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A Sea Miles swindle? Carnival confuses “per cabin” with “per person”

March 30, 2009

Stuart Harstrom applied for a Carnival Sea Miles MasterCard in 2004 and used it for most of his purchases, hoping to redeem his points for a “free” vacation. Then the cruise line pulled the plug on his plans, he says.

His story is a cautionary tale about vague promises made by loyalty programs, imprecise wording on Web sites, and the fleeting nature of points.

Here’s what happened to him:

We used our card for every purchase we could and earned over 135,000 miles, which we thought was more than enough for a “free” cruise. The Sea Miles site said the Alaska cruise we wanted would cost 87,000 per stateroom.

But when we called to redeem our points, we were told it was 87,000 was per person, not per stateroom. We were so shocked because we when first got the card, the points were per stateroom, not per person!

We used all of our points, plus we had to pay an additional $800. We contacted Sea Miles after this and told them that the Web site did not indicate that the points were per person, so we would like to have the difference in points restored to our account and the difference in money, less any taxes or fees not covered by the points. There was no asterisk, number, or alphabet to refer us anywhere on the site that indicated the points were per person.

Since we called this matter to Sea Miles attention, they have changed their site to indicate that the points are per person, not per stateroom. We contacted our attorney and she wrote a letter to SeaMiles in December of 2008. She gave Sea Miles 60 days to respond. She, or we, have had no response from Sea Miles.

No kidding. Here’s a screen shot Harstrom took from the Sea Miles site.

ishot-14

I asked Carnival about the “per miles”/”per cabin” confusion.

Please be advised that the terms and conditions of the Sea Miles program clearly state that points are per guest, based on double occupancy.

As a gesture of goodwill, however, Mr. Harstrom will be provided with 10,000 Sea Miles to apply towards a future cruise, airline or resort stay.

In other words, Harstrom should have read the terms and conditions of his Sea Miles program. Curiously, the terms I read make no mention of the per-guest rule.

An extra 10,000 miles is a nice gesture, but Harstrom is not entirely happy.

Is this a good offer? Should we still pursue Carnival for any more? I am just shocked they responded at all. The 10k points aren’t really enough to do anything with since the points are per person now. We would have to charge over $200,000 to really get a “free” cruise. We could use 5,000 points to get $25 back on flights, so the 10,000 points would get us back $50.

Ah, now he’s getting to the heart of the issue: Are miles worth it?

Let’s start with Carnival’s offer. Is it enough? Probably not, in the sense that it won’t make up for the extra $800 he had to spend.

Should you bother collecting miles? In a case like Harstrom’s, the answer is: absolutely not.

Harstrom’s Sea Miles MasterCard benefited Carnival and MasterCard, mostly. Not him.

Update (7 p.m.): It appears the Sea Miles site lists some of the terms that Carnival mentioned. In addition, the screen shot furnished by Harstrom from the Sea Miles site showed cabins from another cruise line, not Carnival. Presumably, these have also been updated in the meantime.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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37 comments

  • larry bradley

    The fact of the matter is that most people would be better off with a cash back credit card. Nothing beats free cash plus there is no fine print with U.S. Dollars.

  • Lianne

    Chris, I am extremely glad you ran this article. I’ve been trying to tell my mother that she’s far better of putting money from a cash back cc into a bank account set aside for vacations instead of falling for this “free trip” nonsense. I already forwarded her the link.

    Like a previous poster said…there is a lot less room for fine print with cash.

  • Amy

    In the past few months I have been cashing out my points where ever I can. American Express points can be used for gift cards for stores where I would shop any way (Gap or Lands End are available not just Brooks Brothers and Saks) at twice the benefit rate as cashing them for American Express gift cards. The Blue Card pays cash for using it – at 5% past a minimum usage for grocery, drug store and gas purchases so as bizarre as I once thought it, I now charge all of my groceries, gas and drugstore purchases and pay the bill in full each month. Various other companies like Staples have rewards plans that pay cash and pays for recycling ink cartridges. It does not work out for me to fly the same airline often enough to accrue enough points for it to matter so I join them all in case it helps for an upgrade, but I expect nothing. Sorry to say but for this area of my life the best deal right now, especially in cash, is the way to go. I’ll do my long term planning elsewhere. Even my change jar has a higher rate of return for me than airline points.

  • Becky Blanton

    Whew! Thanks for this! I was planning a Carnival cruise but I’ll switch to Holland America. If Carnival will scam people like this – God only knows what other cheap shortcuts they’ll take! Thank you! When will companies learn that they LOSE dollars by trying to earn pennies at the expense of customers? They lost MY booking because of this story. I wonder how much more business they’ve LOST due to this couple telling this story? Obviously the couple is upset and telling a LOT of people! They told you. It affected me. Carnival? DEFINITELY impacts them and will for months and years to come. But hey, they got this couple’s $800! wooohooo……

  • Lisa S

    I completely agree with Larry: cash is best. With the way companies change the rules and continue to increase the number of points needed for anything, it is simply not worth collecting points UNLESS you have a very large expense account–which, alas I do not.

  • Carver

    I have the respectfully disagree with the conclusions drawn from this article. There are two and a half seperate issues which shouldn’t be combined. One is whether Carnival scammed this couple, the value of lyalty programs and the value of credit cards tied to loyalty programs.

    1. I wholeheartedly agree that the couple was scammed. If carnival won’t budge, a quick lawsuit in small claims should resolve this issue fairly easily.

    2. The value of loyalty programs. Once again, I accept the Chris doesn’t have a great deal of faith in them. Be that is it may, if you want to discuss loyalty programs, then do so. Do the math. Based on one’s earning and travel patterns there is probably one that makes sense for most people.

    3. credit card miles. This article lacks any quantitive discussion of miles v. cash. How many miles do you get on average per dollar spent and how easy is the redemption. Personally, I find hotel point to be a far better value than airline miles given the relative ease of redemption

    A proper analysis would go like this. Citibank gives 1 AA mile per dollar spent, meaning you need to spend 30K to get a free RT airline ticket. Starwood AMEX gives you one Starpoint for every dollar spent. The same 30k would give you 30k starpoints, enough for three nights at a category 4 hotel. A 1 percent cash back rewards program would give you $300.

    The free domestic AA ticket requires 3 weeks advance purchase is worth about $400.
    The three nights at a Cat 4 Starwood is worth about $750, and about $1200 in Europe
    The cash card value is $300

    Under that analysis the hotel card has the potential to be the best value.

  • Jake

    @Amy

    If you’re looking for a good airline points card, Citi PremierPass gives you 1 point per purchase dollar, and 1 point for every 3 miles flown for ANY tickets purchased using the card (not just you). The points can be redeemed on their ThankYou network for merchandise and gift cards. At one point they were also offering a straight 1 point per mile flown if you wanted to upgrade and pay an annual fee.

  • Christopher Elliott

    @Carver you would have to sue in a maritime court, I believe.

  • Richard

    In this case I feel there is a fine line between being ripped off and being naive. Yes, Carnival’s advertisement was misleading. However, one needs to do their due diligence, too. Do you really think Carnival would provide a cabin with no limitations on the number of passengers permitted in the cabin? The advertisement as provided above raised a huge red flag in my mind and I think it should have done the same for Stuart. Had Stuart called before he started racking up his points, he could have saved himself a lot of grief. No excuses for Carnival’s actions, but sometimes the consumer needs to be proactive.

  • Lianne

    @ Carver

    Regarding the Seamiles Program specfically, the CC is a waste. The Carnival branded card supposedly gives you more “bang” for your buck, but as you can see the details are are misleading.

    The general Seamiles card (or if you use your Carnival card on another cruiseline) supposedly gives you a specific $$ credit towards your cruise. The credit equals approx 1% of every dollar spent. I get this on my basic cash back card. Also to redeem the credit you must also book through the Seamiles booking agency, and from what I’ve seen on the CruiseMates message board the rates per cabin are substanitially higher than attempting to book through a cruise agent or directly with the line, so you end up not saving as much as you’d hoped.

    I do agree with you on the hotel loyalty programs. They are by far the best ones out there. I have a Silver level GoldPointsPlus and a small Hilton Rewards account and I think just being enrolled has helped me out on a few occasions.

  • yellahabibi

    I guess I don’t understand how this card works. It’s issued by Carnival but is obviously good for other cruise lines? The cabin list in the screenshot is from Norwegian Cruise Line so I am really confused…

  • Lianne

    @ yellahabibi

    Assuming the terms are the same as they were a few months ago ( I had considered applying for a card then thought better of it)…

    Sea Miles is a general “cruise reward” program that was (and I think still is) backed by Chase Bank.

    There is the general Sea Miles Visa that gives a credit (approx 1% per $ spent). So spending $50K would reward you with $500 to spend on any participating cruiseline.

    There is also a Carnival Branded Mastercard that has all the standard Sea Miles points, plus additional “perks” on Carnival Cruise lines. I was under the impression that “free” rooms could only be earn on Carnival…but that program may have expanded since last I checked.

  • Sam

    @Chris

    I don’t think you’d need to sue in maritime court. Their have minimum contacts with every state in the US (through advertising, solicitation, and dealings with travel agents), so they should be subject to any state’s small claims system. Cruise lines have been sued in regular state courts many times.

  • yellahabibi

    @Lianne

    Thanks. The article specified Carnival and indicated that the consumer contacted Carnival so I was certainly confused when I saw NCL cabin types in the graphic. And I’m still not certain whether the subject of this article wanted a cruise on Carnival or NCL!

  • Carver

    Regarding maritime court. The beauty of small claims is that most small claims courts in the US don’t permit special appearances for the purpose of disputing jurisdiction in most instances. In other words, if the cruise lines shows up, the court will proceed with the case regardless. If the cruiseline doesn’t show up, it loses on default. Either way, the court can issue a judgment which can be used to execute on any property owned by the cruiseline in the US.

  • Carver

    @Richard

    I think that’sa bit of a stretch. Hotels awards for example are by room. It doesn’t mean that the hotel allows an unlimited number of people in a room. It means that a hotel permits the usual and customary number of people in a particular room, often 2-3 per bedroom. Therefore it’s not unreasonable to make a similiar assumption about staterooms, especially since that’s what clearly stated on the advertisement.

  • larry bradley

    Carver is right about hotel points. I have both an Amex Starwood and Amex Hilton card. Both do generally far better than cash back or airline miles. I do however stand by my original statement that most people would be better off with a cash back card. It just depends on how much and where you travel. I have always thought that airline cards were the worst considering their yearly fees and the taxes and fees you have to pay to get the so called “free ticket”.

  • Carver

    @larry

    Agreed. It all depends on one’s travel habit. For me, I have found that the best rate of return on my travel dollars is

    1. Airline upgrades to a higher class of service on international flights
    2. Hotel rewards at International properties
    3. Hotel rewards at domestic properties

    Trying to collect miles for a free ticket is usually the worse redemption value.

  • Stuart

    In response to the Norwegian screen shot: The one good thing about the Carnival SeaMiles Mastercard is that you can use your points on any Cruise Line when you book through SeaMiles. That is why we choose Norwegian for our Alaskan cruise. And no, we did not think that we could have unlimited people in a stateroom. We thought the points were for the stateroom based on double occupancy, not double the amount of points listed. And how you accumulate points is for every dollar spent it equals one point. However, on a Carnival cruise it’s two points for every dollar spent. For example, the price of the cruise and anything that you spend on Carnival, such as excursions, gifts on the ship, liquor, etc. So, at first glance the program appears to be a good deal, but in the end it is not. We charged well over $135,000, which resulted in 135,000 points, and still had to pay $800 for our Alaskan cruise. Now we do have a card that pays us cash back and we are putting that cash in an account to save for future cruises. And we will cruise with Carnival again, we just won’t use their MasterCard.

  • Geoff

    Stuart apparently spends a ton on his credit card. Cash rebates of 2% annually are not unheard of.(I have that plus 5% on gas) I would have 2700.00 plus over the 4 years, pleanty to buy that cruise room. Airline cards are just as ruthless unless you travel 40-50 segments a year, but millions of people are caught up in the industries profits each year.

  • Stuart

    If I can clear up one thing, just for your readers. Our SeaMiles card is through Carnival, but it is accepted on any of the cruise lines when you book through SeaMiles. That is why the screen shot shows the seamiles needed for the Alaskan cruise was on Norwegian. SeaMiles sets the point value for each cruise
    destination regardless of the cruise line you choose to take. I hope that this helps other people that may be considering a cruise using their seamiles. Also, one last thing, we don’t want to leave the impression with anyone that we’re bashing Carnival Cruise Lines, just the Carnival SeaMiles MasterCard. We’ve been on Carnival’s cruise ships 7 times and have always had a great time. We just learned our lesson about keeping up with whatever program that offers a reward for using their card.

  • Stuart

    Yes we did charge a lot trying to get points for a “free cruise”. But now after this “thing” with redeeming the points through SeaMiles, we no longer use the Carnival SeaMiles MasterCard. We now have a Card that pays us cash back when we’ve reached a certain amount charged. We take that cash and put it in a special account. So now we are saving that cash for a cruise. We should have enough cash back by the end of next year to pay for a cruise. So we are convinced that the “cash back” cards are the way to go now, not a “points” or “miles” card.

  • Carver Farrow

    @Stuart

    Cash is certainly king, but don’t let this scam sour you on some of the legit deals. For example, if you stay at Marriotts regularly, it may be worth getting their card. The $135k that you spent would have been enough to get you a week at the Marriott located on the Champs-Elysee. I redeemed 150K points last year for 7 nights there. The price in dollars for the room was about $700 per night for a total valuation of $4900.

    Of course the downside is points lack the flexibility of cash so it really depends on your travel habits.

  • http://Carver Stuart

    Thanks for the advice. We do not stay in hotels much, so for us now the cash back card is the way to go. And we can use the cash for any type of vacation.

  • Lianne

    Hi Stuart!

    Just curious, what level of cabin class were you trying to reserve? I definetely think your were very much mislead and scammed by Seamiles, there are exceptions (particularly with hotel cards which are better and airline cards which employ magic points hoodoo) but a general rule of thumb is that a CC point can be considered to be woth $.01 in redemption.

    If you were looking at an inside or outside stateroom, then $870 for two people (particularly in today’s economy as a repeat cruiser) seems very reasonable. If you were looking at those Balcony or Suites then it leans into “too good to be true” territory.

    Just some friendly advice as you go card shopping. Travel cards and cashback cards can be a great way of *discounting* your vacation costs, but getting freebies (other than hotel cards) can be more trouble than its worth. :-)

  • Stuart

    Lianne,

    We booked an inside stateroom on the very bottom deck, next to the ship’s Medical Center, which we thought was 87,000 points. But that was times two. So we had to use 135,000 of our SeaMiles points, which was all of the points that we had at the time, PLUS the $800. So it was a lot of points plus the cash. If you look at the screen shot up near the top of this blog you will see the point value beside the stateroom. These points are per person now, not per stateroom. So as you can see it takes a lot of points to go on a “free” cruise. You can also see from that screen shot that there is no way of knowing that the points are per person, they appear to be per stateroom.

    Yes, we feel that we were scammed, or at the very least, mislead by SeaMiles too. That is why we are no longer using their card.

    We now have a Card that pays us cash back and we are taking that cash and saving it for future cruises. Thanks for the advice.

  • Stuart

    Just wanted to let you know that SeaMiles finally made things acceptable for
    us. I sent one more email to SeaMiles customer service letting them know we
    were pursuing this issue through several avenues including contacting the
    Attorney Generals. They responded with a favorable offer. The offer was an
    upgrade for our stateroom and they restored 85k points/miles to our
    SeaMiles account to use toward another cruise. Here is the contact person
    that responded to us.

    Mike Vietri
    Vice President, Loyalty
    SeaMiles
    office – 416 398 1555 ext. 431

    He was understanding, very helpful and very nice. He agreed that the use of
    135k points was out of line. And he took care of us. So now we have enough
    points to go on another cruise with very little money out of pocket.

    Stuart & Susan Harstrom

  • Steve Smith

    This is terrible. This all about crying that you did not get as much as you wanted for nothing, I mean nothing. This makes no sense I have had the card and CLEARLY knew that it was per person. It is just a credit card, and I take it as nothing more but people please, this is the most rediculous post I have ever seen. get a life or better yet get a grip on yourself.

    Steve

  • mark whitehead

    After earning 80K Sea Miles, I was planning a vacation in the future. I did not use my card for a while and received a letter stating my account was closed and that all miles were no longer valid. Contacting the bank, BARCLAY’s, was of no use. The agent was of no help and could not answer any questions. The supervisor was RUDE and would not answer questions and did not want to be bothered with “helping me”. He continued to read from the same scrpit no matter what I asked and continued to ask, “Will that be all Mr. Whitehead”.

    I would think companies like BARCLAY’s and CARNIVAL would be interested in the consumer since this is their business.

  • Daniele

    Oh I hate seeing all these comments on the Sea Miles Account. We’ve earned 102,000 points and I am very dissappointed that when I went online to book the cruise, I noticed that they went up about 10,000 on each cruise. As I get closer and closer to our goal, they pull away. As soon as I get to use my points, I will never use this type of card again. I have a very good credit score and they up’d my interest from 14% to 24% for no reason!!! Beware!

  • John

    Banks continue to be very rude especially to us consumers that pay off their credit cards monthly and do not carry balances where they make their extraordinary interest rates. I applied for the Seamiles Visa card and earn 3x the seamiles for booking any cruise line, we sail on many lines and hate restrictions, our 112,000 seamiles is worth $1370, and I found lowest price online and used them with my travel agent great program for regular cruisers

  • Linda Stangle

    I had a positive experience with my sea miles…we could not do a cruise at this time and could not use the points for air miles…so I called sea miles to see if the points could be used for a resort, and they do have some available, we chose Myrtle Beach Sc area where we have stayed many times, they gave us a choice of two places on the ocean, that would have cost us nothing for a week (we have 58,000 miles) and one in Surfside about 4 miles from Myrtle Beach not on the ocean, that would have been $73 for the week..I did not book right on the spot because I wanted to check the places out, the one on Surfside Beach had an excellent review, when I called back to book a day later the one I wanted to have was not available, however they had a two bedroom for $95 . we did take this, and it was a wonderful place, it was the Plantation Resort, it was the cleanest place we have ever stayed in, it would have cost us $975 to stay there for the week, so , we will probably not collect points again and will go for a cash back card, but this is just another option for using this card.

  • Charles

    Two things I would like to address.
    1. For the lady that said she would cancell her trip on Carnival and book with Holland America. Carnikval Corp. ownes both of the Cruise Lines, so I dont think you will much difference in the customer service between the two lines.

    2. For the person who said that a lawsuite on Carnival would have to be filed in a Maritime Court. That is not correct. All lawsuites filed on Carnival go through the Florida District Courts.

  • David

    Charles is correct – Carnival’s terms and conditions include a choice of venue section that requires all litigation to be conducted in U.S. District Court in Miami, so a suit in Small Claims Court would be thrown out. As to Stuart’s situation, I went back and looked at the old literature and points charts from a few years ago and they did, in fact, quote points with the description “FREE Cruise for Two” and, as an example, a 7 night Ocean view cabin was 100,000 points (on certain specified cruise ships). So at some point they did change their language – I’m not sure when. Does anyone out there know exactly when the change was made?

  • Jan Ruppert

    In 2004 my husband & I also started using the CarnivaSea Miles Master Card…We usually get past guest discount, back to back discount or Military discount, which we book through our Carnival Cruise Specialist. When it’s time to pay the balance of our cruise, we then have our booking transferred to the Sea Miles department & our points are then redeemed for the balance. Because we always do back to back cruises, we would never have enough points for a ‘free’ cruise BUT ( AND that’s a big but) We are charging our purchases anyway, paying our credit card every month in full, So any amount of a discount is worth it to us! We have save at least $1000.00 on our cruises since we started. Besides all our literature says that the program is subject to change at any time…We have had our problems too using it, but not enough yet to stop using our Carnival Sea Miles Master Card…

  • Jan Ruppert

    In 2004 my husband & I also started using the Carnival Sea Miles Master Card…We usually get past guest discount, back to back discount or Military discount, which we book through our Carnival Cruise Specialist. When it’s time to pay the balance of our cruise, we then have our booking transferred to the Sea Miles department & our points are then redeemed for the balance. Because we always do back to back cruises, we would never have enough points for a ‘free’ cruise BUT (AND that’s a big but) we are charging our purchases anyway, paying our credit card every month in full, So any amount of a discount is worth it to us! We have saved at least $1000.00 on our cruises since we started. All our literature says that the program is subject to change at any time…We have had our problems using it, figuring out how to get the best prices, etc, but not enough yet to stop using our Carnival Sea Miles Master Card…

  • Dave

    I have both a Carnival SeaMiles card and a Delta SkyMiles card I use them to pay all my expenses except electricity, or an average of $2000/month. I’ve had the SkyMiles card since 2001 and the SeaMiles card since 2007. So far I’ve redeemed two first class round trip tickets from Orlando to San Francisco, and Orlando to Salt Lake City then San Francisco back to Orlando. I have enough miles on account for another first class ticket and a coach ticket. I haven’t used the SeaMiles points yet, but I have 42,000 which equates to $500 as is clearly explained on their website https://www.seamiles.com/public_3.csp .

    “The NEW SeaMiles Rewards program allows you to redeem your SeaMiles as freely as you’ve earned them on Any Cruise Line…Any Time. No Restrictions, No Blackouts, No Fees.

    Every 5,000 SeaMiles can be redeemed for a $50 discount, PLUS you will earn a $50 Bonus Credit for every 20,000 SeaMiles redeemed off a cruise booking of your choice. Or use your SeaMiles on your air, car or hotel booking.”

    This is what it’s said since I signed up for the card three years ago, so the “NEW” program is at least three years old. I just took a 7 day Western Caribbean cruise and a balcony stateroom on deck 8 came to about $1000/person for a double occupancy. Using the SeaMiles chart, 100,000 points gets you $1,250. In otherwords, roughly one free 7 day cruise for 100,000 points per person. If you never earn bonus miles then 100,000 points is 1.25% return, which is better than most cash back cards’ 1% return. My return on SkyMiles has been about 1.5%.

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