Cruise Ship Loyalty Programs: Benefits at Sea + Access to Lifetime Hyatt Elite Status

While airline and hotel loyalty programs capture the majority of attention, there's great value in cruise ship loyalty program elite status for many travelers.  Let's take a look at a few and how they can be part of your travel strategy.


Primary Difference with Cruise Line Loyalty Programs: No Expiration

Celebrity Solstice Solarium

With airline and hotel loyalty programs, unless you've achieved one of those hard to reach lifetime status levels, every calendar year we all dread that we need to start from zero and re-achieve our elite status.  The cruise ship programs I'll outline here don't reset.  Once you reach a status tier, you maintain your status tier indefinitely (unless program requirements change).  That's a huge difference. Even if you don't go on a cruise for 5 years, when you step back onboard your 5-year old status and all related perks still apply.


Benefits at Sea with Cruise Line Loyalty Programs

With more than 25 cruises under my belt, I've found that Celebrity Cruises is my preferred choice. If you're newly exploring the idea of a cruise, the cruise line you choose and the particular ship can make a big difference on your satisfaction. More on the pro's and con's of the different lines and ships later...

With Celebrity Cruises, you earn a certain number of points per night (from 2 to 18) of your cruise based on the type of stateroom you choose.  The points count towards tier levels their Captain's Club program.

Celebrity Cruises Points Earning Rates

Once you reach the Elite tier, you begin to get some meaningful free parks:

Celebrity Cruises Captain's Club Tiers (Feb 2017)

• Free cocktails every evening at the designated Captain's Club Elite reception (usually in one of the ship's lounges with nice ocean vistas)
• 90-min free internet via wi-fi or the ship's internet cafe (ship's use satellite-based wi-fi, much like airlines, but without as many restrictions on streaming content)
• Free laundry services (1 free dry clean item, 1 free bag of wash, dry, fold laundry service)
• VIP access lines when embarking the ship
• See below for the full range of Captain's Club Elite Benefits from our February 2017 sailing on Celebrity Silhouette

Captain's Club Elite Benefits

Celebrity is owned by Royal Caribbean, so you're also entitled to status matches on Royal Caribbean ships.  For example, Celebrity Captain's Club Elite status matches to Royal Caribbean Crown & Anchor Diamond status, which includes similar benefits.

Given the capacity of cruise ships and the fact that they do a good job of selling out their sailings, in order to then earn more revenue from more passengers' onboard spending, the idea of free upgrades through premium status levels is rare. That said, sometimes you're offered discounted upgrades when there are more premium rooms remaining for sale than lower category rooms.

While we don't get overly excited about most of these benefits, the one that gets use the most value is the wash and fold laundry service for up to 30 items.  This easily has a value of $100+.  While it's not always necessary that we have laundry done onboard, it sure is nice arriving home with far less dirty laundry.

Cruise Line Loyalty Programs Can Get You Easy Lifetime Elite Status with MGM mLife and Hyatt

For Celebrity, when you achieve premium status tiers, you receive status matching in MGM mLife's program.  If you travel to Vegas and want discounted Cirque du Soleil show tickets or room rates (Bellagio, Aria, Vdara, etc), this can generate some good money saving opportunities.  Even if you're not a gambler or a fan of Vegas, it makes sense to get your mLife status match.  Why?  You can then use your new mLife status to secure elite status with Hyatt (provided nothing changes with the new World of Hyatt program).

For example:

Hyatt / mLife Status Match Levels (Feb 2017)

1. Earn Elite tier Captain's Club status with Celebrity Cruises (or Diamond status with Royal Caribbean)
2. Status match from Celebrity Elite to MGM mLife Gold
3. Status match from mLife Gold to Hyatt Platinum

What's great about the status matching is that, remember, you cruise line loyalty status level doesn't reset each year.  So, Celebrity Cruises Elite or Royal Caribbean Diamond status gets your mLife Gold for life and Hyatt Platinum for life (provided terms don't change).  You may need to re-link the status levels each year with an email or phone call, but that's pretty easy.

While some cruise line branded credit cards yield bonus points or onboard perks, I still prefer the flexibility of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card's greater everyday points earning potential and .  You can use points from the card to book your flights to and from the cruise directly with United or Southwest given the 1:1 points transfer, or book hotels or flights through the Ultimate Rewards travel portal that is powered just like an online travel site and allows you to redeem points for flexible travel options.  And the 50,000 point sign-up bonus would fun two roundtrip saver awards on United.

What are your thoughts on cruise line loyalty programs?  How do you extract the most value?  What would you like to learn more about with future cruising focused posts?