Trevor just gave us a quick state of the union on MS today. Since, we I’m heading off on a cruise next week, I thought to share the ‘At Sea’ version.
I really enjoy at Sea MS because it involves walking up to a machine wearing your favorite hawaiian shirt sipping on chilled beverage, typing in a few digits, and walking off with a coupon for up to $3000 (or perhaps more) that you then mosey over to another nearby machine and turn into $100 bills.
It’s worth noting that the newer the ship, the easier this is. When we took our two week cruise around South America, starting in Santiago it was on the older, NCL Sun, which didn’t have the new Casino cashless gaming system installed, and each $1K entailed a phone call to the front desk for approval. That said, it’s still a very viable solution.
NCL Pricing is 3% transaction fee, and Royal Caribbean is 5%. While both might appear to rule out the value of MS, I’d argue a few cases that make sense:
- Citi Premier (or whatever they call that one that is 3x on Travel) > 3% if you use the points for travel, and can leverage the redemption for travel.
- The Altitude reserve is 3x on Travel plus a 1.5x multiplier when spent on flights on their platform.
Both of the above beat the 3% on NCL, by a margin between perhaps 20-50% or more, depending on how you can redeem.
Equally, both would be a struggle to beat the 5% on Royal. That said, if you’re able to Status Match in from Hyatt to mLife, then into Royal/Celebrity you might be able to get the 5% waived entirely. This is a case where you need to socially engineer the exchange. If you find yourself successful, you could be looking at a large amount of ‘free MS’.
Lastly, it’s worth looking at min spend requirements. Personally, I recently applied (a month or so ago) for the Altitude Reserve and haven’t bothered to meet the spend. With min spend bonus met effortlessly, plus effectively 4.5% per dollar, even at 5% (I’ll be at 0%) it would be a good deal.
My initial plan for this cruise was to max out the Altitude credit line, then swap to the Citi Premier, but because of the value of simple min spend meeting, I applied for a Capital One Spark, $500 bonus for $4500 spend. My new approach for the week will be:
- Max Spend on Altitude ($10K)
- Min Spend on Capital One Spark ($4500)
- Finish off on Citi Premier
Rough earnings:
- 50K pts bonus, 30K earned pts for $1200 in flights
- $500 bonus plus $90 earned, for $590 in cash
- Whatever…
Total cost to acquire the MS = $0, total liquidation cost $0, and maybe even a free rum punch while doing so.
I’m aware that I’m leaving 1x on the table (technically more than 1x) by inserting the Capital One card before pivoting from 3x of Altitude to 3x of TYP. That does have a real cost of about $45*1.X but that’s pure convenience fee for me, and allows me to work seamlessly.
I know not everyone will be able to guarantee the 0% transaction fee, but it does make for an interesting attempt at an App-O-Rama Min Spend trip for those who are willing to ‘take a chance’ on it. For those who do, I can tell you that the daily cap on NCL was limited to $3,000 per card.
If you do decide to go big (or to avoid going big…) don’t forget to fill out FINCEN form 105.
And I sense also hopefully a bank very close nearby to your final cruise ship terminal!
Yep! Or on the route 🙂
What do you mean when you say I might have to social engineer my status match from Hyatt to Mlife to Captains club?
Because the status match is supposed to be from earned mlife rather than Hyatt matched mlife.
what is the status match level for those that got matched to mlife gold, with the hyatt platinum level for having the hyatt credit card. What level does it give you in the rcl status match program
There’s a chart in my recent post ‘How I use Data to support negotiation’ you should see it on the sidebar.
Royal Caribbean won’t waive that 5% on pure status. You need casino status, which requires spending in their casino. In addition, Royal Caribbean requires going to a casino cage. The regular ATMs onboard are for debit cards.
If you have casino status and use this perk, after the second withdrawal with no gambling you will get a call from the casino manager asking why you aren’t spending and pulling the perk.
Possibly for their top tier Pinnacle members….but not lowly Diamonds.
**i haven’t been on a new 2016/2017 ship, but this is the case on refurbed ships as recently as two months ago**
This is my first Celebrity Cruise. But it explicitly states that they will waive the fee. Good to know that they don’t have the same system as NCL, but there’s a workaround for that.
I’ll report back to let you know how it goes 🙂
PS – don’t get too wrapped up in the ‘Status’ thing. I’ve been comped cruises as mlife gold, and on my last visit to Vegas they covered a $1400 meal, along with some other things…
What’s this workaround for NCL that you speak of? I’ll be going on a 7 day in August in Europe.
The workaround was with regard to the casino manager calling you to shut you down.
In terms of NCL, I got my fees waived by asking.
Seems like alot of effort for minimal gain and added risk all while on a vacation. Gotta be a better mousetrap than the histronics and MS gymnastics you have to go thru for the money?
On NCL, It’s really as simple as putting a card into an ATM like machine, withdrawing it, and putting it into another ATM like machine a few times to earn $2K. And in terms of effort, it means you never set foot into a Walmart or Post Office.
There’s not really anything in terms of Gymnastics, you just max out your credit card, swap cards, and keep on (or don’t… it’s all optional)
Risk is always there with MS, I agree.
Im saying you have to get the fee waived (If not your equation isnt worth it at all). Then you have to find a place to deposit the money. Or walk off the boat with 5-10k in cash, all while vacationing. There are much easier ways to do things. There is usually plenty of time during the normal mundane life to do that stuff, especially for such a minimal gain of money
I think it is still worth it to bang out min spend without fussing. You’re right about the cash aspect.
Important to note that we’re all different. For me, I won’t spend my time during mundane life to buy a money order, as I use that time for other things. Primarily because I don’t have the typical, life of a 9-5 job for someone else and a commute.
Also important to note that I get about 3 of these cruises a year, for ‘free’ (they cost me about $1k by the time I add the kid). I really see it as not a big deal. For others, where vacation time is limited, or paid for, I can see the importance of not infringing on it, but for me, I will be happy to spend 2 mins to meet min spend on a card.
Instead, to focus on quality, I’m making vows to not use the phone as much, and to be more ‘present’ on the trip.
Each to their own and all 🙂
I think its more than “2minutes” there are alot of things involved. I’d love to hear how you get the fees waived though. Thats the only crucial step involved here. Without the fee waiver its not really doable.
Probably right. On NCL it’s 2 mins though. You simply tap in a pin, withdraw, then put the ticket into an ATM and it pumps out cash.
Depositing back into your banks ATM will take a little more time.
I’m getting fees waived from the old Vegas gig I tried, it’s already covered numerous suites and thousands in food and beverage. It also gave me this cruise in a balcony.
When you say putting a card in, do you mean the seapass? Or do you mean a credit card? If it’s a cc, the new machines accept cc’s? Hopefully you’ll do a post and update us on the 5%. Enjoy your cruise. I love Celebrity/RCCL.
Seapass. And thanks, we’re excited!
Discounted GC’s are the better play here Matt.
Not sure about that. Might be a good play, but different.
Back in the early 2000s, you could withdraw up to $2000 fee-free per person per day in the casino on NCL. The NCL-branded credit card earned 3% on onboard purchases.
My 14-day cruise paid for my next 7-day cruise, but I was sweating bullets when I stepped off the ship at the end carrying over $50,000 in cash.
Yeah… I’m not going that high but carrying the cash is still a real concern
How did you get the NCL fees waived? Who did you talk to?
I talked to the host. They have the ability to do this, but your success may vary.
Great info!
I am going on a Princess Cruise which is part of Carnival in a few months. Do they have the same situation?
Different company so different rules,but concepts apply to all of these.
You landing 3 free cruise from casino spend?
Double digits
the important limit to know is 10k before you have to declare it to customs, while gambling funds are an acceptable reason there is extra scrutiny when you declare it, and if you don’t declare it and they catch it, you will spend a few hours taking to some agents…I have done this is the old days and have cruised with casino perks (the cruise is never free, unless you earn more than you spend)…I do like the free drinks in the casino perk for princess which saves some money, if you don’t sit too long. just went on first Celebrity and it was pathetic…casino is a joke, they even have signs saying they can reset the jackpots with no winners between cruises, how’s that for cheap?..they did have promo where you could get $500 with no fee by signing against your seapass card at the casino cage…so the wife and I did the 3 time limit each….if we had just walked away it would have been some easy points when settling the account at the end, instead we dropped about $800 playing on our recent 11 day cruise, the points don’t mitigate that kind of loss.
I pre filled the appropriate forms.