Carnival Rewards Has Changed Everything – Here’s What You Need to Know

I can’t remember the last time a cruise line launched something with such a huge backlash. It’s fair to say that, from the moment Carnival Rewards was first announced as the cruise line’s new loyalty program, people got mad.

Thing is, there are actually some good parts to the changes – which a lot of loyal Carnival fans might be overlooking.

Of course there are some losses too, and now that Carnival Rewards has officially replaced VIFP, it’s worth understanding exactly how the new system works. Especially if you’re worried about losing the status you’ve spent years earning…

Before I Start…

I’ve mentioned the backlash already but I’m not going to go into that in any more detail in this guide. I’ve got other articles about the launch and the feedback that Carnival received.

This is my neutral guide to Carnival Rewards. It’ll cover what’s changed from VIFP, but purely from a factual, here’s-what-you-need-to-know basis.

I’ve also made sure everything is up to date following the official launch on 1st September 2026, including the additional changes Carnival made to protect some existing loyalty members.

Carnival Rewards Summarised

There are several big changes from the older VIFP system to Carnival Rewards, but there are three main headlines:

This last point is really crucial, and it’s one of the biggest reasons why Carnival Rewards has been so controversial. But it does bring Carnival’s loyalty programme closer to the way many hotel and airline rewards programmes work.

There are also some extra protections for former VIFP Platinum members, which I’ll explain further down.

Carnival Rewards – Important Dates

Carnival Rewards officially launched on 1st September 2026, replacing Carnival’s long-running VIFP Club loyalty programme.

The changes were first announced on 18th June 2025, with the original launch scheduled for 1st June 2026. However, Carnival subsequently delayed the introduction by three months, giving guests more time to prepare for the new system.

During that period, Carnival also made several changes to its original plans following feedback from loyal cruisers (Carnival’s Brand Ambassador John Heald did warn throughout the process that things could change).

Most notably, it confirmed that existing Diamond VIFP members would keep their status for life, while Platinum members would receive additional protection.

Now that Carnival Rewards is live, guests earn rewards based mainly on their eligible spending rather than the number of nights they’ve sailed.

One of the biggest differences is that status is no longer permanent for most members. Instead, the programme uses fixed earning periods, with guests needing to accumulate enough stars to qualify for their preferred tier.

I’ll explain exactly how those earning periods work further down.

Points and Stars Explained

Carnival Rewards uses two separate systems – you’ll earn ‘points’ and ‘stars’. Both can be earned at the same time, but they serve completely different purposes.

Points are effectively a currency that you can spend on things like cruise fares and onboard purchases. Stars, meanwhile, determine your loyalty status and the benefits you’ll receive when you sail.

Let’s look at each of them in more detail, starting with points.

Reward Points

Carnival Rewards Points are earned when you spend money on eligible Carnival purchases, as well as through certain other activities. You can then redeem these points towards future cruises and onboard experiences.

Unlike Status Qualifying Stars, your Rewards Points don’t automatically reset every two years.

Instead, points remain valid as long as you earn or redeem points at least once every three years. Each qualifying activity extends their expiry date by another three years.

There are also different expiry rules for Carnival Rewards Mastercard holders, whose points generally don’t expire while the relevant cardholder conditions are met.

So you don’t have to worry about spending all your points within a particular earning period, provided you keep your account active.

How to Earn Points

There are several ways to earn Carnival Rewards Points. The main method is through the money you spend on Carnival cruises and related purchases.

For every $1 you spend with Carnival, you’ll get 3 Rewards points.

Most of the things you buy with Carnival will earn you points, such as:

• Your cruise fare
• Gratuities
• Spa treatments
• Shore excursions
• Speciality dining
• Drinks
• Shopping purchases
• Onboard activities
• Transfers booked through Carnival
• Carnival Vacation Protection

You’ll also earn points on eligible purchases at Carnival’s private destinations, including Celebration Key and RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay, provided you charge them to your Sail & Sign account.

But there are some things that won’t earn points, such as:

• Port fees and taxes
• Flights booked through Fly2Fun
• Certain cruise fares, including some charter and package rates
• Purchases paid for using Carnival Rewards Points
• Purchases covered by complimentary onboard credit or Carnival-funded Future Cruise Credits

An important distinction is that spending money on your cruise doesn’t necessarily mean all the points go to the person who paid.

For example, if two adults share a cabin, the eligible cruise fare is divided equally between them for earning points, regardless of who actually paid for the booking.

Onboard purchases work differently. These earn points for the guest whose individual Sail & Sign account is charged.

Children under 18 can’t participate in Carnival Rewards themselves, so the responsible adult receives the points earned from their eligible spending. However, children do share the loyalty status and benefits of their responsible paying adult when they sail.

You also don’t receive your points immediately when you book a cruise or make a purchase. Carnival normally credits them to your account approximately 14 days after your sailing ends. There’s currently an exception for some eligible pre-cruise purchases, with Carnival gradually adding these points to accounts as part of its phased rollout through the end of 2026.

You can check your current points balance by logging into your Carnival Rewards account on Carnival.com.

Casino Points

Another way you can earn Rewards Points is by gaming at the casino.

Carnival Rewards doesn’t replace the Carnival Players Club, which is the existing casino rewards programme. That still continues separately.

You’ll earn 1 Carnival Rewards Point for every casino point you have remaining at the end of your cruise, after any points you’ve redeemed for FunPlay have been deducted.

So, if you earn 2,000 casino points during your cruise but redeem 500 of them for FunPlay, you’ll receive 1,500 Carnival Rewards Points.

The way you earn casino points varies for table games, but for slot machines it’s typically 1 casino point for every $2 wagered.

So, if you’re someone who likes to gamble while you cruise, you could rack up quite the number of Rewards Points. And your casino play can also help you earn Stars towards your loyalty status, which I’ll explain later.

Carnival Mastercard

A third way you can earn rewards points is by using the Carnival Mastercard.

This credit card was relaunched alongside Carnival Rewards in September 2026, replacing the previous Carnival World Mastercard and its FunPoints system.

Existing cardholders had their FunPoints converted into Carnival Rewards Points automatically, so they didn’t lose the rewards they’d already accumulated.

The new card offers several ways to earn points:

• Up to 6 Rewards Points for every $1 spent on eligible Carnival purchases – 3 from the Mastercard and 3 from Carnival Rewards itself.
• 2 Rewards Points for every $1 spent at eligible restaurants and grocery stores.
• 1 Rewards Point for every $1 spent on other eligible purchases.

The Carnival Rewards Mastercard is only available to US residents. So if you live in Canada, the UK, Australia or anywhere else, you can’t apply for the card.

That gives US cruisers another way to build up their Rewards Points which isn’t available to international guests. And, as I’ll explain later, the card also provides a way to earn Stars towards higher loyalty tiers.

What to Spend Points On

There are lots of different ways to spend your Carnival Rewards Points, including:

• Cruise deposits
• Cruise fares
• Shore excursions
• Speciality dining
• Spa treatments
• Drinks and drinks packages
• Wi-Fi packages
• Other eligible onboard purchases

You don’t need to save up enough points to cover the full cost of something, either.

For example, if you’ve earned some Rewards Points and want to use them towards your next cruise, you can combine them with cash to pay for your booking. There’s no minimum number of points you need before you can start redeeming them.

You can redeem points towards your cruise fare when making a booking through Carnival.com.

For purchases during your cruise, you can redeem points through the Carnival HUB app, using them towards eligible onboard spending.

However, there’s one limitation to be aware of. You can’t currently use Rewards Points for pre-cruise purchases such as booking a drinks package or shore excursion before you sail. Carnival is introducing this feature separately as part of its phased rollout.

Another useful thing to know is that if you redeem points for onboard credit but don’t spend all of it, the unused portion is automatically converted back into Carnival Rewards Points at the end of your cruise.

And if you use Rewards Points towards a cruise and then need to cancel your booking, the normal cancellation rules apply. That means your points can be refunded, but you could lose some or all of them if cancellation penalties apply.

Just remember that once you’ve redeemed your points against a purchase, you’ve used them up. You’ll need to earn more before you can spend them again.

Status Qualifying Stars

Status Qualifying Stars are the other thing you’ll earn when you cruise with Carnival. And these are closer to what you’d normally expect from a loyalty programme.

Unlike Rewards Points, you don’t spend Stars on purchases. Instead, they determine your loyalty tier and the benefits you’ll enjoy when you cruise.

Stars aren’t permanent, though. They’re earned during fixed earning periods, with your status generally remaining valid for another two years after that period ends. That means you need to keep earning Stars if you want to maintain your loyalty status, although there are some exceptions for former VIFP members.

I’ll explain how those earning periods work further down.

How to Earn Stars

You can earn Stars in much the same way as you earn Rewards Points. In fact, you’ll usually earn both at the same time – it’s not an either/or situation.

Just like with Rewards Points, you earn 3 Stars for every $1 you spend on eligible Carnival purchases.

This includes cruise fares, gratuities, speciality dining, drinks, excursions and the other qualifying purchases I’ve already covered in the Points section.

Casino play earns Stars too, but there’s an important difference compared to Rewards Points.

For every 1 casino point you earn, you’ll receive 1 Status Qualifying Star.

This is based on the total casino points you’ve earned during your cruise, regardless of whether you’ve redeemed any of them for FunPlay.

So, if you earn 2,000 casino points and redeem 500 for FunPlay, you’ll still receive 2,000 Stars, even though you’ll only get 1,500 Rewards Points.

There’s also another way to earn Stars, which wasn’t originally available when Carnival Rewards was first announced.

The Carnival Rewards Mastercard now lets you earn Stars through everyday spending.

Cardholders earn:

• Up to 4 Stars for every $1 spent on eligible Carnival purchases – 3 through Carnival Rewards and 1 through the Mastercard.
• 1 Star for every $1 spent on other eligible Mastercard purchases.

That means someone could potentially reach Gold status just by spending $10,000 on their Mastercard, without taking a single cruise.

Of course, this option is only available to US residents, since the Carnival Rewards Mastercard isn’t offered internationally.

One final thing to remember is that Stars don’t accumulate indefinitely. They’re earned during fixed earning periods and reset at the start of the next period, although your qualifying loyalty status continues for the applicable enjoyment period.

I’ll explain exactly how that works further down.

Status Levels & Rewards

There are four status tiers in Carnival Rewards – Red, Gold, Platinum and Diamond. Here’s what you need to earn each one, and the perks you’ll get.

Tier	Stars required	Equivalent eligible spending
Red	None	None
Gold	10,000	$3,334
Platinum	50,000	$16,667
Diamond	100,000	$33,334

Red

There’s no minimum number of Stars needed for Red status. It’s the entry-level status for anyone signed up to Carnival Rewards.

Red perks include:

• Access to members-only offers
• The ability to earn and redeem Carnival Rewards Points
• A complimentary 1.5-litre bottle of water whenever you sail

Red is also where former Blue VIFP members start under the new programme.

Gold

To reach Gold tier, you need 10,000 Stars – the equivalent of spending $3,334 on eligible Carnival purchases within an earning period.

Gold perks include all Red-status perks, as well as:

• Dedicated customer support for Gold members
• One complimentary drink on cruises of 5+ nights

Gold is the first tier that requires you to earn Stars, and the free drink is a nice little extra for anyone who cruises regularly.

Of course, you don’t have to earn all 10,000 Stars through cruise spending. Casino play and eligible Carnival Mastercard purchases can also help you reach this tier.

Platinum

Platinum status is given to anyone with 50,000 Stars – the equivalent of spending $16,667 on eligible Carnival purchases within an earning period.

As well as all previous perks, Platinum will get:

• Dedicated customer support for Platinum members
• A collectible pin badge
• Two complimentary beverages when you cruise
• Preferred Main Dining Room times
• Preferred speciality dining times
• Complimentary wash & fold laundry service, with the number of bags depending on cruise length
• Early online check-in up to 16 days before you cruise
• Priority embarkation
• Priority services onboard
• Priority debarkation

Platinum is where the benefits become much more substantial, especially if you like being among the first to board or want more flexibility with your dining arrangements.

The complimentary laundry is another useful perk, particularly on longer cruises, although the number of free bags depends on how long you’re sailing for.

Diamond

To reach Diamond status, you need 100,000 Stars. That’s the equivalent of spending $33,334 on eligible Carnival purchases within an earning period.

Diamond guests receive all previous perks, as well as:

• Dedicated sales and customer support for Diamond members
• Guaranteed Main Dining Room time (early or late dinner)
• Priority retail concierge services
• An invitation to a special event hosted by the Captain

Diamond guests also receive complimentary wash & fold laundry, with the allowance depending on the length of their cruise.

And there’s one especially important benefit for guests who reached Diamond under the old VIFP Club.

Anyone who qualified for VIFP Diamond status by 31st August 2026 can retain Diamond status for life under Carnival Rewards, provided they enrol in the new programme.

For everyone else, Diamond works like the other tiers, meaning you’ll need to keep earning enough Stars to maintain it in future earning periods.

How Earning Periods Work

One of the biggest (and most contentious) changes to Carnival Rewards is that your loyalty status is no longer automatically earned for life.

Instead, you need to keep earning enough Stars to maintain your status, otherwise you could drop down to a lower tier.

There is an exception for guests who reached Diamond under the old VIFP programme before Carnival Rewards launched. Those members can retain Diamond status for life, which I’ll explain in more detail below.

Carnival Rewards uses fixed two-year earning periods, known as Status Earning Windows.

The first began on 1st September 2026 and runs until 31st December 2028. This is slightly longer than normal because Carnival wanted future earning periods to align with calendar years.

After that, the earning windows are:

• 1st January 2029 to 31st December 2030
• 1st January 2031 to 31st December 2032
• 1st January 2033 to 31st December 2034

Whatever Stars you earn during one of these periods determine the loyalty status you’ll enjoy for the following two years.

But your Stars reset to zero at the beginning of each new earning window. You don’t keep them and build on them indefinitely.

Here’s an example of how it works:

But there’s some good news. You don’t have to wait until the next earning period to enjoy a higher status.

As soon as you earn enough Stars to move up a tier, your status is upgraded.

So, let’s say you reach 50,000 Stars on 12th March 2028. You’ll become Platinum immediately, rather than having to wait until 2029.

You’ll then enjoy Platinum benefits for the rest of 2028 and throughout 2029 and 2030.

Meanwhile, from 1st January 2029, you’ll be earning Stars towards your status for 2031 and 2032.

It’s a little complicated at first, but the important thing to remember is that you can move up a tier as soon as you’ve earned enough Stars, while any status you’ve already qualified for is protected through its two-year enjoyment period.

Why VIFP Changed

It’s also worth adding a brief explanation of why Carnival decided to replace its VIFP loyalty programme, and to be fair to the cruise line, it was very honest about this on its website.

Simply, there were too many people reaching the higher tiers of VIFP – Platinum and Diamond – and as a result, the cruise line was frequently unable to deliver on the onboard perks promised to those members.

Carnival revealed that on a typical sailing, between a quarter and a third of guests were Platinum or Diamond. On some longer Carnival Journeys cruises, the proportion was even higher.

You can’t offer priority boarding, for example, if a large percentage of guests on the ship are entitled to it. Priority boarding then just becomes ‘boarding’.

So Carnival decided to revamp its programme, replacing the old system based on days sailed with one focused mainly on how much guests spend.

VIFP Status Match

One of the biggest concerns when Carnival Rewards was announced was what would happen to guests who’d spent years building up their VIFP status.

The good news is that Carnival introduced several protections for existing members, although the arrangements differ depending on which tier you reached before the new programme launched.

For existing Red and Gold members, their VIFP status was carried over when Carnival Rewards launched on 1st September 2026.

For Platinum members, anyone who held Platinum VIFP status by 31st August 2026 keeps Platinum status under Carnival Rewards until 31st December 2028.

There’s also another benefit for these guests.

At the beginning of each new two-year earning period, former VIFP Platinum members receive a bonus of 10,000 Stars. That’s enough to give them Gold status automatically, as well as a head start towards earning Platinum again.

Diamond members get an even better deal.

Anyone who reached Diamond status under VIFP by 31st August 2026 can keep Diamond status for life under Carnival Rewards.

Originally, Carnival had only planned to protect Diamond status for six years, but this was changed following feedback from guests.

There’s one important thing to remember, though. You need to enrol in Carnival Rewards and accept the programme’s terms and conditions to receive your full benefits.

You can do this by logging into Carnival.com, or by creating an account if you don’t already have one.

Former Platinum and Diamond members who haven’t enrolled must do so before the end of 2028 to receive the full transitional protections, subject to Carnival’s data-retention policies.

Your old VIFP number hasn’t disappeared, either. It has simply become your Carnival Guest Number, which you can continue using when booking and managing cruises.

Carnival Rewards Milestones

While Carnival Rewards is mainly based on spending, Carnival hasn’t completely abandoned the idea of rewarding guests for how many days they’ve spent at sea.

There’s a separate milestones programme, with special rewards when you reach certain numbers of days sailed.

Here’s what you’ll get:

50 days sailed:

• 5,000 bonus Carnival Rewards Points
• A special Sail & Sign card

100 days sailed, and every 100 days afterwards:

• 10,000 bonus Carnival Rewards Points
• Onboard recognition
• A special Sail & Sign card
• A commemorative coin
• Milestone onboard credit

500 days sailed, and every 100 days afterwards:

• All the benefits of the 100-day milestone
• A commemorative keepsake
• A commemorative gift

These benefits are awarded during the cruise when you reach the relevant milestone.

It’s a nice way for Carnival to continue recognising its longest-serving guests, even though the main loyalty programme is no longer based on how many days you’ve cruised.

Final Word

It’s a lot to remember, isn’t it?!

Regardless of whether you love the new system or you’re annoyed that Carnival has moved away from VIFP, if you’re planning on sailing with Carnival then it’s worth getting your head around how Carnival Rewards works.

It might not be your ideal loyalty programme, but there are some good opportunities to earn rewards through both Rewards Points and Status Qualifying Stars.

Of course, the biggest drawback for many guests is that loyalty status is no longer guaranteed for life, unless you qualified for Diamond under the old system. And depending on how much you spend, keeping Platinum or Diamond status could be quite difficult.

Just remember:

• For every $1 of eligible Carnival spending, you generally earn 3 Rewards Points and 3 Stars.
• Points can be redeemed against things like cruise fares and onboard purchases.
• Stars determine your loyalty status and the perks you receive when you sail.
• Your Stars reset with each new earning window, so most guests need to keep earning them to maintain their status.

Ultimately, whether Carnival Rewards works out better or worse for you will depend on how you cruise, how much you spend, and which benefits matter most to you.

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