mrlasssen

How does a ships casino charge/code the purchase of casino chips to your onboard account? Is it coded to your bank as a purchase or cash advance?

garykung

Unless you are told otherwise, always assume that cash equivalent (like chips) is treated as cash advance.

slack455

It's not the charge to your credit card you have to worry about, you arent handing them a credit card and asking for $500. AFAIK most lines will charge you a ~3% fee(to your room account) to obtain chips but not when loading at a slot machine. In my experience on Holland America, no fee for loading money via the slot machine but a 3% fee at the tables.

TerryK

The question is: did those loads post as cash advances?

Randyk47

No, from the credit card side it’s a charge not a cash advance.

Travelz

If you buy cruise credit ahead of time, can you use that in the casino?

Randyk47

You should be able to as all you’re doing in the casino is having them charge to your shipboard account and not directly to your credit card. I still think the ship charges a handling fee because it is a “cash” transaction.

cruisr

It is not a cash advance in most (not all) cases as the charge goes thru your shipboard account. The amount per day per person that can be charged to your account varies. Some lines will just give you the cash. Crystal allows you to charge 300.00 pp/pd to your room and they give you that 300.00 in cash at the casino cashier desk. The CCL brands usually allow up to 500.00 pp/pd but they load it on to your key card which you need to use at the machines/tables. If you immediately cash out they will stop you from getting anymore advances.

If you are an Mlife member with high status you can get up to 3k a day, in cash, charged to your room, on Celebrity and RCI cruise ships. Strangely, Azamara, their sister company will only give you money in their casino as a cash advance which does not get charged to your room. When I asked I believe it was 4.5%

I usually take out a new CC before I cruise as it's an easy way to meet minimum spend bonuses for virtually no cost.

mrlasssen

[QUOTE=cruisr;28916197]It is not a cash advance in most (not all) cases as the charge goes thru your shipboard account. The amount per day per person that can be charged to your account varies. Some lines will just give you the cash. Crystal allows you to charge 300.00 pp/pd to your room and they give you that 300.00 in cash at the casino cashier desk. The CCL brands usually allow up to 500.00 pp/pd but they load it on to your key card which you need to use at the machines/tables. If you immediately cash out they will stop you from getting anymore advances.

If you are an Mlife member with high status you can get up to 3k a day, in cash, charged to your room, on Celebrity and RCI cruise ships. Strangely, Azamara, their sister company will only give you money in their casino as a cash advance which does not get charged to your room. When I asked I believe it was 4.5%

I usually take out a new CC before I cruise as it's an easy way to meet minimum spend bonuses for virtually no cost.[/QUOTE


So does RCI put the credit on you room key, charge you a fee, and them must be used on a machine? If so, what prevents a passenger from loading it onto a machine then cashing out and getting cash for the ticket?

cruisr

[QUOTE=mrlasssen;28918164]Royal Caribbean and Celebrity gives you the cash. They don't give you a credit on your key card. Its cash. As I mentioned they put it on your room charge. The only RCI family cruiseline that charges a cash advance is Azamara. Again, I am an Mlife Platinum and do not know how they handle others. They put the amount they give you (up to 3K a day) on your room account. You do need to bring your Mlife card or account number with you. They can look it up but they have to deal with Mlife and it can take 24 hours. As they are giving you cash they do not know if you are playing with it or putting it in your room safe.

Above I stated that for the Carnival (CCL) family if you load your key card and then cash out they will ban you from loading any more on the card. They can follow all the activity on your key card. The CCL family cruiselines include Carnival, Princess, Holland America, Costa, Cunard, Seabourn and others.

Happy

[QUOTE=cruisr;28919953]Not Mlife member, RCL added 3% to the casino load IIRC but I haven't cruised with them the past 18 months so not sure if the fee is still the same.

CCL owned brands such as HAL and Princess, no fee if loaded it thru the slot machine. Ditto NCL according to a friend.

Pretty sure you could load far more than $300 pp/pd on either HAL or Princess. Last cruise I loaded $800 on one day, just needed to move from one machine to another as the$1 machine could only load up to $100 and the $2 machine could only load up to $200. Can only use the same machine once per day.

However you need to play a few times in order to continue loading your keycard. Else the privilege would be blocked. Since we dont really gamble, it makes no sense to play with a stop loss of 1%, so we just do our loads on one day and then let it sit till the last or second last sea day to cash it all out.

Friend cruised NCL said she was able to load up to $1K a day and she played a bit on the table.

There is a maximum on how much you could load per the whole cruise, and that naturally depends on the length of the cruise. We never test it as we often take TATL cruises followed by a lengthy land trip in Europe. We usually stopped at $2K total. It is not too smart to carry more than a few K's of cash with you traveling around Europe. lol.

Happy

NO. The shipboard account is totally separate from the casino account. The credit you prepaid on your shipboard account would NOT transfer to the casino account despite you can fund the casino account by charging the shipboard account. There is no way to extract the prepaid credit from your shipboard account, nor to transfer the credit to your casino account. The 2 do NOT connect other than the funding. In other words, it is a one-way street, and only on the funding of casino account.

Absolutely NO. It does not operate this way. Nor the ship charges a "handling fee" because it is a "cash advance".

The load can be charged to your shipboard account, and only thru the SLOT machines. However the credit is in a totally independent casino account which has NOTHING to do with your shipboard account other than the funding can be charged to the shipboard account, again, only thru the SLOT machines.

The explanation on the ship is very explicit - that the casino account must be cashed out by the end of the cruise during the casino operation hours. Any uncashed credit would be a total loss. You can NOT use the credit in the casino account to offset any charges on your shipboard account. However, you could certainly cash out the casino account, get the cash and then use the cash to settle your shipboard account. But why would anyone go through such exercise?

Romelle

Any chance the casino rules are different for the different ship lines? I learned the hard way that one line would NOT allow me to use my onboard credit for the final service charge/tip. I'd carefully saved enough for it, only to be told it wouldn't work and I'd have to pay that charge another way. Furthermore, I learned it the last morning when all the shops were closed. Arrggh.

Before anybody asks, I've long since forgotten just which cruise line had that rule. Sorry. I can note that on the most recent trip I verified that Holland America WILL let one use onboard credit for the final service charge/tip.

Happy

Of course the casino rules are different from line to line, but generally all ships under the same brand operate the same way.

As someone already pointed out, Azamara has different rules from Celebrity and Royal Caribbeans, and they all are owned by Royal Caribbeans Corporation.

Both HAL and Princess do NOT differentiate the shipboard credits - it just lumped in your shipboard account and then offset any charges that are put on, such as the daily gratuity, drinks and purchases.

Shops cannot open while in port. Tax reasons.

Besides, most ships CLOSE the charge privileges in the morning of debarkation even for the bars and coffee shops because common sense tells you, they cannot run your shipboard account final total as it is CLOSED the night before, at a very late cut off time. That is even mentioned in some ships last day's daily handout of programs.

DanJ

Rules are different for different types of onboard credit. There are refundable credits, and non refundable credits. Non refundable are usually the ones where the credit originated with the cruise line, usually as a compensation for something, like a missed port (above the refund of the port fees, which is your money as you already paid it in your fare) or as a goodwill gesture for whatever reason. Refundable is when you either add money in advance to your account, or someone else does, or it's part of a promotion from the cruise line. Or it could be in the form of compensation from the cruise line for something that cost you money like when the cruises were cut short due to the hurricanes, they would give you a prorated credit on board for the miss days. But if you didn't spend all that, then you got it back because it was already your money. Refundable obc can be used towards gratuities or anything else, or you can go to the front desk and ask for cash for it. Non refundable has to be used for purchases.