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You need to be a member of a selected scheme to be able to access the discounted gift cards. Signing up for email offers from your preferred cruise line and checking its "deals" or "offers" tab on a regular basis might be your best bet for scoring a top deal. However, there's no doubt that AARP's $9 to $16 annual membership fee quickly pays for itself with even a one-time onboard credit — and there is a potential for additional savings. A search for European river cruises in 2024 and 2025 turned up hundreds of options on river ships operated by AmaWaterways, Avalon Waterways, Uniworld River Cruises and Viking.
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Here you’ll be able to find $50 and $100 gift cards, which are physical gift cards – you’ll need to wait for them to be mailed to you once ordered. You might save the most money by booking a pre- or post-cruise hotel stay with one of AARP Travel Center's dozens of hotel partners, most of which offer a 10% discount off the best available nightly rate. The list includes Hilton, InterContinental, Radisson, Holiday Inn, Best Western, Embassy Suites, Wyndham, Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, Kimpton and Hotel Indigo. The cost of the four-day rail/hotel portion of Vacation by Rail's 12-day Glacier Express & the Majestic Rhine cruise-and-rail tour also seems to account for about half of the overall cost for one-third of the days. AARP members also have access to specific deals on river cruises offered by AARP-preferred travel providers.
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Target Red is a banking account with different options – you can choose a credit card, a debit card or a reloadable account. Whichever version you choose, you’ll get the 5% off Carnival gift cards. Other deals in the luxury category included a seven-night Caribbean cruise in late February 2024 in a verandah suite aboard Seabourn Ovation for $3,249 per person.
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Hotel Reward Programs
Now, she helps over 1 million people per month to plan their perfect cruise holidays. Just be aware that you can only use a maximum of nine Carnival gift cards at once. The best discounts you can expect to get on a Carnival Cruise Line gift card are 10%, with some retailers and schemes offering less – typically 5% or 6%.
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Get ahead of whatever life has ahead
The AARP Travel Center also allows you to search and compare river cruises by searching the destination "Europe" and a specific date range. It’s easy to put off doing today what you’ll wish you had done tomorrow. That’s why we created AARP Rewards to inspire you to learn, prepare and get ahead of whatever life has ahead. From health and fitness to retirement and money management, we’re here to make your next steps easy, rewarding, and fun. If you plan to cruise one of the lines offering the cards, we see no reason not to take advantage.
And since you can still shop around and buy your cruise how and when you want, you can buy the cards, and then wait for a deal that looks good to you. The only difference is instead of paying full price, you get a discount. Combined, these lines represent close to 100 cruise ships offering trips just about anywhere in the world. In other words, no matter if you want to sail the Caribbean or Australia, the Mediterranean or Alaska, you can do it while saving some serious money. You can then use 1,000 points to get $1 off a gallon of gas, up to 35 gallons but in one transaction only. Realistically, most cars have a capacity of around gallons, so you’re only going to save $15.
Earn Points
Both the agility required for train travel and the cost of the four-day rail tour are something to consider when weighing the value of a 5% discount. Another savings opportunity is $50 off per person on Collette cruisetours. Cruise options here are more limited and are mostly on Amadeus River Cruises ships on the Rhine and Danube, plus some small-ship coastal cruising in Croatia and tours in Egypt featuring a four-night cruise. For example, the eight-day Enchanting Danube itinerary in March and April 2024 aboard S.S. Maria Theresa starts at $3,299 per person, the same as on Uniworld's website. A $100 per person discount if booked with Grand European Travel.
While AARP is known for being an interest group for older Americans, anyone can join, no matter their age. We were personally able to sign up for a membership and then access all the gift cards with no issue despite being under 50 years old. However, when we tried to register for a free AARP account, we repeatedly reached an error page.
You can also hand over a physical gift card when on the ship to make purchases in the stores. If you’re looking on social media and forums for more advice on buying Carnival gift cards at discount, you might see Allstate Rewards recommended. Just a quick note to let you know that this program was retired in October 2023. With Kroger, your purchases earn you fuel points, which you can redeem on gas. But to make the most of the offer, you need to buy your Carnival gift cards during the promotions where 4x points are offered. The best place to buy Carnival gift cards with a discount is through AARP Rewards – provided you’re a member, you can get 10% off a Carnival gift card with a limit of 30 gift card purchases per month.
Even better, before you think you have to be an older American to join up and get these savings on cruise gift cards, membership is open to anyone. You can use Carnival gift cards either to book your cruise or to credit your onboard Sail & Sign account. You can also use them on ships, provided the ship is using USD as the currency onboard (so it excludes Australia sailings, for example). One of the best hacks for saving money on a Carnival cruise vacation is to buy discounted Carnival gift cards. You can essentially get free money by adding money to your Carnival account at a discounted rate.
Some guided tours are 12 days, with four days of rail travel and hotel stays in advance of a seven-night cruise. Reviews, however, mention the hassle of getting luggage on and off trains by yourself (there are no porters). That seemed like a terrific deal, but when I checked Oceania's website, I found the same price with all the included bonuses. The only difference was the "up to $100" onboard credit available with AARP membership. In this case, the credit was the full $100 because the cruise fare was more than $2,000.
Generally, it’s a good idea, provided you’re planning on spending a large sum. It might be a lot of effort for minimum reward if you were only planning on saving $10 on a $100 card. But if you were buying at least one $500 gift card, the savings become significant. You can use the gift card in the same way as you would any other gift card – just enter the details of the card on the Carnival website when purchasing your cruise, or when crediting your Sail & Sign account on the Carnival website.
That’s a small price to pay for the ability to save up to 10% off your cruise. While the discount isn’t as big as with AARP or Verizon, it may be an easier option for you if you want to buy your gift cards in-store. She has worked in the cruise industry since 2015 and has taken over 30 cruises.
AARP members can also book expedition cruises, such as 12-night Antarctic Explorer itineraries on Viking Octantis and Viking Polaris, via the AARP Travel Center. These are priced at $11,995 per person (the same price as on Viking's website) with just a $25 deposit. Cruisers who prefer Holland America also have plenty of choices. They can, for example, book a seven-night Caribbean cruise from Fort Lauderdale in early March 2024 aboard Nieuw Statendam that visits Jamaica; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Cozumel; and Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. An inside cabin was priced at $614 per person (comparable to what HAL offers on its website) and came with a $50 onboard credit. All were similar to what's available on the cruise lines' websites, but with AARP qualified for an onboard credit of $50.
If you’re looking for a deal, it doesn’t get much better than this. With no strings attached, hoops to jump through, or other headaches, you can essentially get 10% off the cost of your cruise by buying these gift certificates and then using them to pay for the trip. So a $2,000 cruise becomes $1,800 just with buying the cards through AARP.
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