If you previously followed along and turned your Wyndham Diamond status into a “free” Carnival cruise in a balcony room, it’s time to parlay that into another “free” cruise offer — this time with Royal Caribbean — and with the chance for a couple to combine forces to get up to a junior suite (and with a great stack for family travelers!).
Last year, I wrote about how to turn your Wyndham Diamond status into a “free” (or more accurately a deeply discounted) Carnival cruise (See: Status cruising: Saving $2K+ on a cruise to Europe, Alaska, etc with a match). Now Royal Caribbean is out with a match offer that could get you a “free” cruise of up to 5 nights on their Caribbean itineraries (as well as a couple of options out of Los Angeles). Better yet, if you act fast, family travelers might be able to get this match done in time to stack the free cruise offer with a current “kids sail free” promotion that’s valid until the end of the month. Once again “free” doesn’t really mean no cost, but it certainly does mean low cost relative to the cash prices in several instances — low enough to entice me to check out what Royal Caribbean has to offer.
The Deal
- Royal Caribbean’s Casino Royale loyalty program is running an offer match program whereby you may be able to qualify for a free cruise for two (potentially in a balcony room or even higher if you combine offers)
- Direct link to this deal
Key Terms
- Terms indicate that you are not eligible for this offer if you have sailed with Royal Caribbean since January 2018
- Terms indicate that you can submit a match request only once
- Cruise must be booked within 14 days of receiving your offer
- Terms say you need to call to book, though there is also an online booking request form (though confirmation is not immediate)
- You still pay taxes and port fees. On dates I checked, these appear to be $400-$500 total for 4 passengers on the 4-5 day itineraries, but YMMV depending on your itinerary
- You may have to pay an upgrade fee for a larger room if sailing with a family
- Kids sail free promo has some blackout dates (see this post for more detail)
- Cruises based on availability (and my offers only apply to cruises through 3/31/23)
- Interestingly, a couple playing in two-player mode has the option to combine offers per the terms: “Qualified Recipients within the same household from the same promotional event may combine their complimentary stateroom offers on the same sail date for one (1) category upgrade, not to exceed a Junior Suite or redeem their individual offers”
- See more casino promotion terms here
Quick Thoughts
See that previous status cruising post for details on how to get the Carnival match offer. I used that offer to book a 10-night European cruise that I took earlier this month, but my wife has yet to book her Carnival offer (she had booked a cruise and then cancelled and hasn’t yet rebooked despite receive the free balcony offer from Carnival monthly ever since).
A comment recently came in on my old post about the Carnival offer from reader Mary indicating that Royal Caribbean has a similar offer.
For the purposes of this offer, Royal Caribbean will accept a competing cruise line offer or proof of your land-based casino status. Pro tip: you want to submit the Carnival free balcony room offer, not your Caesars Diamond status (Caesars status alone will only qualify you for a discounted cruise rather than a free cruise. Ask me how I know).
My wife pulled up her most recent Carnival free balcony room offer on the Carnival website and submitted a copy of it to Royal Caribbean. Turnaround time was very fast for her.
A friend of mine submitted for the Royal Caribbean match on Sunday and received an offer from Royal Caribbean on Tuesday afternoon. My wife submitted for the offer Wednesday morning and received an offer for a free balcony room on select Royal Caribbean cruises within a couple of hours (the offer arrived in her inbox early afternoon on Wednesday):
After clicking through the link in the email, her offer type showed up as “up to a balcony stateroom – 5 nights”.
The list of free sailings she was provided run from next week through the end of March (I didn’t quite fit all of them in this screen shot).
As you can see, the eligible cruises range from 3-5 nights and are mostly visiting either the Bahamas or the Eastern or Western Caribbean (with a couple of Los Angeles cruises). The most expensive cruise I price-checked at normal rates is the one that departs San Juan the week before Christmas. That cruise stops at a port every day (St. Thomas, St. Maarten, St. Croix, and Tortola). I assume because of the timing, a balcony room on that cruise is currently running north of $3,500 before taxes (or about $4,000 with taxes).
My understanding based on a friend who has already booked the offer is that you’ll be on the hook for the port taxes (which look like they run around $400 to $500 for a family of four depending on itinerary or less for two passengers). That’s a pretty substantial discount over prevailing rates on a lot of routes (though note that you should shop around because some of the “free” cruises on offer can be inexpensive).
What’s more interesting for family travelers is that through October 31st, Royal Caribbean is offering a “kids sail free” promotion where you don’t pay an additional fee for the kids. Contrast that with my free Carnival offer, which only applied to two adults; I paid about $280 per child for my two kids on my “free” Carnival cruise (plus gratuities). Kids sailing for free right now with Royal Caribbean potentially sweetens the deal a bit here.
All that said, there is a potential wrinkle and a potential bit of intrigue here.
The potential wrinkle is that a friend who booked a room for 3 passengers had to pay a $220 upgrade fee to get a room big enough for 3 passengers. Kids were “free”, but the upgraded room that fits three passengers was not. That’s kind of a bummer, though if the upgraded room is big enough for four passengers, I won’t complain too much about the additional $220 (I’m still waiting on final pricing confirmation on our booking). Note that I’m not sure if this was a function of the specific ship / dates chosen (I see that there are some blackout dates on the “kids said free” promo).
The bit of potential intrigue comes in the terms. According to the terms, if two people in the same household have free stateroom offers, you can combine them for a 1 category upgrade up to a junior suite. While on the one hand I’d probably rather take two cruises than have a junior suite, on the other hand with the window to use the cruise here (you must book within 14 days of receiving the offer and sail by the end of March), you may only find one set of dates that works for you — in which case, having a larger room might work out. I checked out YouTube videos of a junior suite on one of the ships we were considering and the junior suite had a walk-in closet, a bathroom with a bath tub / shower, and a lot more space to lounge than I had in my extended balcony cabin on my recent Carnival cruise.
I noted above that matching from Caesars Diamond only led to a cruise discount rather than a free cruise. Despite the terms saying that you can only submit a match one time, I tried again with my Carnival balcony offer and haven’t heard back. I’d definitely suggest using the Carnival offer if you can get a screen shot of it.
Before this year, I thought I would probably never take a cruise again. I took one years ago, but boats tend to make me seasick and cruising just didn’t seem to fit my style or interests — I thought it just wasn’t for me. However, Carnival won me over with the family-friendly nature of a cruise and the ease of being able to visit multiple places without needing to pack up and move all of our stuff (which is a lot more stuff now that we travel with kids). I said afterwards that I would definitely do it again. Now I’m excited to check out Royal Caribbean and see how it compares to my experience on the Carnival Pride. If I can keep parlaying these free cruise offers with different lines, maybe I’ll get used to this whole cruising thing after all.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
finally got my free offer after months of waiting ……
it must be booked by 3/16 and only has 5 options to choose from.
what a waste.
Navigator Of The Seas April 24, 2023 Los Angeles, California 4 Night Catalina & Ensenada Balcony
Radiance Of The Seas May 06, 2023 Los Angeles, California 5 Night Pacific Coastal Cruise Balcony
Navigator Of The Seas May 08, 2023 Los Angeles, California 4 Night Catalina & Ensenada Cruise Balcony
Anthem Of The Seas May 12, 2023 Southampton, England 2 Night Weekend Getaway Cruise Balcony
Navigator Of The Seas May 15, 2023 Los Angeles, California 4 Night Catalina & Ensenada Cruise Balcony
Has anyone done the Carnival to Royal Caribbean match lately? We are looking at a cruise at the end of November and wondering if I should wait to submit the match until April or May if the availability to book is only 6 months at at time.
I’m very interested in doing this status match offer. I have offers from Vegas, both Caesars and MGM. I’m wondering how far out (in months) do these free cruises go out for? I’m hoping to go in September. Should I wait to submit my offer or do it now?
I have finally received a Carnival Balcony offer. But for the life of me I can’t find a balcony that is available. They all say sold out. All interior or a few ocenviews and thats it. I’ve looked at hundreds of cruises out of florida.
There are few available but all these balcony rooms are on deck 2. Not sure if there is any workaround to book higher deck balcony rooms. Going to try calling and see if it helps.
Availability ebbs and flows. We were on deck 7 on our Carnival cruise. We kept an eye on the same two cruises all year — one had balcony availability come and go and the other never did get balcony rooms available. On the one we booked, we originally booked an obstructed view, but we later cancelled that when Carnival offered free cancellation in Feb 2022 (because we weren’t confident enough about the COVID situation at that time). We eventually rebooked that same cruise, but the second time we were able to book a room on Deck 7 (not obstructed). Note that the obstructed view rooms on the ship we booked weren’t really obstructed (a reader pointed that out to me), so it didn’t really matter much either way.
Got one for Deck 8. 🙂 Also, do not miss checking Chase’s offers. I had two cards where the offer was “spend 100 get 35 back offer on two cards”.
Did you have to call to get the Deck 8 balcony, or did it just show up in availability when you checked again later? I currently have a free balcony cruise offer, but there is almost no balcony availability. Wondering if it would make a difference at all if I called and asked about any additional availability.
let me know if you ever called, seeing same thing on my end!
Is any gambling required when taking advantage of this program? Any other hidden fees or rules buried in their Terms & Conditions?
I don’t think there is any way to require you to gamble. Obviously they expect you’re going to and they probably won’t send you future offers if you don’t gamble, but there is no requirement. Only fees for the Royal Caribbean one were the port taxes on one cruise we booked — the other had a small upcharge for a room big enough for 4 passengers.
@Nick Reyes – Send your Carnival/RC offer to URcomped.com and they will send you even more offers with much later expirations.
I know nothing about how reliable these people are, except that this group seems to be at least semi-connected to RC’s casino royale program. I found this out when RC reached out to me after submitting my Carnival offer, saying that I already have a profile.
If anyone knows anything about URcomped, would love to hear about it.
Got the Carnival free balcony offer for myself and my P2. Timeline:
10/31: joined Carnival Players club and submitted Caesars diamond status using Nick’s trick of sending screenshots of the digital card in the Caesars app
11/10: both of us received free interior room offer
11/11: both of us received free balcony room offer
(did not respond)
11/17: both received free interior room offer again (wondered if this was a downgrade?)
11/18: both received free balcony room offer again
Eligible cruises through August, but most of them (Alaska, Hawaii, fjords) have sold out of the balcony rooms
One question: hoping to do a cruise in June or August, but Nick’s eligible cruises only went through the end of March – think I could wait for a bit and submit the Carnival offer to Royal Caribbean later to get summer cruises to appear? Does RC usually have an active match offer or is this a new thing?
Thanks, Nick, for the really useful post! Love your work!
Finally got our “two player” offer. i had provided a single image with all my best casino loyalty cards (via Wyndham merry go round). my wife submitted her carnival balcony offer. we were both offered oceanview instead of balcony. submitted this morning for “LAX port , 2 rooms, 3 nighter” in january, but waiting to hear back. hoping to upgrade one room to balcony but have the rooms next to each other connected, if thats even an option.
Just call the phone number in the email. Nobody ever responded when I submitted the form to book the Royal Caribbean offer. We finally called them and it was easy to handle over the phone.
Thx. btw, took about 18 days to get the offer.
thanks for letting us know. i submitted mine 3 days ago and was getting a little worried as hadn’t heard anything.
Nick,
I submitted Ceasars Diamond and MGM gold to carnival. Received free interior offer back on 11/05. I’ve been waiting for a balcony. But around 12/15, the offer went away and now there is only a discount.
Should I expect another offer to pop up? Or was the free interior probably going to be the only one?
if have 2 separate offers for free rooms, why not combine them for an upgrade to jr suite as Nick suggested?
Extra privacy among friends
Just got an email from Carnival Cruise Line (funships@carnivalcruiselineemail.com):
CARNIVAL FUN MATCH: FREE* INTERIOR ROOM + FREE DRINKS + MORE
Still holding out for the balcony room offer.
Enjoy!!!
Does Carnival’s offer specify when you need to book the cruise by? per @Nick Reyes – RC gives you only 14 days from receiving an offer to do so.
Does the offer also mention when you have to cruise by? per @Nick Reyes – his offer only applied to cruises thru 3/21/21.
Here are the complete terms of the offer: https://www.carnival.com/cruise-deals/vifp-club/past-guest-offers-FS1/terms.aspx/
“Offer is applicable to new bookings only. Offer is available on select sailings through December 31, 2022.” – Looks like you have to book and complete travel before 12/31/22, which isn’t much time.
I remember the Carnival terms saying that, but did you actually look at eligible sailings? The last time the offer came for us (in October), we were able to pick sailings into fall 2023.
I noticed the same thing. Looks like I can book sailings through June / July 2023 and still get the discounted price. The cruises out of Dover / London look enticing 🙂
All of the European cruises are on the same ship (the Carnival Pride, which is the one I took). That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just an FYI.
The last time we had the offer there was also a 30-day transpacific cruise from Brisbane if you really wanted to test whether the cruising life is for you 🙂
I’m debating between those European cruises and the Alaska cruises from Seattle or SF. I don’t think I’m ready for a 30 day transpacific cruise…
Great data point @Grant! Now give it a new days / week and I bet you get the balcony offer.
FYI @Stevenson: I’m sure it has a “book by” date, but once I started getting those emails from Carnival, I kept getting a new one each month with a new “book by” date. See this comment on the other post for more detail: https://frequentmiler.com/status-cruising-saving-2k-on-a-cruise-to-europe-alaska-etc-with-a-match/#comment-2354637
Even after taking the Carnival cruise you’re still getting free balcony offers, or only your wife has been as cruise was booked under your account?
Has RC been constantly sending you new ones? you mention above how the terms specify that you only have 14 days to book?
No, I did not continue to get Carnival free balcony because I had booked our cruise under my account – just my wife continued to get offers since she hadn’t used the offer.
We booked the RC offer right away, so I don’t know for sure whether they would send new ones. I think it’s a bit different though. Whereas Carnival the carnival Fun Match terms didn’t say address the terms of booking the cruise itself, their monthly emails were advertising an end date in the email like “Hurry! Book by 10/19!”, which seemed to me more like “Sale! Today only!” and designed to encourage booking. Royal Caribbean has the 14-day thing written into the match program terms & conditions, so it felt more like a requirement to book within 14 days. Since that was baked into the terms and conditions of the match offer, I figured they’d probably hold to it.
But at the end of the day, I only know that Carnival kept sending the offers because we weren’t ready to book a cruise and thus didn’t feel any pressure to book before the first end date….or the second one….or the third….and it kept going from there. When the Royal Caribbean thing came around, we were able to grab a cruise during a convenient time and knew we were interested, so there was no sense in waiting it out.
Just got my Carnival offers (posted about it in the Carnival thread) and thinking about holding off on submission to RC until Black friday deals and/or Amex returns with their cruise spend offers, because of RC’s “book within 14 day language”. Thanks again for your help
I got that email at first too. Then after a few days, I got an email with a free Balcony offer. I am booking the England Dover to the Norwegian Fjords!
Got offer back in May, booked fjords with dates spanning july 4th 2023. Be mindful of London airport taxes for flights back home and transport needef to/from Dover. Otherwise terrific offer.
I’ll be on that one too! And yes, the airport taxes and flight availability with miles is eye opening for peak summer travel to Europe. Any tips for cheaper LHR-Dover travel other than the Carnival bus, by any chance? Thanks.
Awesome, I was looking at those London / Dover cruises too. Have an awesome time 🙂
Thanks for this post! Such a great deal.
Posting a data point.
I submitted Caesars Diamond to both the Royal and Carnival offers on 30 OCT.
I received a Carnival offer for $500 off on 2 NOV, select free rooms on 3 NOV, free interior on 4 NOV and free balcony on 5 NOV, with sailings into FEB 2024.
Still no offer from Royal, but I went to re-submit through Royal using my Carnival offer and received a notice basically saying we got your submission last week be patient, it could take 10-15 days to receive an offer.
Great data point! Bummer that you submitted Caesar’s Diamond to Royal. That’s only going to get a discount offer – if you waited and then submitted the Carnival balcony offer to Royal, you’d have gotten the Royal free cruise offer. I tried later submitting a Carnival balcony offer to Royal and they said no, you’ve already taken a swing at this and aren’t eligible again.
@Casey Good for you. How did Carnival’s “select free room” email offer look? I submitted my Caesars Diamond before you did and only received the $500 offer.
Did you submit a digital or physical Caesars card?
The “select free rooms” email below
subject:
Choose from select FREE Rooms on your next cruise!
body:
We would like to extend you a special Carnival Players Club® offer available on select sailings through May 2023. Book your cruise by November 30, 2022 and you’ll get:
SELECT FREE* ROOMS
Excludes taxes, fees, port expenses and deposit
+ DRINKS ON US!†
included for you while playing in the casino
Book Now button
*Pay from $50 per person for sailings 5 days or shorter and you’ll get $50 Onboard Credit per person
Want to take a longer vacation?
No problem!
*Pay from $100 per person for sailings 6 days or longer and you’ll get $100 Onboard Credit per person
As for the Caesars card, I used Nick’s advice. Downloaded the app, screenshot the digital card and submitted the same image for both the front and back.
Can you book a cruise for later than March? Thank you for all the great tips!!
Has anyone gotten a response since this got posted? I did it the same day, so I would have expected an answer by now.
You mean a response from Royal Caribbean? I actually tried a second time with a different email address using my carnival free balcony offer (as noted in the post, my wife got the free Royal Caribbean offer with her free Carnival offer, but I tried submitting Caesar’s diamond instead to see if I would get a different offer and my offer was worse (discount only) so I tried again a day or two before I posted this. I just finally got an email from them today saying that I wasn’t eligible because their records show I had already submitted previously. So maybe they’re just backlogged.
My wife submitted hers a day after this post came out and got a reply within 24hrs. Seems there system is a little messed up and does not always go in order.
Strange, maybe if I don’t hear from them by Monday I’ll see if I can follow up. Thanks.
Did you get any update from resubmitted your carnival cruise vs diamond card?
[…] “Free” Royal Caribbean cruise match offer & kids sail free stack (parlay that Carni… […]
Adding a comment here for those following: I added an update to the post because my family of 4 was not charged a fee for a room that accommodates 4 passengers. I’m sure this varies by sailing and availability. Some rooms on my sailing accommodate 4 and we were assigned one of those rooms with no additional fee. We only paid taxes ($108 per passenger) and will owe gratuities later.
Sorry for the late reply, Nick. But can you give an idea of what ship or itinerary you found that didn’t charge for that? We’ve been looking but keeps adding $$$ to add the kids, which seems like we’d have to (bring them this time) in order to book one.
Does anyone know if this an ongoing option with RC? I did the Carnival one this fall and I’m not ready to go again anytime soon so I’m wondering if I should wait to try for it?
I’ve never been on a cruise and would like to try this but missed the last status match for carnival. Is it still possible to do this? My wife and I are both ihg Diamond and we have a 3 year old and 6 month old. What’s the cheapest price after all fees?
IHG Diamond isn’t relevant at all here. They match casino status / cruise casino offers. The only reason hotel status is relevant is because Wyndham has a partnership with Caesars with reciprocal status – but, again, IHG Diamond won’t do anything for you here.
So I can’t match IHG Diamond to Ceasars anymore?
You never could. IHG was never part of this deal.
Agh, sorry, it was late and I’ve had IHG on my mind lately! I meant could we still match from our Wyndham status?
I got the Carnival offer and took it over to URcomped.com and got more offers. Have you tried that yet?
What kind of other offers did you receive?
All kinds. Virgin Atlantic, Royal Caribbean, Junior suites, balcony, 3 day , 14 day.. All sorts.
Ever used URcomped or know anything about them?
They sent me a bunch of offers after sending over my Carnival one, and I was wondering about their fine print in T&C versus dealing direct with Carnival/RRC.
Never used them. I was hoping someone here would have! LOL
Have you ever cruised using any of these “free” casino offers? wondering about the fine print.
Re: URcomped, I am very tempted considering their offers i.e. Celebrity 10+ day cruises in balcony room.
Nope never.
I have used URcomped for the past 5 cruises. They do all the leg work for you. You can cruise once on each cruiseline and then depending on your play, the cruiseline will follow up with other offers.
thank you for responding.
clarification – do you mean i can cruise once on Carnival, a 2nd time on RC and 3rd on Celebrity — all without doing any actual gambling?
i was under the impression that you only get 1 offer, and than depending on if you gamble, can get additional
any helpful things to know before using them? any negatives?
do you think the comped offers will get any better where I to send in both a Carnival and RC offer simultaneously vs Carnival’s alone?
I’m really not sure but it couldn’t hurt
Do you know if URcomped willing to accept past offers? My carnival free balcony offer expired in Dec 2021 wondering if I can still submit that to URcomped or
Royal for free cruised?
Thanks!
Not sure but I think I saw something saying offers were good for 24 months! Give it a try and let me know how it goes
How does the wife still have a valid offer from Carnival?
I booked a cruise with the Balcony offer. When I had to cancel, Carnival refunded my deposit but wouldn’t let me rebook using the offer for a different cruise. Frankly, the offer was more valuable to me than my $200 deposit.
When we cancelled, they almost immediately began sending (and kept sending) us free balcony offers.
I had to cancel my free offer from Carnival as well and have never heard back from them.
When logging into my Caesars acct after matching from Wyndham, it shows a blank Caesars Rewards card with words Diamond in upper left corner. However, there is no name or membership number listed.
will carnival accept a screenshot of this?
No, I don’t think it would work with no name or membership number. Where are you logging in? On the Caesars Rewards Android app, when I log in it has “Diamond” and my number and rewards credits at the top. When I click on the small section with my Diamond number, it brings me to a card that has Diamond in the upper left corner as you describe, but it has my first and last name and membership number in the middle of the card (in dark black font over top of the Caesars wreath logo thing).
If you’re having trouble with the app, try desktop — that also shows an image of what kind of looks like a card on your main profile page and I imagine that will work.
But it wants the back of the card also. Wonder what happens if you don’t upload the back because the app doesn’t show a back of the card.
I think I addressed that in the old post about the Carnival offer: https://frequentmiler.com/status-cruising-saving-2k-on-a-cruise-to-europe-alaska-etc-with-a-match/
Yes, sorry I read it and have submitted it. Thank you!
I never got my “free” offer from Carnival. Any idea what department I should reach out to?
I’d start with your Spam folder? Otherwise, no – I don’t know. Sorry!
I had the same issue. I reached out to Carnival and no one could help me. I even tried rematching and no luck.
try the casino dept
try the casino dept
Hi Nick, Thanks for sharing. Recently booked a free 7 day MSC cruise with Oceans Prime, do you think this would qualify for the royal match offer? My MSC confirmation includes comp for cost, think this may work?
That certainly may work. I don’t know for sure, but it could be worth a shot. If you try it, let us know what happens.
Where is the link for the Carnival match offer? (You mentioned it might still be alive). Will a paid confirmation for an upcoming cruise in 2023 from Norweign count for a cruise offer from a competing company.
In the second paragraph, I mention to check out this post for more information about the Carnival offer:
https://frequentmiler.com/status-cruising-saving-2k-on-a-cruise-to-europe-alaska-etc-with-a-match/
That post includes a link to the Carnival match here:
https://www.carnival.com/Registration/Promotions/casino-funmatch-altoxpatz.aspx
competing cruise line offer —would a booked cruise confirms on Norwegian count for the match offer? If not how does one get a competing cruise line offer?
No. All of these “free cruise” match offers are designed to attract gamblers. Cruise lines often give free (or deeply discounted) rooms to big gamblers who will lose back the cruise fare and more in the casino. If you show Royal Caribbean that another cruise line thinks you’re a big enough gambler to give you a free cruise, they will offer you a free cruise because they’d like to get a shot at your money.
The play here for rewards program enthusiasts is that a credit card can get you Wyndham Diamond status and Wyndham and Caesars have a partnership so Wyndham Diamond will get you Caesars Diamond and Caesars Diamond will make you look like you’re a big gambler. You show that to Carnival and Carnival offers a free cruise thinking you’re a big gambler. Then you show Royal Caribbean that Carnival thinks you’re a big enough deal to offer you a free cruise and so Royal Caribbean thinks you must be a big deal and offers you a free cruise also.
It wouldn’t make sense for them to give a free cruise to anyone who has a confirmed booking on another cruise line – the purpose of the promo here isn’t to attract paying customers but rather customers who they think will pay through casino losses.
Now if you’re saying that Norwegian offered you the cruise for free, then I’d submit a screen shot of the Norwegian’s offer to you to get a free cruise and I expect that Royal Caribbean will match it.
I hope that makes it clearer!
No. All of these “free cruise” match offers are designed to attract gamblers. Cruise lines often give free (or deeply discounted) rooms to big gamblers who will lose back the casino fare and more in the casino. If you show Royal Caribbean that another cruise line thinks you’re a big enough gambler to give you a free cruise, they will offer you a free cruise because they’d like to get a shot at your money.
The play here for rewards program enthusiasts is that a credit card can get you Wyndham Diamond status and Wyndham and Caesars have a partnership so Wyndham Diamond will get you Caesars Diamond and Caesars Diamond will make you look like you’re a big gambler. You show that to Carnival and Carnival offers a free cruise thinking you’re a big gambler. Then you show Royal Caribbean that Carnival thinks you’re a big enough deal to offer you a free cruise and so Royal Caribbean thinks you must be a big deal and offers you a free cruise also.
It wouldn’t make sense for them to give a free cruise to anyone who has a confirmed booking on another cruise line – the purpose of the promo here isn’t to attract paying customers but rather customers who they think will pay through casino losses.
Now if you’re saying that Norwegian offered you the cruise for free, then I’d submit a screen shot of the Norwegian’s offer to you to get a free cruise and I expect that Royal Caribbean will match it.
I hope that makes it clearer!
Will MGM Gold also match to Carnival or RCCL for balcony? Thanks, Nick, for tons of great info!
No. A reader or two reported that they only got free interior room offers with MGM Gold only. I think Caesars Diamond is a higher tier of status than MGM Gold, so I wouldn’t expect it would work for the RCCL offer (it will probably only get you a discount).
Just read that Nancy from milesforfamily did get a balcony using MGM only, but it took 6 months. So I guess there’s hope. Thanks for taking the time to answer all the questions!
I matched from MGM gold in December or January and received a balcony offer from Carnival
Nice, love it that MGM gold is working with carnival!
If I have none of the Casino memberships, where do I start from?
Well, you start then by getting the Wyndham Earner Business card. That’ll give you Wyndham Diamond status. You can then match Wyndham Diamond to Caesars Diamond — but the thing there is that (I believe) you need to go to a physical casino to complete membership enrollment in Caesars Rewards if you don’t already have a Caesars Rewards account. I’m not sure if maybe it’s possible to sign up for Caesars Rewards through one of their online sportsbooks? Last I knew, you couldn’t complete enrollment from the Caesars website because you need to bring your ID in to the casino.
That said, Caesars does have properties in a number of states. If you’ve got one within reach, you would do what I said:
1) Get the Wyndham Earner business card.
2) Get automatic Wyndham Diamond with that CC.
3) Match Wyndham Diamond to Caesars Diamond (you can do that online once you have a Caesars account). Note that this match can sometimes take a week or so to complete.
4) Match Caesars Diamond through the Carnival Fun Match program (you can send a copy of your digital Caesars Diamond card through the Caesars Rewards app once it shows Diamond).
5) You’ll initially get a Carnival offer for a free interior room. Wait.
6) Within a week or so of getting the free interior room offer from Carnival, you’ll likely get an email for a free balcony room offer.
7) Match the Carnival free balcony room offer to the Royal Caribbean offer outlined here.
8) Eat, drink, and be merry on your free cruises.
Thanks for the steps. I just did step 4) Match Caesars Diamond through the Carnival Fun Match program (you can send a copy of your digital Caesars Diamond card through the Caesars Rewards app once it shows Diamond). I will check back after I get the balcony room offer.
Hope you get it, Grant, but many others are not seeing anything now. Wonder if we’re too late?
Thank you! Digital card uploaded (step 4). Fingers crossed if I receive the free interior/balcony room offer.
I don’t have a carnival offer. Anyway to still get one in order for me to get a free cruise?
From the post “you want to submit the Carnival free balcony room offer, not your Caesars Diamond status (Caesars status alone will only qualify you for a discounted cruise rather than a free cruise).”
Try doing the Carnival offer first. It’s still alive.
I signed up for the Carnival offer but it somehow got linked to my account when I sailed with family (not sure if this led to the next sentence). I never got a discounted offer despite submitting 2x with my Caesars Diamond, Hard Rock Rock Royalty, and MGM Gold. I wonder if there is a better land casino to submit than Caesars Diamond.
i already have wyndham diamond status. is it possible to get free cruises on both RC and Carnival?
I would have to drive 2 hours to get to Horseshoe Hammond in order to get my Caesars status matched, so want to make sure is worth it.
@Stevenson: Do you already have a Caesars Rewards account? If you do, you can match from Wyndham to Caesars online. It takes at least a week for the match to complete and then you can take a screen shot of your Caesars Diamond card in the Caesars Rewards app and submit that to Carnival. You only need to go to a physical casino if you are not a Caesars Rewards member (because you can’t fully sign up for Caesars Rewards online unless they changed that). The match from Wyndham is done online either way and takes about a week.
As to whether it is possible to get both, the key question mark is that I have no idea when the offers will end. That Carnival offer has been around for about a year. It could stick around for another year or it could end tomorrow, I just don’t know. I believe that the RC offer says it is good until the end of the year, but like all things in this game you never know when a deal will end early. There is some gamble in playing the game (pun intended).
Personally, I’d take the drive. I’m looking at helping a family member do this and it would require an even farther drive. But I’m a gambling man :-). Again, if you already have a Caesars account, it’s far easier.
@Nick Reyes – as you suggested i logged into the app and took a screenshot of card and than proceeded to upload them. after registering, it brought me to their deals page where i was sadly only offered the following:
not even an interior room for free 🙁
my fingers are crossed that i will get offered something better over the next week, so that i can submit it to RC and have them match it.
did this for P1 & P2, so maybe can get 2 x 2 = 4 “free” cruises.
Yeah, that’s just marketing mumbo jumbo. If you read the original post about the Carnival deal (linked from the second paragraph of this post), you’ll see that I mention that those cruise offers are junk and they email you the free room offers in the days after (might take a couple of days to get an email about the free interior room offer and maybe as much as a week or two before you’ll see the free balcony room offer in your email).
@Nick Reyes lets hope sooner rather than later, so i can take advantage for kids-cruise-for-free offer on RC (along with amex offer). thanks for your help and plan to post results
@Nick Reyes 3 days after signing up, I received an email from Carnival with the same offer:
CARNIVAL FUN MATCH: UP TO $500 OFF + FREE DRINKS + MORE
The silver lining is that I know the registration went thru, for both P1 & P2. Now I can just hope to receive a free cruise offer in next few days.
You say you did this for P1 & P2. Did you use same Caesars Diamond account for match, or you have 2 memberships separately?
we each have our own memberships.
however dont get too excited as i registered over a week ago and still no free offer.
If you already used your Carnival offer, will Royal Caribbean still match?
And since I already used it, I’m having a difficult time tracking down a screenshot…
If you still have one of the old emails in your inbox and you click through the link in it to the Carnival site (and log in so your name appears in the top right corner), a screen shot of those offer details will do the trick.
I’ve thoroughly searched my inbox and cannot find the offer. I believe I unsubscribed from the e-mails and just checked my offers via the website.
So I have no screenshot of the offer. Am I out of luck?
I’m in the same boat (ship?). Used my Carnival balcony offer in July and haven’t received any casino offers since. Probably didn’t gamble enough.
Will wait for more data point before submitting my Caesar Diamond for the RC match.