Onboard credit is the most common sweetener in cruise marketing, and one of the least explained.
It arrives as a number. Up to £400. Up to $600. Up to £800. The number is the least useful part of the offer.
What decides its value is six other things, and the lines are considerably clearer about them in their terms than in their adverts.
There are two kinds of credit on the same account
This is the one almost nobody knows, and Celebrity states it more plainly than anyone. Complimentary onboard credit is non-refundable; onboard credit you have purchased is refundable to you before you leave the ship.
Two pots, one statement, different rules.
Better still, Celebrity’s ships spend the non-refundable pot first, before touching the credit you paid for. That is the right way round, and it means you keep the money that was actually yours.
P&O draws the same line from the other direction: cash you have paid onto your account can be refunded at reception before you disembark, while gift credits cannot be taken out as cash.
So when you check your balance, the question is not how much. It is how much of which.
What it is worth is set by what you gave up to get it
Here is the detail that reframes the whole thing. On Cunard, the fare-benefit onboard credit can be swapped at the time of booking for car parking or return coach travel. P&O works the same way.
The credit is not a gift. It is one of three benefits you choose between, which means it has a known alternative value.
If you would otherwise pay to park at Southampton for a fortnight, taking the credit instead has a real and calculable cost.
It only comes attached to the dearer fare
P&O’s terms exclude Early Savers and other promotional prices. Cunard’s exclude Early Savers and other promotional fares. Fred. Olsen’s requires Freedom fare terms rather than the cheaper Saver.
The credit sits on the flexible fare, not the cheap one. You are not being given it. You are buying it, and the question is whether the gap between the two fares is smaller than the credit.
Per cabin, not per person
P&O’s onboard spending money applies to the first two guests in a cabin only. Cunard’s is per stateroom. Fred. Olsen’s is per cabin, or per person up to two guests per cabin.
Book three or four to a cabin and the extra passengers bring nothing with them.
Princess goes further on one type: credit from a future cruise deposit belongs only to the person who bought it and does not carry across to anyone else in the stateroom.
You usually cannot spend it before you sail
P&O confirms onboard spending money cannot be used before you board. MSC, Holland America and Norwegian likewise decline it for most pre-cruise purchases.
This matters more than it sounds. Excursions are normally cheapest and least likely to sell out when booked in advance, online, with a card.
Which puts you in a genuine bind: book early at the better price and pay cash, or hold out for the credit and take what is left on board.
What it cannot buy
Norwegian’s terms state its credit cannot be used for onboard service charges. That is precisely the charge most passengers would happily offset, and on NCL it is walled off.
Cunard’s position is the opposite. Its hotel and dining service charge is added automatically to your account every day, at a rate that varies by stateroom grade, and credit can be put against it.
Virgin runs two credits that are not interchangeable. Bar Tab is pre-purchased credit for premium drinks, and unused Bar Tab is not refundable at the end of a voyage. Sailor Loot is the flexible one.
The credit thrown in with a booking is often the ring-fenced drinks version.
It has a time of death
Royal Caribbean’s credit expires if not used by 10pm on the final night, is valid only on the cruise it was issued against, and is not transferable. Celebrity uses the same 10pm cut-off.
Royal also warns that changes to a booking may result in the credit being removed altogether.
Ten o’clock on the last night is not a formality. It is before most people have finished packing.
Pounds or dollars
Sterling on P&O, Fred. Olsen, MSC’s UK arm, Marella and Ambassador.
Dollars on Cunard, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Norwegian and Virgin. Cunard’s UK offers are quoted that way too, a $330 fare benefit plus $270 extra credit on a 14-night balcony booking. We found the same when Cunard’s past-guest offer came with $250 attached.
Weighing “up to $600” against “up to £400” is comparing two different currencies, and the dollar figure moves with the rate between booking and sailing.
And how big is it, really
MSC’s Winter Escape promotion gives the first two guests up to £45 per person, £90 a cabin, alongside a headline saving of £1,040 per cabin.
The credit is the garnish. The discount is the meal.
Marella barely plays at all, and honestly so: tips, food and drink are already in the fare and the account runs in sterling, so there is less left for credit to buy.
The bottom line
Ask six questions before you let a credit swing a booking.
Is it refundable or complimentary? Per cabin or per person? What fare does it force you onto? Can you spend it before you board? What can it not buy? And when exactly does it expire?
Then value it against what you would genuinely have spent anyway. £400 is £400 only if you were always going to spend £400 in their spa, their speciality restaurants and their shops.
Otherwise it is a discount you can only take in their shop, on their ship, before ten o’clock on the last night.
And if the same booking would let you swap it for a fortnight’s parking, work out which of those two you would rather have. That is the real price of the credit, and it is the one number the advert never prints.
