Carnival Cruise Getting Ripped and its Not Even 48 Hours Since the Announcement

 Two days ago Carnival made a huge announcement on their new Rewards Program.  The reactions are pretty much what I was expecting.  What Carnival does with this is anyone's guess at this point.  Sounds like they did not think through that people can do math.  In fact, John Heald, had to answer over 500 questions on his Facebook page yesterday alone, and that's not going to end anytime soon for him I believe.

One question John answered, which I even mentioned in my last post was on how points get split if one person in the cabin is paying for everything (which I would assume is the norm most of the time) for a couple.  He said that the total will be split between those in the cabin.  I am going to assume that's true if more that 2 people are in the room.

Now remember to obtain and maintain Platinum (just double everything for Diamond basically) you have to reach 50,000 stars before the 2 year window to do so is up.  From the time you reach that threshold through the 2 year period, you are good, except your points go back to 0 and you work on the next 2 years of the cycle to maintain.  This is not unlike Southwest points expire every year but you reap the awards from time of meeting through the following year.

Got that?  Good.

$1 = 3 Stars (points, but there will also be "points" that sound great but I am betting do not count toward stars when being redeemed)

You may have seen people say things like $8k or $16k needs to be spent to maintain your status (again talking Platinum, double this for Diamond).  Where did they get these numbers?  From taking the 50,000 stars and dividing by 3 (how much a star is worth)

So 50,000/3 = $16,667 (rounded up for simplicity)

This is per cruiser for 2 years, so this is where the $8k comes from.  They are looking at 1 year.

Back to splitting the costs between members in the cabin.  If you share the cabin, you are splitting everything. So Dollars spent double for (assuming only double occupancy) both to reach the 50,000, you are looking at 100,000 total if you always traveling together like my wife and I do.

So 100,000/3 = $33,333.33  every 2 years or $16,666.67 a year for a couple with no kids to maintain Platinum status.  

I don't know about you but I do not put $1388 a month towards my vacation budget.  To break it down even more, its about $46 dollars a day you have to save over the year to have the funds needed.

Math is not always hard but can give one a headache!

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