I'm curious to know how many people here own 100 shares of Carnival stock? For those who don't know, Carnival has a stock program. If you own 100 shares of Carnival stock you get $100 onboard credit, that can be used on any of the different brands that Carnival owns. Comes in handy if you want to eat in a specialty restaurant or shop at the stores.
Pretty much the same story. As a rule I don't usually buy individual stocks, and CCL looked quite risky at the time. But since then I have taken 6 Princess and 2 HAL cruises. The $100 obc goes towards Princess Plus which we purchase on the ship so that the obc can be applied towards it.
In addition to buying CCL and NCL, I bought 100 shares of Royal Caribbean at about $35 a share before taking a Celebrity cruise in 2022. I was no fool, when it got to $55, I sold. Sigh!
On princess it can also be a 250$ credit on longer cruises (over 14 days). The credit I’ve used has more than paid for the stocks!
In 2017, the stock was near $70 a share, so it was harder then to get 100 shares.
I did it for Princess too. Stock has already gone up since I bought, and the credit showed up a few days after applying for it, even though the cruise isn’t until later this year. I already spent it on excursions.
$250 cruise >14 days. Not 24. See the link in my post above.
Yes 14! I fixed my typo. Stupid fat fingers!
I bought during the pandemic. I also bought NCL and RCL.
I did the same. Seems like a no brainer if you cruise a lot.
I got CCL during the pandemic, but ate a loss on RCL as I had it before. I have received some rCL credits too though.
I bought the bottom of RCL. And I sold the bottom plus 20. I did get the shareholder benefit, though.
I have a 401k rollover from my old job. I asked my advisor to get 100 CCL stock with the money. Feels like it costs me nothing. Love it
This is genius!
https://www.carnivalcorp.com/shareholder-information/shareholder-benefit
Details here.
We've owned it for about 15 years. Lots of OBC on annual Princess cruises plus the dividends used to be great. We won't sell it if we are still cruising.
I bought over 200 shares when it was about $8 a share.
We’ve got 2 cruises coming up this year and I got my $100 OBC for each cruise
Bought mine when it was down to $5/share when it hit dead bottom!!!! Best money ever spent… we cruise yearly
Yep! I bought 200 when they crashed during Covid. I plan to keep 100 forever for the OBC and sell the other 100 if they get back to the previous price of +$50. I cruise 4-5 times per year, so they’ve well and truly paid for themselves already.
Also for anyone in the military or a veteran you can get free OBC. There’s a form to fill out which is available online. I believe you used to be able to have 1 shareholder and 1 veteran per cabin and combine the benefit but I believe they were looking to stop that.
Let’s not talk about how much we paid pre COVID, but we still have it and do use it.
Paid $9 a share and got $300 credit so far, $250 coming and also profited on the stock!
We actually bought 200 shares when it was near $8. We’ve taken 5 cruises of 2 weeks or longer since purchasing so we’ve recouped $1000 ($250 per cruise) back in on board credit thus far.
I’ve always done the 100 shares but didn’t think about if my wife could also get the benefit. For some weird reason, I think I was assuming it was per cabin. Do each of you technically own 100?
It is per cabin. See the link I posted above.
It is per cabin.
Technically we both own the 200 shares, joint brokerage account. You can only redeem one per cabin but we take the longer cruises to maximize the benefit.
Yup, I'm on board! At the PPS it's a no brainer.
A tip for the Canadians: If you have a LIRA (a locked-in retirement account that usually results from leaving a company with a pension plan), you can open a self-managed trading account with a service like Wealthsimple and purchase CCL, NCL, or other shares. I figured if the money is going to be sitting there for a couple decades anyway, might as well get some value from it now!
I bought 100 shares when it was ~$9.00 a share a few years back and I’m already almost halfway through arbitraging a free 100 shares 😂.
My first cruise I had to submit paperwork to princess directly. On the cruise that I’m on right now I went through an app to apply the credits.
Yep. We're shareholders and frequent Princess cruisers and get the credit every cruise. It has long since paid for itself and the stock is doing very well to boot, so win-win.
I bought it when it was around $12. If you do one cruise a year, it's like getting an 8 to 10% dividend.
Absolutely worth it if the stock is under about $18 per share.
I love it, I’ve made a profit in the stock and soon it will have paid for itself.
Got ccl missed rcl during the pandemic (didn't know about the perk or I would have)
As a knowledge contribution to the thread I read somewhere it doesn't stack with vet obc.
Ha ha. My parents bought in right before the pandemic. Eeep.
What if you own 500 shares?
Same. The OBC on my two Princess cruises this year equaled a 30 percent dividend. Not bad.
The amount of credit is based on the number of days of the trip.
I own 100 shares of CCL and have never and don't have any current plans to go on a Carnival cruise - I just think that the company is so diversified in the nature of the brands (from Carnival to Cunard) that it's a worthwhile investment and trading at something of a discount. The reason for buying 100 shares exactly was the onboard credit program in the event that I sail on a Carnival line (most likely to be Cunard on the QM2, would love to do B2B transatlantics!). I also own 100 shares of NCL, which is where I cruise most and have netted $600 of OBC from that (a 7-day, $100, a 16-day ($250) and a 15-day ($250))
Yeah. I have no plans for Carnival (we aren’t party animals), but do for one of their other brands, Princess, and the 100 shares of CCL have paid off.
During the last stimulus I bought the stock when it was like $6 a share. Best $600 we've ever spent!
Not only has it more than doubled in price (which doesn't matter because I would never sell it), but I'm halfway to "paying it off" through just the benefit alone.