What Is Your Definition of Loyalty?

 Having a conversation with friends about cruising and the state of the Carnival fan base now that it has been a week since the new Rewards Program was announced brought up some interesting questions.

First,  "what is the definition of loyal"?   Does this mean NEVER cruising with another brand, or simply you keep coming back?  Or is it some where in between.

Our group came to our own conclusion that its in between, but closer to most of your cruise time and dollars go to one brand.  We are all Platinum (for now) with Carnival, but have also done MSC, Royal, Princess, and even Disney at least once in the last 30 years.  One to two cruise on each of those to 20+ Carnival.  Notice that its not 60 Carnival over 30 years?   Its because while loyal to Carnival for cruising none of us are loyal to cruising as the sole vacation option.  Much of our time in the last 10 years has been spent on land based vacations.  I cant say what caused that swap in mentality after doing 2 cruises a year for a period of time, but it did.  

Carnival is banking that for some loyalty will be to the perks.  They are betting that enough people will chase those perks to get the MasterCard and/or dump pretty much all their vacation time and money on Carnival.  Their recent response to the backlash, shows they are willing to wait it out and hope that things die down before just scrapping anything.  And only time will tell.  Its only been a week right?  

What do you think?  What is your definition of loyalty?  Do you think the backlash will calm down? Or do you think this has the momentum to put enough hurt on Carnival like the boycotts of Target caused for them?  

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