OT
For those who have not done a cruise before, ALL US-based ships, that means RCL owned and CCL owned lines and their ships, all have only ONE final statement for your shipboard account which would have EVERYTHING you ever charged to your shipboard card (you do now a cruise is "cash-less" onboard, I hope.).
Shipboard account is settled by credit card submitted at online check in, or at the check in counter. Passengers have the option to switch credit card(s) even while on board or switch to Cash (plenty of cruisers do that, obviously they are not among this crowd!).
So use whatever card you want to earn the miles / points as the card to be used to "guarantee" the payment of your shipboard account.
Each cruise line has its own policy on how to pre-authorize your credit card submitted at check in as a guarantee form of payment to settle your shipboard account.
CCL owns both Princess and Holland America, yet they operate very differently on this front:
Specifically to Princess as our experiences from 13 Princess cruises with the last one in the Fall of 2013. Unless Princess has changed its practice that I have no idea, but the mechanism works like the following:
Princess would authorize your card EVERY NIGHT for the ending balance of your shipboard account, NOT the incremental. This can pose some challenge for low credit limit cards because this is how Princess work:
Day 1, gratuity of $11.50 per person per day, $23. You run up a bar tab of $55.
Your account now has $78 outstanding balance.
Princess authorized $78.
Day 2, gratuity of $11.50 x 2. You did the casino advance of $500 (if you do not actually play, your account would be shut down from the privilege of advance after the first such usage so plan accordingly.). You bought something at the boutique for $50.
Your account now has $78 + $23 + $500 + 50 = $651 outstanding balance.
Princess then authorize $651 after midnight on Day 2, despite $78 already been authorized on Day 1.
Day 3, you have not done anything. Your outstanding balance now is $23 + $651 from previous day to equal to $674.
Princess then authorize $675 after midnight on Day 3, even though it has authorized $651 the day before.
Now on your card there are 3 authorizations - $78, $651 and $675 - reduced your available credit line by the SUM of these 3 amounts of $804.
So it goes on till the cruise finishes.
If you have a 7 days cruises, you would have 7 authorizations on your card, with the last one being the final total of your shipboard account at disembarkation settlement. However as you can see, each day Princess takes out an authorization that includes previous days balances, instead of just doing the incremental. Therefore it can quickly deplete the available limit on a low limit card.
For Holland America:
The line uses a FIXed amount per day for the WHOLE LENGTH of the cruise, and authorize that whole amount at Check In. The amount per day varies by length of the cruise, ranging from $70 to $90 per person if I remember it correctly.
So you would see ONE preauthorization on your card from HAL instead of the Multiple, and grossly OVER what is needed, preauthorizations from Princess.
If you have any existing shipboard credits, such as from the Future cruise deposits, Carnival shareholder benefits, travel agencies incentives, etc etc - they would all show up on your shipboard accounts. Pre-authorization would not start until the credit has been depleted by all shipboard charges including the daily gratuity.
Hope this help those who are new to cruise and plan to use Arrival card.
I dont see how anyone could have enough "miles" including the bonuses and MS, to pay for a cruise, let alone to pay the additional shipboard charges on top of the cruise purchased.