The famous quote is “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” but perhaps that needs to be updated to mention Carnival cruise passengers instead.
It’s now been roughly two weeks since the cruise line unveiled drastic new changes to its loyalty program and judging by social media, cruise passengers are still up in arms over the changes. Many are threatening to move on to sailing other cruise lines.
Why Carnival Wants to Change Their Loyalty Program
On June 18, Carnival revealed that it would overhaul its current loyalty program, known as VIFP Club.
In place for more than a decade, the VIFP Club features a straightforward way to earn loyalty status. For every day that you cruise with the line, you earn a point. The more points you earn, the higher your status, with the program topping out at Diamond level for those with 200 points or more.
The big component of this program is that points never expire. So a cruise you sailed a decade ago still counts toward your loyalty. As well, you never lose your status, even if you don’t sail with Carnival for years.
Carnival says this program has run into a major problem. Since status and points don’t expire, it’s led to an enormous amount of passengers earning high-tier status. In an email sent the day of the change announcement, the cruise line said that the number of “Diamond” guests has more than tripled from 2021-2024. The number of Platinum guests more than doubled in the same time frame.
Carnival says that with so many people with high status it’s difficult to reward them. On average, more than 1,200 passengers are Platinum or Diamond level on its biggest ships. That’s roughly 20-25% of the capacity. So the cruise line says “change is necessary.”
How the Overhaul Completely Changes Earning Status Onboard
The change is coming in approximately a year with the rollout of a completely new program dubbed Carnival Rewards.
With this new system, passengers now earn points for what they spend with Carnival, instead of how many nights or how often they sail. Meanwhile, loyalty status is based on two-year windows, not a lifetime. So if you don’t sail regularly with Carnival, your status could drop off.
By our estimates, based on a typical earn rate of three “stars” (the new currency for loyalty) per $1 spent, someone would have to spend roughly $33,000 dollars over a two-year window to achieve the highest Platinum loyalty status.
Carnival has a calculator you can use to estimate your cruise and activities onboard the ship to see how many points you’d earn and the status you’d achieve.
Online Outrage That Shows no Signs of Slowing
To say that Carnival fans are disappointed with this change would be an understatement. It’s easy to see their issues. For one, Carnival is taking a straightforward loyalty program and making it extraordinarily complex. Now passengers will have to keep tabs on their spending, calculate what it translates into for stars, and also be aware of when loyalty status may drop off.
Most importantly, the switch means that you are longer rewarded for sailing Carnival again and again for years. Instead rewards are based on the total amount you spend, making it a much different “loyalty” concept.
But what’s struck us is just how upset passengers seem to be.
Let’s start with the initial announcement on Carnival’s Facebook page. The post revealing the changes earned roughly 6,000 emoji responses, with roughly 3,400 being people angry with the post. And that post also saw nearly 8,000 comments, with the vast majority being negative.
One of the most upvoted comments said, “We are platinum and about to have my 25th Cruise. This is a joke because now I’m just gonna move over to MSC or Princess because MSC at least matched our status and we don’t lose it as long as we cruise once every five years with them we don’t have to start over. This is a joke.”
“Boooo tomatoes tomatoes I’m throwing tomatoes,” wrote another commenter.
“Judging by the buzz online, Carnival you’ve screwed up,” said another.
“Sorry Carnival, this isn’t a “Loyalty” program, it’s a “Buy your level” program!!!” wrote another.
Even Two Weeks Later, Carnival Fans Are Still Buzzing
Honestly, people get upset online all the time. What’s standing out is that this anger seems to have some staying power.
For days afterward, Carnival Brand Ambassador John Heald has bore the brunt of fan’s complaints. The reaction to his posts about the change have been overwhelmingly negative as well.
To his credit, Heald says he is letting his superiors (jokingly referred to as “The Beards”) know how Carnival fans feel:
“The past 10 days I have listened, and I promise I have shared all your thoughts, all of your hopes and all of your understanding with the beards. I am, I really am and doing all I can to share what some of you would like to see. There are no promises but the promise I have for you is that I have been your ear and your mouthpiece,” he wrote in response to the outrage his page has seen regarding the change.
Even on posts that have nothing to do with loyalty program, many people are keeping the conversation going.
A recent post announcing a change from Pepsi to Coca-Cola on Carnival even had comments like this one that still manage to take a dig at the change:
“This is awesome news, it just made my day. I’ve been asking for this in my surveys for years. Looks like carnivals getting something right. We won’t talk about the Loyalty program though.“
With a Year to Go, Will Carnival Stay the Course?
What’s not clear is if this online outrage has turned into any sort of material drop in business for the cruise line among its most loyal customers. While many have mentioned heading to other cruise lines, sometimes words don’t actually turn into actions.
However, given the uproar and the fact that it’s still a year away until the Carnival Rewards program is put in place, it wouldn’t surprise us if changes are made.
The new program has a lot of moving parts that can be confusing. And having status that can vary from year to year based on spending is obviously not winning people over.
There’s still plenty of time for the cruise line to make adjustments that could tamp down some of the anger the new program is seeing.
