Carnival Cruise Line is to update its loyalty scheme and introduce Carnival Rewards, replacing the VIFP Club, effective June 1, 2026, with a points-based system for temporary status levels reset every two years.
Carnival Rewards allows points accumulation through cruise fares, onboard spending, and a new Carnival Rewards Mastercard launching in 2026, offering flexible reward redemption.
Existing statuses, except Diamond, will be honoured from June 1, 2026, to May 31, 2028, with Diamond status extended to May 31, 2032, based on subsequent activity.
Over 1,200 Platinum and Diamond guests on Excel-class ships create challenges in delivering priority benefits, prompting the shift to a modernised loyalty program.
The programme faced some pushback on social media, with guests expressing concerns over losing lifetime Platinum and Diamond statuses, which doubled and tripled respectively between 2021 and 2024. Social media comments included:
- I’ve been sailing with Carnival since I was a teenager … we’ve spent decades with this cruise line; not because we had to, but because we chose to. We travel often.”
- Most of us in this group can afford to sail with any cruise line. And yet, we’ve continued to choose Carnival out of loyalty, which is no longer being returned.”
- Spent 43 years being loyal to this company only to have them slap all of us in the face to earn back our status after two years.”
- The ones this will hurt are the ones who can only travel once a year. They should have never changed anything.”
- If you read the FAQ and the material they are putting out on this, frankly, it all just makes sense.”
- They are pretty upfront about the fact that the main reason they are doing this is because it’s a lifetime loyalty programme and too many people are in the top tiers.”
- When everyone is special, no one is.”
Christine Duffy shared: “The cruise industry overall has grown and evolved immensely, and so have we. Rewards programs have evolved as well across the entire travel industry, especially for airlines and hotels, but not so much for cruises. When it comes to loyalty, we believe that rewards should be flexible and personalised, and that’s exactly what Carnival Rewards will deliver. With your help, our company has grown in many ways: the number of ships in our fleet, the size of our ships, the number of homeports and the number of guests who sail with us each year.
It was designed in a simpler time when status was based on the number of days spent on our ships. In a smaller, growing company with a modest customer base, that kind of programme works. As currently configured, status levels have never been adjusted; therefore, reaching status is a permanent, lifetime achievement, and every week more guests are moving into our top tier Platinum and Diamond statuses.
On our Excel class ships, on average, more than 1,200 guests are Platinum or Diamond, making it nearly impossible to provide meaningful priority benefits, and we face the same situation on virtually all other ship classes and itineraries. When so many guests have elite status, it is much more difficult to make everyone feel special. These realities will only continue to erode the recognition and rewards of the current VIFP Club program, and we feel that change is necessary in order to better recognize our guests and give them more choice in how they are rewarded. More importantly, the points provide many ways to spend on Carnival cruises and onboard activities, providing guests the chance to personalize their rewards when and how they want. These enhancements will allow each guest to customize their rewards and allow us to address the need for changes to the programme.
We recognize that this is a big change from our current program, but these changes provide our guests with more ways to earn and maintain status with more valuable benefits and greater flexibility in how they choose to use their rewards. We have worked hard to develop Carnival Rewards so that our guests have more choices, more rewards, and more reasons to vacation with us.”
