Barclaycard-Carnival Funpoints - Beware

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Du42010

New Member
Hi fellow cruisers!
Hi there, hope you are having a great week. Nice to be here.
I am blogging a warning today concerning Barclaycard - ie: Carnival funpoints Master Card. It is a disaster. We joined the card 2 months before the cruise we took on June 17th. This was our 3rd cruise on Carnival. Everything went okay, got home safe!
About the card: After going through 4 customer reps, i finally got a statement credit of $100.00. the other 3 reps told me i had to get the statement credit online. WHERE? there is no statement credit option ! I called the 4th rep and WAH LA...she gave me a statement credit of $100.00! Then to my surprise on the very next statement, that i was ONE day late and whalloped with over $60.00 in late fees and interest. Get this, I make sure and send my credit card bills including this bill 7 working days prior to the date due and paid in full every month just so they can't say it was late. Why have rewards if you don't do that, right? They said they couldn't be responsible for postal problems..lol. Yeah 7 working days early? Funny thing is NO one would reverse the charges as this would be my first "late charge" anyhow. Very questionable business here. In my opinion, It is a major rip off scheme. and their policy? Each time you call the policy is different from one customer service rep to the other. The "supervisors" work with you even less. Stay far away from this one. It is truely a trap. This economy doesn't afford this type of business. Just don't get lured in on the Carnival funpoints by barclaycard. Just a huge suggestion.
 
bob

bob

Community Manager Part Time Dinosaur
Staff member
At least you had a good cruise.............
 
K

kccruisin

Youth Counselor
Du42010 said:
Hi fellow cruisers!
Hi there, hope you are having a great week. Nice to be here.
I am blogging a warning today concerning Barclaycard - ie: Carnival funpoints Master Card. It is a disaster. We joined the card 2 months before the cruise we took on June 17th. This was our 3rd cruise on Carnival. Everything went okay, got home safe!
About the card: After going through 4 customer reps, i finally got a statement credit of $100.00. the other 3 reps told me i had to get the statement credit online. WHERE? there is no statement credit option ! I called the 4th rep and WAH LA...she gave me a statement credit of $100.00! Then to my surprise on the very next statement, that i was ONE day late and whalloped with over $60.00 in late fees and interest. Get this, I make sure and send my credit card bills including this bill 7 working days prior to the date due and paid in full every month just so they can't say it was late. Why have rewards if you don't do that, right? They said they couldn't be responsible for postal problems..lol. Yeah 7 working days early? Funny thing is NO one would reverse the charges as this would be my first "late charge" anyhow. Very questionable business here. In my opinion, It is a major rip off scheme. and their policy? Each time you call the policy is different from one customer service rep to the other. The "supervisors" work with you even less. Stay far away from this one. It is truely a trap. This economy doesn't afford this type of business. Just don't get lured in on the Carnival funpoints by barclaycard. Just a huge suggestion.
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I used to own this card thinking that there would be some benefit, but it is a ripoff. I paid it off then closed the account. That would be my advise to anyone holding this card. I'd heard that Carnival was not going to affiliate themselves with them any longer, but that's been awhile back.
 
C

Cruzman

Environmental Compliance Officer
kccruisin said:
I used to own this card thinking that there would be some benefit, but it is a ripoff. I paid it off then closed the account. That would be my advise to anyone holding this card. I'd heard that Carnival was not going to affiliate themselves with them any longer, but that's been awhile back.
Click to expand...

I have to agree. I am usually pretty good at spotting bank ripoffs, but Barclay really screwed me in a major kind of way. After accumulating over 50,000 points on their Carnival card, they canceled the card due to "lack of use", and I lost the points. I would recommend avoiding this bank at all costs!
 
D

dhudd

Ordinary Seaman
We also have this card. When we first received this card they were charging us 24.99% intrust. I went nuts and called them to get a better rate. I spoke to them and they said that they could only go as low as 19% because it's a rewards card. We have over 40,000 funpoints and or miles. We plan to use all of the funpoints on our up coming cruise this November. Then we will transfer the ballance, (if any), and cancel the card.
 
C

cuzzx

New Member
We have had this card for a few years, no problems. none.

We use this card to by gas and groceries and cloths, but my wife pays what we charged that week on the weekend. every weekend.online.

Points build up fast and we use them fast. Never a problem.

My be we are one of the few with no problems as we pay weekly.

o yea 14% but it never accumulates a big balance.
 
C

Caribbean Kitty

Deck Crew
cuzzx said:
We have had this card for a few years, no problems. none.

We use this card to by gas and groceries and cloths, but my wife pays what we charged that week on the weekend. every weekend.online.

Points build up fast and we use them fast. Never a problem.

My be we are one of the few with no problems as we pay weekly.

o yea 14% but it never accumulates a big balance.
Click to expand...

I've had a similar no-issue experience, but have held the card only since my Carnival Dream cruise in June. I don't know what may factor into having a good or bad experience, but:
- I applied for the card while on my last cruise, and got a 5000 point signing bonus, no problem.
- I pay the card off every month, using the online site.
- Since being issued the card in June, I've collected $50 "payment" credits (not OBC) three times.
- I think the interest rate is 13%, which is higher than my other card, but since I pay my balance each month, is no big deal.

Of course, I've never had to call the customer service line, so perhaps that's where the communication breakdown happens?
 
S

SandyBeach

1st Officer - Navigation
We've had our card for several years now, including during the Carnival change-over to Funpoints. We always pay our balance off each month and have never had any problem with Barclays. Because of the change in the program, we had enough points for a free cruise this year and are already close to a free cruise in 2011. (We would have only gotten one free cruise under the old plan after five years of collecting points.) You do have to go to the Barclay Card site in order to redeem your points. You can also find out how many points it will take for this cruise or that cruise. We did have to deal with someon on the phone once, and I suspect we were talking to someone in India. It took us a couple of calls before we talked with someone who could help us.
 
D

dhudd

Ordinary Seaman
We also have this card. Yesterday I purchased/selected the "ON Board Credits" & and other gifts ,(I wanted to use up all of my "Funpoints"). We cruise again in about 23 days. After I receive all of the credits that they owe us...that card is history! When I first opened the card, it was over 25% intrust... I saw that and called them and demaned a lower rate, (I threatened to cancel my account), well they lowered my rate to 15.9%. They told me that that's the lowest that they can go because it's a "Rewards Card". I agree that this card is misleading. Remember...Banks are in business to make money.
 
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