and when I receive the statement credit, but since these Capital One card-connected offers often take so long to post in my experience I wanted to post this now to alert readers who want to take a shot at this since the offer may be gone before I know whether it worked.

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