I only go on Royal Caribbean once a year. Every year the process to get an onboard shareholder benefit changes and gets more difficult. I own the required 100 shares of RCL stock and know I must provide a copy of a statement showing ownership that is no older than 3 months. I learned this year that it is many steps and
1. you can only request the onboard credit no earlier than 3 months prior to your cruise and no later than 3 weeks prior to your cruise departure. That's new from last year when I could submit the request any time after paying in full.
2. A picture of your statement is no longer valid - it must be a PDF (and a small size). My first PDF was rejected as the size was too large. Note you must convert the picture (jpeg to a PDF). Or if you have an apple IPAD you can scan the document as a PDF. Note the latter size is too large for the online submission. You will get an error message.
3. They want you to black out any personal information such as account number on the statement and any non RCL info. However the page you submit MUST have the date, Your investment firm and YOUR NAME on the page. Guess what -my monthly statement only includes my name and firm on the first page and the US stock holdings is on page 7. It got rejected as my name is not on page 7. So I had to write to them (in response to the rejection) and I have submitted a 1 page copy from my quarterly statement that includes my name via the online portal. Note upon submission I got another error message (9 times) stating my submission is rejected, please refresh the page. I cleared the history and refreshed the page but no luck. I then just responded to their rejection email with a PDF copy of the quarterly statement page and am waiting on their response. I now have the OBC 2 days later - they send you an email (which you must print out in case they dispute the OBC on board and you can show it to customer service).
4. I am also going on a CUNARD cruise and submitted the same exact monthly statement info (a picture not PDF) and it was accepted by StockPerks the app that Carnival owned cruise lines use. At least it says verified and I have to check my Cunard account in a few days to see if it's been added. Whoops this is a three step process. Once Stockperks send the "VERIFIED" email, you. then must redeem your credit on their app and they say it will take up to 5 business days for Cunard to respond. It took 6 business days to get a confirmation email from Stockperks. The email states I now must contact my travel agent to get an updated booking confirmation that shows the OBC being applied to my booking. I sent an email to my agent requesting it and was sent an updated invoice within hours.
4. The other annoyance is RCL and the other cruise lines give $100 for a 13 night cruise and I noticed many of their transatlantic are now 13 days vs. 14. They really should give more for 10 to 13 days. But with all the cutbacks I don’t think they will.
Hope this helps
Marcia
