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Royal Caribbean Credit Card


Lakew92

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Hi.  I have had the Bank of America RCL card for about 10 years now. It’s ok, you earn the most points when you use it for Royal expenses, I think it’s two points for every dollar when using it for a Royal purchase/expense and 1 point everywhere else.  There are other cards with as good as or better rewards especially on travel purchases. 
That being said I collect the points and redeem them for on board credit. 
hope that helps. 

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Hi @Lakew92, I have the Celebrity version of this card and would say that it's good to use for cruise purchases -- booking / cruise fare, airfare if you happen to book through Air2Sea / Flights By Celebrity / etc.), Cruise Planner purchases, and on-board purchases... and absolutely nothing else. That by itself should still be enough to get you some OBC on each cruise, thanks to the double points for all cruise purchases. But as a rewards card it's really not that great.

In contrast I have an Amazon Rewards card that I use for everything else. My most frequent purchases -- gas and groceries -- always get me double points. Anything bought on Amazon gets me triple, and everything else gets me 1 point per dollar. Way better point return, and I've used those points very regularly to get a ton of stuff on Amazon for either reduced price or totally free, including a set of matching luggage for myself that I bought entirely with saved up points. Way better than what I can get with the Royal / Celebrity card.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have it that I use strictly for Royal purchases ..... I'm with @JLMoran on his thought process.  We also have the Southwest Card, for which we get crazy amounts of points that we're able to use when flying to Florida to visit family.  The Southwest Card is our "go to" card, whereas, the Royal Card is used strictly for the OBC benefits.

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My wife has it and uses it for her everyday purchases. We will use it from time to time for Royal Caribbean as well, but not exclusively. My Chase Sapphire Reserve provides 3 points per dollar spent on travel (vs RCL 2) and can be transferred to various airlines/hotels/etc or used via Chase Portal to book any type of travel (including Royal Caribbean Cruise, if I wanted, which I wouldn't). I can also use the points in a variety of other ways such as, actual cash back, gift cards, etc, etc (haven't looked at all only interested in travel). The Sapphire Reserve also provides other benefits such as auto insurance, travel insurance, and more.

My 'goto' cards are the Sapphire (3% travel - and EVERYTHING is travel including EzPass Tolls - & dining), Freedom Unlimited (1.5% everything else), & Freedom (rotating 5% categories) it creates a trifecta as all the points can be combined. 

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55 minutes ago, sk8erguy1978 said:

My Chase Sapphire Reserve provides 3 points per dollar spent on travel (vs RCL 2) and can be transferred to various airlines/hotels/etc or used via Chase Portal to book any type of travel (including Royal Caribbean Cruise, if I wanted, which I wouldn't). I can also use the points in a variety of other ways such as, actual cash back, gift cards, etc, etc (haven't looked at all only interested in travel). The Sapphire Reserve also provides other benefits such as auto insurance, travel insurance, and more.

This is the card I plan to apply for and switch to as primary once I'm retired and I'm traveling more frequently. The annual fee can be offset pretty nicely if you take advantage of the travel-related perks it comes with, but you definitely have to travel regularly and (IMO) at least a couple times a year to really maximize the benefits it offers.

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Just now, JLMoran said:

This is the card I plan to apply for and switch to as primary once I'm retired and I'm traveling more frequently. The annual fee can be offset pretty nicely if you take advantage of the travel-related perks it comes with, but you definitely have to travel regularly and (IMO) at least a couple times a year to really maximize the benefits it offers.

Yes, I agree. One thing to keep in the back of your mind, it comes with an annual travel 'credit' of $300 dollars. As of right now, it's very loose EzPass, Hotels, Trains, Buses, etc, so it's pretty easy to use. With that said, it does have an annual fee of $450 so you still need to come up with $150 worth of benefits. I heard a rumor they might raise it to $550, ugh. :/.

My wife and I also go out more that we probably should, so I earn a decent amount of points in the food category. 

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I've had the card for about 15 years and managed to get 3 free cruises during that time.  Well the cruises aren't exactly free.  In all free cruise cases (125K points), you need to pay port charges and taxes.  They change the rules as they see fit, so you have to deal with that.  The basic free deal is this:  You can get a RCL 7 day Ocean View Caribbean cruise for two at a value up to $2500.  That's about a 2% return if you do the math (assume you book a room close to $2500 in value, some of your points are doubled from RCL purchases, and minus the port charges and taxes you have to pay).  This is tricky, takes patience, and not an exact science.

Also, if you use that card for only RCL purchases you will find that exchanging points for OBC will yield a 2% return. 

These days, I use the Citi Double Cash Card (2% for every purchase!).  I find this is just easier to deal with for the same return.

NOTE:  During the time I booked my second free cruise, RCL's policy had changed and they made me pay more for the cruise than I could actually purchase it for!  They had some sort of lookup table that they were required to book the complimentary cruise using.  Needless to say, that free cruise netted me less that a 2% return and I was NOT happy.

My 201101 Harmony cruise is a free BOA RCL card reward.  I upgraded to a Balcony from the standard Ocean View and our total cost was around $650.  An OK deal, but the old C&A balcony upgrade for diamond was $175 and they used to honor that upgrade deal - back in the old days...  ?

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4 hours ago, sk8erguy1978 said:

 I heard a rumor they might raise it to $550, ugh. :/.

 

Not a rumor, I read it on their website while checking it out. I've been looking into this one, but I find it very confusing on how to redeem any benefits, and it doesn't appear that you can use them for Delta miles, so I think the benefits just wouldn't be there for me.  But again, the whole thing makes my head spin.

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Another advantage to the Chase Sapphire is that it includes excellent travel insurance.  In addition, the first $300 per year you spend on travel is reimbursed-which makes the actual fee only $150 because it is easy to spend $300 on travel in 12 months.  You also get $100 credit for applying for global entry every 5 years.  Thus, for the first year we had this card, our annual fee was effectively only $50.  

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On 12/11/2019 at 2:38 PM, SpeedNoodles said:

Not a rumor, I read it on their website while checking it out. I've been looking into this one, but I find it very confusing on how to redeem any benefits, and it doesn't appear that you can use them for Delta miles, so I think the benefits just wouldn't be there for me.  But again, the whole thing makes my head spin.

@SpeedNoodles

They have a portal.

image.thumb.png.6aea7dc48752f2ae5dc27e3d91caa207.png

No, Delta isn't a direct travel partner, you'd have to book via portal to have a Delta flight. I'd suggest Amex, I believe they transfer to Delta, even have a Delta card that might provide better Delta direct perks. For me, JetBlue and United work (EWR / SWF / JFK - If I must). 

(Sorry the image is small, I reduced the zoom so it would fit).

image.thumb.png.0e3b9e9ffb95510865201d3504e1af87.png

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21 minutes ago, Fairlynew said:

Another advantage to the Chase Sapphire is that it includes excellent travel insurance.

I haven't used the travel insurance exactly, BUT, I did want to make a claim for a hotel & ride share reimbursement after a 12 hour flight delay. I was told a letter from the airline would be needed with receipts and claim form. I was also told, if the airline admits any fault, likelihood of being reimbursed was zero. The airline provided a letter but admitted fault. Sadly the letter didn't tell the entire story. Since the airline provided me $100 dollar voucher and the hotel + ride share was no more than $200, I didn't make a stink, so no claim was filed.

With all that said, on our last cruise, because of that experience and since I only booked 1/2 the cruise with Sapphire, I purchased travel insurance to supplement, just in case.

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18 hours ago, SpeedNoodles said:

Not a rumor, I read it on their website while checking it out. I've been looking into this one, but I find it very confusing on how to redeem any benefits, and it doesn't appear that you can use them for Delta miles, so I think the benefits just wouldn't be there for me.  But again, the whole thing makes my head spin.

Not true.....as of now it's $450....but yeah the rumor is out there. from The Chase Sapphire reserve web page.

At a glance Exceptional travel rewards and benefits 3X Points on Travel and Dining from airfare and hotels to fine dining and cafés* Same page link to Offer Details

APR 18.49%–25.49% variable APR. Same page link to Pricing and Terms

ANNUAL FEE $450 annual fee Same page link to Pricing and Terms; $75 for each authorized user Same page link to Pricing and Terms

 

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1 hour ago, Steve L said:

Not true.....as of now it's $450....but yeah the rumor is out there. from The Chase Sapphire reserve web page.

At a glance Exceptional travel rewards and benefits 3X Points on Travel and Dining from airfare and hotels to fine dining and cafés* Same page link to Offer Details

APR 18.49%–25.49% variable APR. Same page link to Pricing and Terms

ANNUAL FEE $450 annual fee Same page link to Pricing and Terms; $75 for each authorized user Same page link to Pricing and Terms

 

I can say my annual membership just hit and it was $450.

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7 hours ago, Steve L said:

Not true.....as of now it's $450....but yeah the rumor is out there. from The Chase Sapphire reserve web page.

At a glance Exceptional travel rewards and benefits 3X Points on Travel and Dining from airfare and hotels to fine dining and cafés* Same page link to Offer Details

APR 18.49%–25.49% variable APR. Same page link to Pricing and Terms

ANNUAL FEE $450 annual fee Same page link to Pricing and Terms; $75 for each authorized user Same page link to Pricing and Terms

 

Exactly. As of now. But the rest is just impossible for me to decipher.  As far as I can tell, Delta isn't included, so it's pretty much useless to me personally.

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19 hours ago, SpeedNoodles said:

Exactly. As of now. But the rest is just impossible for me to decipher.  As far as I can tell, Delta isn't included, so it's pretty much useless to me personally.

Delta isn't a travel partner, I did a screenshot above, I'll edit and tag you.

Check out American Express.

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