In June 2025, Carnival announced a new program (Carnival Rewards) to start June 2026. Just three months later, they’re making some revisions.

The original announcement from June 2025

Before we talk about what changed, let’s first remind everyone what Carnival Cruises said the new rules will be.

• They will establish a new loyalty program called Carnival Rewards in June 2026.
• Elite qualification rules will move from a lifetime basis to a biannual basis. Status earned will last for two years.
• Qualification standards will be based on the amount spent with the cruise line rather than the nights spent in rooms.
• Current diamond members will get six years of status at their current levels without needing to requalify.

Carnival described this as an elite member problem. They have too many per their FAQ.

On a typical ship, anywhere from a quarter to a third of our guests are Platinum and Diamond. On our popular Carnival Journeys cruises, for example, we can no longer offer priority boarding and early stateroom access because essentially the entire manifest is populated with top tier guests. As the adage goes, when everyone is special, no one feels special.

New changes to Carnival Rewards as of September 2025

In the latest announcement from Carnival dated September 15, 2025, they indicated they are making some changes to the upcoming Carnival Rewards program:

• Guests who achieve Diamond status before May 31, 2026 will earn lifetime Diamond status.
• Guests who achieve Platinum status before May 31, 2026 will receive a boost of 10,000 points towards status every two years indefinitely. This ultimately guarantees lifetime Gold status.
• Children will enjoy the same status as their parents until they turn 18.
• Carnival is “actively exploring options” in other countries who do not have access to the U.S.-based credit card.

This last one isn’t a change per se but more of an admission that they overlooked everyone outside the United States. Whoops.

Our thoughts on the Carnival Rewards announcement

There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s start with the good. It’s never a bad thing when companies feel the pressure from customers and make customer-friendly changes based on that feedback. Delta famously did it in 2023 when it felt backlash from its elites. Marriott felt the same when it merged with Starwood in 2018 and briefly allowed their most loyal guests to earn Lifetime Titanium status. We should applaud programs that take and implement feedback to make a more positive experience.

Where does the negative come in? Let’s count the ways.

Why benefit Diamond and Platinum guests when they said there are two many?

First of all, the program stated that the driving reason to make these changes was that a large portion of guests on each cruise are Platinum and Diamond elites. They said so in the FAQ I quoted above. So who are they going to help out the most with these changes? Platinum and Diamond elites. They’re giving both of them pathways to lifetime status. What? If there are too many upper elites on their ships where they cannot honor benefits, why are they promising continued benefits to this cohort?

Their initial stance of there being too many elites on each ship doesn’t seem like it was the impetus for making the change. I suspected this wasn’t the case because they sell their Faster to the Fun package which mimics many of the benefits you’d get at the upper elite end. If they were having trouble honoring commitments to this cohort of guests, they could just stop selling the package. But they don’t.

They’re not giving much time to earn Platinum or Diamond status

Under current VIFP program rules, it takes 75 points to earn Platinum and 200 to earn Diamond. Each night aboard the ship earns you one point. That ostensibly means that if you’re looking to earn status from nothing, you’ll need to spend 200 nights on a cruise to earn Diamond. For many, that’s unrealistic.

So instead, this is more of a ticking time bomb for those close to earning Platinum or Diamond status. They must now go out of their way to book a cruise with Carnival–something that might not be so easy to do. These customers might have already seen the writing on the wall from the program update and booked their next cruise elsewhere.

Platinum elites aren’t getting much

And let’s be real, Platinum guests are drawing the short end of the stick compared to Diamond guests. Promising only Gold benefits in perpetuity? So much for valuing Platinum members at face value. I’m not sure that’s supposed to make a Platinum member feel good that their loyalty up to this point was the second-from-the-top elite status and it’s only good enough for the base level elite status going forward.

Remember, Blue “status” goes away and everyone gets Red at sign-up. That makes Gold the first status level. They’re expecting Platinum members to stay on the hamster wheel and earn an extra 40,000 Carnival Rewards points to maintain status.

What about everyone else?

By their measure, up to 75% of guests aren’t Platinum or Diamond today. What happens to these guests? No noticeable change from what was announced. They’re still going to feel the brunt of these changes the most, with many losing status. You can make the argument Carnival shouldn’t provide loyalty to those who haven’t shown it in return, but the removal of the promise of lifetime benefits is a cold reminder that lifetime only means lifetime until the program terms say otherwise.

They just forgot their non-US membership base and coldly admitted it

Talk about being cold, it seems preposterous that those in charge of the Carnival Rewards refresh flat out forgot that anyone outside the United States existed. They built a new program that incentivizes spend on their credit card. Somehow they didn’t realize an equivalent credit card doesn’t exist in other key markets like Canada or Australia.

I’ve never heard of a loyalty company messing up this badly before at understanding their own customers. Sure, they admitted it as one of their announced changes, but they offer no consolation. The only promise is that they’re looking into it. They could just as easily come back and say there’s nothing they want to do. Perhaps they change the requirements based on where the customer account is registered, but I get the feeling a lot of customers might now say they live in Canada.

It’s clear this change is to drive incremental business

Why would Carnival now be interested in making a change to their upcoming Carnival Rewards program? It’s simple: because forward bookings must be sluggish. Money is very much a motivating factor for practically all business decisions.

But look closer at this and you’ll see that it’s set up to create a short-term panic. To be eligible for lifetime benefits with Carnival, you must achieve their highest tiers of status by May 31, 2026. Not there yet? Just spend more nights (and money) to rush to qualify for the lifetime benefit. Presumably, they’re hoping this works even for the lower status levels, which is why no benefit is offered to sweeten the deal for them. They want those lower elites to work for recognition.

What they don’t want is for the guests that proved they are most loyal to bring that loyalty money elsewhere. And that’s why it seems only Diamond members matter to the new Carnival Rewards.

Are you ready for the new Carnival Rewards?

Suggested reading:

• Review: Carnival Horizon Western Caribbean Cruise – Part 1 – Booking and Room
• Review: Celebrity Solstice Alaska Cruise – Part 1 – Booking and Room
• Pro Tip: Celebrity Cruises Gives Free Parking at MGM Resorts