There’s nothing better than a free trip but like just about anything else, free is never really free. In this case, the goal is to get a free cruise by spending less in the casino than the cash price of the cruise. Just like how land-based casinos in Las Vegas and elsewhere give you free show tickets, dinners and rooms, cruise lines will often give gamblers various comps including free cruises. With the right strategy, it is certainly possible to save a lot of money on cruises by gambling a portion of what you would have spent on them.
Many gamblers get all sorts of free cruise offers from Royal Caribbean but the problem is that gamblers can be an odd bunch of people. Many claim to gamble for fun and just enjoy the comps and offers that come their way. They either won’t give you the information you need to get free cruises or will claim they don’t really know it. In fact, a lot of gamblers will actually try to dissuade you from trying to gamble to get free cruise offers. Not sure why that is but it is very common. Thankfully, some people are helpful and will point you in the right direction.
We’re going to give you all the information you need to figure out if this is the right thing for you. I know someone that will go on 12 free cruises in 2023 with Royal Caribbean and they are not exactly high rollers. I’ve also done a ton of research into this topic and I am confident that this can be done if you do it the right way.
How to get started
There are two ways to get started with all of this. The first way is to try to get Royal Caribbean to give you a free cruise based upon your tier from another casino or another comped offer. If you just have a basic player card, you’re not going to get anything. If you are getting comped cruises or rooms from another casino, you’ll probably get something. If you just have a player card from a casino with a higher tier but no actual offers, a lot will likely depend on how high of a tier card you have. I still think they’ll want to see valid offers though.
There was a website where you could submit all of this information but it doesn’t seem to be working right now. You could call them at 1-888-561-2234 and ask how to submit your offer for a tier/offer match. When I tried to do this, they took months to get back to me.
To be eligible, their term’s and conditions state that these offer matches are only available to “residents of the United States and Canada who are at least twenty-one (21) years of age or older (the “Recipient”). To qualify for the Offer, the Recipient must not have sailed on a Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. d/b/a Royal Caribbean International or Celebrity Cruises Inc. (together “RCG”) vessel since January 2018 and not have an existing booking”.
This is important because if you already have a booking and/or if you sailed with Royal Caribbean or Celebrity since 2018, you’re not eligible for a free match offer. Can’t hurt to still call but you’ll probably hear a no.
If you’re not eligible for a casino match for one reason or another, the other only way is to just book a cruise and follow the rest of the instructions in this article. One option is to book the cheapest cruise possible and another option is to just take a cruise you really want to take. Booking the cheapest cruise possible gets you into the casino so you can then try to earn free cruises that would be more expensive. This is the strategy I suggest unless you already had something planned anyway.
Understanding the casino program – Club Royale
You can’t score free cruises if you don’t understand how their program works. Thankfully, Royal Caribbean is pretty up front with how most of their program works. Their casino loyalty program is called Club Royale and you can sign up for that when you get on the ship. Make sure you give them an email address that you are going to check regularly but it doesn’t have to be your primary email address of course. Just like land-based casinos, there are different tiers to this program which are:
Choice: 0-2499 points – This is the basic level that you get for just signing up for the program. It is not really going to get you anything. Your goal is to get out of this level.
Prime: 2500 – 24999 points – This level is where things start to get interesting. You’ll get benefits like an internet discount, free drinks in the casino while the casino open, free inside cabin cruise that can be used for any seven night cruise (there are some restrictions) and a waiver on cash advances in the casino.
Signature: 25000 – 99999 points – The Signature level isn’t much of an upgrade but it does give you free internet for one device and your annual free cruise is a balcony. You’ll also get a $350 Effy store credit (which won’t get you much there).
Masters: 100000+ points – This level gets you a grand suite for your annual free cruise, priority check in, access to access to Coastal Kitchen, free internet for two device, special welcome lunch on the first day, as well as added onboard credit based on length of sailing. There’s also a $550 Effy store credit.
The cruise line will usually have a special complimentary Signature and Master cruise just for members in those tiers about once a year.
Earning Points
Just like in a land-based casino, your slot machine gambling is tracked electronically, and your table games are rated. Instead of having a casino loyalty card, your play is tracked via your SeaPass card. Thus, you want to make sure that you always put your card in the machine before playing. When playing table games, be sure to give them your card and ask to be rated.
For slot machines, you earn 1 point for every $5 of “coin in”. For video poker, it’s $10. For table games it’s a bit more complicated because this is done by a person. Needless to say, the amount of your average bet and the amount of time that you spend gambling will impact how many points you are awarded. Since the house edge is lower than slot machines, you’ll have to gamble more to get the same level of points as a slot player would. Note that for Carnival, you earn 1 point per $2.50 of coin in but Carnival’s entire program is basically a mystery so it’s near impossible to compare apples to apples here.
Note that I used the term “coin in” and did not indicate the amount that you lost. This might sound crazy but the casino doesn’t really care if you won or lost because they know in the long run, you will lose. Time is always on their side so time in the casino is very important to them. You could put $10,000 in a slot machine with only losing $100 or you could win $5,000 or lose $8,000. It’s all the same to them. How much play, i.e. coin in, you get out of your bankroll will depend on how you play and what you play.
If you put a certain dollar amount into a slot machine and play it until it runs out, you’ll wind up putting in anywhere from 5x to 10x of your bankroll in coin in. If $1000 is your bank roll, you can expect to get around $5,000 to $10,000 of coin in from that $1,000. Of course, these are just averages. There will be times when you have a ton of dead spins and you get less than $5,000 (of coin in) and then you could go on a hot streak and get $20,000 (of coin in) with some still being left over. That’s what makes gambling fun; you just never know when you’ll come out ahead. But the casino knows over time, it will all even out for them and they’ll be the winners. That’s why they want you back.
So let’s put this together. If you do put in $1,000 and you gamble it all away to get $10,000 worth of coin in, just divide that by 5 and you’ll get 2,000 points. You’re not even Prime yet. Ugh.
But wait, there’s more. One of the nice things about Royal Caribbean is that your points continue to accrue for a year although the year runs from April 1st to March 31st for some reason. So, if you really want to be strategic about this, you won’t go on a March 7th cruise and do a lot of gambling if you know you will have more cruises coming over the next 13 months. If you take 5 cruises from April to the following March and you earn 2,000 points per cruise, by March 31st you’ll have earned 10,000 points. You’ll still only be Prime but that’s nothing to sneeze at. Much like an Airline status program, that Prime status will carry over to the following year. So, if you reach Prime sometime in 2023, your status will run until the end of Royal Caribbean’s year, which is March 31, 2024 plus the following year which will end on March 31, 2025.
That makes it much easier to plan things out, but it also ensures that you stick with Royal Caribbean because you’ll always have to be earning that status for the year after that.
The rewards go well beyond the tiers
The tier benefits are not the only rewards you get. You can expect all sorts of rewards based upon the number of points that you receive. You may receive various comps such as free drinks, free play and all sorts of other things.
More importantly, you can get free cruises two different ways. One way is to earn a certain number of points during the cruise. This will vary depending on the cruise but for example, 1,500 can get you a free cruise interior cabin with $100 free play in the casino. This goes all the way up to 25,000 points (or more) for a Grand Suite with $2,000 worth of free play. The casino should have a chart somewhere in the casino that explains all of this. The only trick is that you have to book this next cruise within 7 days from the end of your cruise although you’ll have some time to actually take the cruise. I read that someone got a free cruise with just 800 points that they earned on a cruise so again, this does vary.
There are even more free cruises! Besides the tier levels and besides the instant free cruises, you may also get emails after your cruise is over for you to come back on a free cruise. This is the part where it’s a little murky. One person said they got free offers with just 200 points. I wouldn’t go by that as that could have been a fluke, but it shows what is possible.
So, this gives you three different ways to earn free cruises although there is yet another one that I’ll get to later.
Strategy
As I indicated previously, you want to start this off with either a free cruise or a cheap cruise unless there was a cruise you were going to go on anyway. I still suggest considering the cheaper cruise because that will usually be shorter, and it’ll be easier to gamble on a smaller budget since there’s only so much time you could possibly be gambling anyway.
Once you get yourself on board, you need a bankroll and a gambling strategy. I don’t suggest going crazy, but you may want to put your best foot forward. If your bankroll on future cruises is only going to be $500, maybe you’ll want to do $700 the first time. This will help you get on their radar. Your bankroll should be how much you are willing to lose. So, if your bankroll is $700, plan on losing all of that. There are times where you won’t of course as everyone wins sometimes but for the most part, plan on kissing that money goodbye before the end of the cruise.
Wait, why would I do that? Well, if you haven’t picked up on this yet, the goal here is to get free cruises. We want to take a $700 gambling loss and turn that into a $1,500 free cruise or a $3,000 worth of several free cruises. It is certainly possible. So why doesn’t everyone do this? The casinos know that a lot of people don’t have self-control. Too many people want to chase the big win. Just like Chevy Chase in Vegas Vacation, it’s always the next $20 that will get me back to even or hit that jackpot. That’s where people get in trouble and the casinos know it. Time is on their side, not yours. Everything from the lights, sounds, symbols, colors, etc is set up to trick your brain into gambling more.
Because the house always wins in the long run, time in the casino is important so you don’t want to go crazy. You’re better off losing $1,000 over 7 nights instead of losing $1,000 in 7 minutes. Sounds crazy I know but the casinos want people that will put the time in. Set a budget for each day. If you are doing a 7-night cruise and your bankroll is $700, spend $100 a day. Also, don’t go crazy hitting the buttons. Take it slow to increase the time spent in the casino. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
I also suggest studying slot strategy. Believe it or not, there’s more to it than just hitting buttons. There’s also a ton of myths out there. You’ll see people rubbing the screen and doing all sorts of weird things These slot machines are computerized random number generators. That’s it. Turning up or down the volume is not going to change anything. However, slot machines do have streaks which is why people play them and why people win. If someone wins a jackpot, the machine will also have plenty of dead spins. Does one impact the other in the short term? No. Each spin is independent from the last. Nevertheless, there are times where even if it’s just chance, the machine is really tight. If you blow through $10 in 5 minutes on one machine, it’s probably time for a new one. Set limits like that so you don’t blow through your daily budget in minutes. If you are losing too quickly, you are definitely at the wrong machine.
I also suggest that you only use one card per couple. You can usually get an extra SeaPass card from the casino that’s just for gambling purposes. If gambling at the same time, you’ll both be earning points just for one person. I’ve seen couples have different cards and this just doesn’t make any sense to me. You’re dividing your efforts when you want to keep everything on the same card. Having one person earn 2,000 points is much better than having two people earn 1,000 points. I suggest taking turns playing instead of both of you playing at the same time if possible but if you do want to play at the same time, having a duplicate card will help earn points faster. This probably goes without saying, but make sure that you do this with your partner or someone you really trust. You don’t want to help a friend get a bunch of points and leave you on shore in the future.
You also want to stay away from the table games and video poker. Yeah, I know they can be fun but that’s just not a good way to earn points. Your money might last longer but with the lower house edge, you’ll have to work a lot harder. There just reaches a point where I don’t think it makes sense to spend half your cruise in a casino. Defeats the entire purpose of taking a cruise in my opinion. Now if you have a few extra bucks and you want to play these table games, that’s fine but that should be a very small fun budget that is outside of what we are doing here. If you only play table games or video poker, then this strategy is probably not going to work out for you.
I’m gonna stop right here to address something. Does this take some of the fun out of it? Yes, of course. Is this how most gamblers do it? No, not at all. Like I said, they gamble for the fun first and then just enjoy the rewards second. In fact, many gamblers will say they don’t even know what their bankroll was. But we’re different. We’re going to be more scientific about it because our end goal is to cruise more for less. Always keep that in mind. Do not worry about what these other people say. Let them say what they’re gonna say although it might be better if you keep your strategy to yourself.
So, to recap, we have a bankroll, we have a daily budget, and we are using to use one SeaPass card per couple. Next, you are going to want to find low volatility slots. That’s a complicated subject that is outside the scope of this article, but you can research that on your own. The quick summary is that these slots will (in the long run) pay out more smaller amounts than higher amounts. You’re probably never going to hit a massive pay day and hold one of those giant checks, but your money will last longer. This will not only increase the time spent in the casino, but it will help drive up your total coin in. And again, these slots are less exciting and usually don’t have all those fancy bonus games. Resist the temptation to play those games. That’s not what we are after.
Don’t hesitate to take breaks. You really don’t want to gamble for 4 hours straight. For most people, I think it is difficult to keep track of what you’re doing over that period of time. It’s easy to lose track of your strategy. Get up and walk around for at least 10 minutes every hour. This will not only help you reset but it will pad a little time onto your total gambling time. Another thing you can do is stop every 20 minutes and check your phone if you have internet. Get up and stretch. Enjoy your drink. Have one of you go get a new one. Slow and steady is going to win the race to a free cruise here.
This brings us to the last night at the casino. It is very important that you see where you are at with your points. The first thing you want to see is how close you are to an on-board reward. Imagine getting 1,480 points only to find out after the cruise that another 20 points would have gotten you a free cruise? Always make sure you find out what these levels are. This is one of the only times I would suggest going over your budget, at least by a little. I don’t suggest chasing more than 50 points but if an extra $60 can get you an instant free cruise, go for it.
Also, the casino likes round numbers so even if you are not close to getting a free cruise, I suggest you get to the next round number if you are close. For example, you are about to call it a night for the last time, and you are at 785 points. Getting 800 will get you nowhere on this trip but that 800 level may be what’s needed to get you some offers in your email next month. Spend an extra few bucks and get those extra 15 points. Since this is all speculative, I only suggest doing this if you are really close. No point chasing after something that is speculative.
Credit Card Strategy
There are things we can do to make this is even better for us. On Royal Caribbean, you don’t need to board the ship with a bunch of cash for the casino. Of course, you want to stay away from the ATM since you’ll incur a ton of charges for that. For slot machines, you can deposit money into your players bank by charging it to your room. There is no fee for this. However, there is a 5% fee for getting cash at table games until your reach Prime, then it will be free. You definitely don’t want to do this.
Based upon my own experience and the experience of others, room charges are room charges, so you don’t have to worry about your credit card company charging you for a cash advance. However, it is still a good practice to call your credit card company before your cruise and tell them to set your cash advance limit at zero. This will prevent any accidents from occurring.
Next you want to select the best card. Since this charge will code as travel, I highly suggest the Chase Sapphire Reserve which gets 3x travel. You’ll earn Ultimate Rewards points which most people value at 2 cents per point. In other words, for every dollar you charge, you’ll receive 6 cents in value. So, while no one ever says that the card earns 6x travel, you can kind of think about it that way. Using our $1,000 bankroll as an example, you’ll get $60 worth of points back. Not too bad right?
Well, you can do even better than that. Some ships allow you to charge a bunch of money to a slot machine, hit withdraw and then cash out. That is what we call manufactured spending, and I don’t recommend it for most people as you can get your card shut down. I think we’ll see a lot of ships try to crack down on that and Royal Caribbean seems to be one of the first cruise lines to figure that out. If you try to do this, you’ll probably receive a warning/reminder that you must gamble 50% of that amount or you’ll be locked out from any more deposits into your casino account. The lock out period says for the rest of the cruise, but others have indicated that it is just 24 to 48 hours. Either way, I probably wouldn’t tempt fate with them.
The better way to do this is to stick to your daily budget. Let’s say it’s $100 and you’re the type to put in the full $100 and just gamble until it’s gone, you’ve won a decent amount or you’re tired of playing. You could put in $100, gamble until you are down to $50 or less and then cash out. I suggest stopping on a round number so it’s easier to remember. Doesn’t have to be $50, could be $30, $20, etc. Cash that out but then add that back into your bankroll. So if your bankroll was $1000, you charged $100 and cashed out at $30, your bankroll is now $930. The next day, charge another $100. Repeat this each day but at some point, you’ll have to charge more another $100 in the same day. This will probably happen several times. By the end of the cruise, instead of charging $1,000 you may wind up charging $1,500. So now this is 1500 x 3 x .02 = $90 in value. That’s a nice way to put some more money back into your pocket that you can use for future travel.
Pocket your winnings
Somewhat related to the above, be sure to pocket your big winnings. In the end, your bankroll is your bankroll but there’s just something about cashing out while you’re ahead. Worst case scenario, you’re dragging out the time spent in the casino. Best case scenario, you’re not going to give all that money back to them. Set some type of number ahead of time. If you put in $50 and you win something big and now you have $100 in the machine, cash that out. Then put $50 back in the machine. At the end of the cruise, see where you’re at with your winnings and decide to gamble more or walk away with your winnings. Remember, this strategy doesn’t involve you always losing all of your money. You just have to be prepared to do so more often than not.
After the cruise
Hopefully you went on a cruise, had a good time, didn’t exceed your bankroll and racked up some good points. Maybe you didn’t qualify for a free cruise while on the ship. Now what? Well just sit back and watch your email. Maybe it’ll take a week or several months, but hopefully you’ll get a free cruise offer. If not, give them a call and see what’s up. Can’t hurt to ask. If you didn’t get anything then either they are busy enough where they don’t have to worry about low rollers like you or you’re such a low roller that they aren’t going to bother with giving you a free cruise.
From there, you have to determine if it’s worth it try again at a higher bankroll or just accept that this strategy is not for you. If you do get free cruise offers, you want to make sure that the price of the cruise is more than your bankroll. Otherwise, that defeats the entire point. Keep in mind that free is not free as you will still have to pay port taxes and fees. There’s no way around that. Instead of focusing on that, look at the cash price of the cruise and see what it would cost before taxes and fees. If that is a cruise you want to go on and it’s less than your bankroll, then you’re doing this right.
If you get on board credit and/or free play, don’t forget to factor that into your calculations. You can look at that in one of those ways. Free on board credit which can be used to offset other expenses, could allow you to increase your bankroll by that amount. Free play could allow you to decrease your bankroll by that amount. I always suggest increasing your bankroll for free when you can do it so if your bankroll was $1000 and you get $200 of on board credit plus $200 of free play, your bank roll should be $1,200 not including that extra $200 in free play you get. This will drive up your total coin in and allow you to get more and better comps/offers. Remember, we want to make the system work for us.
Who is this strategy for?
First off, if you have any type of gambling or addiction issue, this is not for you. You can get yourself in a lot of trouble here and its just not worth it. Second, if money is really tight for you, perhaps there are other things in life you should focus on. If you can find a cheap cruise, go for it but maybe stay out of the casino or just gamble $100 and see what happens.
If you don’t get a lot of time off, this may be pointless. This strategy works best for someone that can go on at least a few cruises a year. Since your points add up over a 12 month time period, you want to be able to leverage this so that you can reach Prime. You’ll also want to take advantage of those free cruises. If you reach Prime, you’ll get the free annual cruise in addition to on board offers and after cruise offers. As you can see, these free cruise offers can snowball and really allow you to just keep cruising for free.
Of course, these cruises are not really free. You are still going to lose money a majority of the time but again the goal is to lose less than the cost of the cruise. I suggest using a spreadsheet. Keep track of how much you are losing each cruise, which should be your bankroll unless you win big. Then keep track of what the cash price would be if you had booked that cruise (without taxes and fees). Also be sure to factor in any other comps that you would have paid for such as drinks, gratuities, etc. Add that all up after a year. I’ve seen other people do this and they will have spent $5,000 to go on $15,000 worth of cruises. There’s no real magic number here but I think you should be spending at least half. Spending $14,000 to go on $15,000 worth of cruises is only $1,000 in savings. Seems like a lot of effort for not much reward.
If after a year you are not seeing the type of savings you want, perhaps its better to switch to Carnival or just abandon this whole strategy altogether. However, I know a lot of people that do this successfully so with the right strategy, I believe it will work for most. However, there are a number of people that do complain about never getting offers despite a decent amount of gambling. Its a bit of a mystery as to why this happens but it can’t hurt to call the Casino Department and ask them what’s going on.
Getting even more free cruises with just one offer
If you start getting free cruise offers, this will open you up to even more free cruises and potentially other comps from different companies. There’s two ways to do this. Just like I mentioned Royal Caribbean’s match offer at the beginning of this article, Virgin Voyages, Carnival and MSC will also match your free cruise offers. The procedure is different for each cruise line but the basics are the same. Send them a copy of your free cruise offers and they may also give you free cruise offers. For some reason, NCL doesn’t seem to be really good with matching offers but I’m sure they have done it for some people.
Now when you go on these other lines, it’s up to you if you really want to gamble or not. If you don’t, you may never get a free cruise on them again. If you’re going to stick with Royal Caribbean, that’s fine. If you want to jump ship and try something different, that works too. Since most people have a finite amount of time and money, I do suggest staying with one cruise. Perhaps you just gamble a little more for fun with a smaller bankroll just to stay on the radar of these other lines. Who knows, maybe you’ll still get free offers but even if not, you still got yet another free cruise out of the deal.
In addition to applying to these lines directly, you can worked with URComped.com which is a company that will shop you around to different cruise lines and casinos to try to get your free rooms/cabins and other comps based upon the offers you are getting from another casino. This is another way to get even more free stuff out of playing in casinos on Royal Caribbean. The only thing I don’t like about this company is that you’ll get bombarded with emails so I would suggest you use an email that you don’t mind getting a lot of spam in. They’ll say you have a bunch of offers but they’re really not offers. The only way to really know what you are going to get is to call them. Maybe this works better for other people but I just ignore those emails at this point.
The same strategy here works with a direct match. It’s up to you how much to gamble, if at all, on these other trips. But again, if you don’t do anything, you’ll likely burn that bridge so make sure it’s one you won’t ever need. I think the best bet is to just gamble some for fun but don’t go too crazy.
Conclusion
I cannot stress enough here that the goal of this entire exercise to spend a certain amount that you are willing to lose so that you can get some multiple in free cruises down the road. The goal is NOT to win a jackpot. The goal is not just to “have fun”. I’ll say it again, this type of scientific approach is not for everyone. A lot of regular gamblers will call this silly. They’ll say it can’t be done. They’ll say all other sorts of negative things. You can’t listen to any of that. Stick to your goal and focus on that. If you want to just have fun, go to a land based casino. I don’t think it makes sense to try to do both at the same time. Keep your strategy to yourself if you don’t want to hear the complaints from others.
Also keep in mind that none of this is a guarantee. Royal Caribbean does a good job at publishing how a lot of this works but some of this is mystery. Some people get 800 points and get offers for free cruises while others get 8,000 points and get no email offers. Why? No one knows. But I think the people getting offers for lower amounts outnumber the people gambling a lot and getting nothing. That’s why I suggest taking this one step at a time. See what happens. Only gamble with money that you can afford to lose. If it doesn’t work out, you tried. Who knows, maybe you’ll get an offer a year from now. You just don’t know.
But if you do get on this free cruise merry go round, I suggest you keep it going as long as you can. Just be sure to always set a budget and stick to it. Don’t ever chase anything and spend a lot more than you intended. That’s how they get you. If you are smarter than most people, I truly believe you can turn the tables on them and cruise a lot more for a lot less.
Want more help with this?
Check out our Facebook group, Travel Better, Travel More: Deals, Tips and Advice for everything cruises and travel. We’ll share more great tips, share amazing deals and help you plan any aspect of your cruise.