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You need to be a member of a selected scheme to be able to access the discounted gift cards. Signing up for email offers from your preferred cruise line and checking its "deals" or "offers" tab on a regular basis might be your best bet for scoring a top deal. However, there's no doubt that AARP's $9 to $16 annual membership fee quickly pays for itself with even a one-time onboard credit — and there is a potential for additional savings. A search for European river cruises in 2024 and 2025 turned up hundreds of options on river ships operated by AmaWaterways, Avalon Waterways, Uniworld River Cruises and Viking.
Are the AARP Discount Cruise Cards a Good Deal?
Each gift card will come with restrictions on how many are able to be purchased at once. The “Premium” items like Carnival gift cards had a limit of 25 per month. The non-premium cards had a lower limit of just five gift cards per month. If you don’t yet have an AARP account, first you’ll need to register.
How to get a discount on Carnival gift cards
In all, I found thousands of sailings offered by most major cruise lines through mid-2025. Verizon is another option for receiving up to 10% off Carnival gift cards, but it relies on you being a Verizon customer and having rewards points to spend. If you are a Verizon customer then this is better than using AARP since you don’t have to pay any extra. Once again, the AARP Travel Center seems to be an efficient aggregator, pulling deals from Expedia's booking engine. River cruise fares also are eligible for a $50 or $100 onboard credit.
Do members get more with AARP Rewards?
Target Red is a banking account with different options – you can choose a credit card, a debit card or a reloadable account. Whichever version you choose, you’ll get the 5% off Carnival gift cards. Other deals in the luxury category included a seven-night Caribbean cruise in late February 2024 in a verandah suite aboard Seabourn Ovation for $3,249 per person.
Royal Caribbean has quietly upgraded its gift cards to be much more useful - Royal Caribbean Blog
Royal Caribbean has quietly upgraded its gift cards to be much more useful.
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AARP Cruises: Discounts on Travel for Seniors (and Everyone Else) - Cruise Critic
AARP Cruises: Discounts on Travel for Seniors (and Everyone Else).
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Both the agility required for train travel and the cost of the four-day rail tour are something to consider when weighing the value of a 5% discount. Another savings opportunity is $50 off per person on Collette cruisetours. Cruise options here are more limited and are mostly on Amadeus River Cruises ships on the Rhine and Danube, plus some small-ship coastal cruising in Croatia and tours in Egypt featuring a four-night cruise. For example, the eight-day Enchanting Danube itinerary in March and April 2024 aboard S.S. Maria Theresa starts at $3,299 per person, the same as on Uniworld's website. A $100 per person discount if booked with Grand European Travel.
How To Buy Discounted Carnival Gift Cards (And Should You?)
AARP members can also book expedition cruises, such as 12-night Antarctic Explorer itineraries on Viking Octantis and Viking Polaris, via the AARP Travel Center. These are priced at $11,995 per person (the same price as on Viking's website) with just a $25 deposit. Cruisers who prefer Holland America also have plenty of choices. They can, for example, book a seven-night Caribbean cruise from Fort Lauderdale in early March 2024 aboard Nieuw Statendam that visits Jamaica; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Cozumel; and Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. An inside cabin was priced at $614 per person (comparable to what HAL offers on its website) and came with a $50 onboard credit. All were similar to what's available on the cruise lines' websites, but with AARP qualified for an onboard credit of $50.
Learn About Credit Cards
So, for a $500 gift card, you can do this twice and get $30 off your gas. Gift cards are usually sold in either $50, $100 or $500 denominations, so you can pay $450 to get a $500 gift card. For instance, Royal Caribbean only allows you to use the card for a new reservation. And you have to book the cruise, pay a deposit, and then email in a copy of the gift certificate to apply to your remaining balance. Before you buy the cruise cards, you’ll definitely want to read through all the fine print that’s provided on the AARP website about their use.
Earn Points
Generally, it’s a good idea, provided you’re planning on spending a large sum. It might be a lot of effort for minimum reward if you were only planning on saving $10 on a $100 card. But if you were buying at least one $500 gift card, the savings become significant. You can use the gift card in the same way as you would any other gift card – just enter the details of the card on the Carnival website when purchasing your cruise, or when crediting your Sail & Sign account on the Carnival website.
How to save on cruises with AARP Travel
It costs 1,000 points to get a 10% discount on a $100 card, and 500 points to get a 10% discount on a $50 card. Earning those points is easy as a Verizon customer – you’ll get 500 each month just for using paperless billing. However, this very much seems to be the exception, and most people who’ve bought from AARP and discussed their experience on forums and social media report almost instant delivery of e-gift cards.
When we went ahead and joined as paying members (the charge is just $12 a year), we were able to sign-up with no issue. Once signed up, we were able to access all the gift cards available. So the $100 gift cards sell for $90 via AARP and the $500 cards sell for $450.
You can search for a cruise by using a drop-down menu of almost two dozen destinations (you have to pick one to search) and then plugging in your desired travel dates. When you join, you'll also get a second free membership for another adult in your household, as well as a monthly AARP Bulletin and the bimonthly AARP The Magazine. AARP Members earn 50 percent more points and can access exclusive members-only rewards. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that empowers people to choose how they live as they age. From soft jazz to hard rock - discover music's mental, social and physical benefits. As an interest group with tens of millions of members across the country, AARP is known for its influence.
A search for river cruises in Asia in 2024 and 2025 turned up more than 300 sailings on AmaWaterways, Avalon Waterways and Uniworld, most 12 to 14 nights in length with prices ranging from $6,999 to $8,399 per person. What I discovered is that the $200 onboard credit deal with AARP links directly to Holland America's website for booking and is valid only for balcony and suite bookings on select cruises lasting 10 days or more. More than a decade later I'm still not retired, but this assignment gave me an excuse to finally join AARP. When I did, I took a look at the perks of membership to see which benefits would be useful to my travel plans.
And since you can still shop around and buy your cruise how and when you want, you can buy the cards, and then wait for a deal that looks good to you. The only difference is instead of paying full price, you get a discount. Combined, these lines represent close to 100 cruise ships offering trips just about anywhere in the world. In other words, no matter if you want to sail the Caribbean or Australia, the Mediterranean or Alaska, you can do it while saving some serious money. You can then use 1,000 points to get $1 off a gallon of gas, up to 35 gallons but in one transaction only. Realistically, most cars have a capacity of around gallons, so you’re only going to save $15.
The AARP Travel Center also allows you to search and compare river cruises by searching the destination "Europe" and a specific date range. It’s easy to put off doing today what you’ll wish you had done tomorrow. That’s why we created AARP Rewards to inspire you to learn, prepare and get ahead of whatever life has ahead. From health and fitness to retirement and money management, we’re here to make your next steps easy, rewarding, and fun. If you plan to cruise one of the lines offering the cards, we see no reason not to take advantage.
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