Most cruise lines have some form of loyalty program, designed to encourage you to rebook with the same cruise line again and again.
Celebrity Cruises also has a second loyalty scheme, specifically for the casino – the Blue Chip Club.
The Blue Chip Club works differently from Celebrity’s Captain’s Club, with different ways of earning points and a lot of (potentially confusing) terms you need to be aware of.
So in this guide, I’ll explain everything you need to know about the Blue Chip Club and what you get in each tier.
Celebrity Blue Chip Club Explained
The Celebrity Cruises Blue Chip Club is a rewards program for guests who play in the casino. It is designed to encourage guests to play, offering them several rewards as they progress through the tiers, including benefits for the casino and for the cruise in general.
The only way to earn points for the Blue Chip Club is to spend at the casino onboard your ship, and the more you spend, the higher up the rankings you can climb
How To Join Celebrity Cruises’ Blue Chip Club
All guests who scan their SeaPass when playing games at the casino are automatically signed up for the Blue Chip Club. You don’t need to actively sign up to be enrolled. Any time you use your SeaPass you will accumulate points to your Blue Chip Club account.
Once you’ve completed a cruise and earned at least one point in the Blue Chip Club, your SeaPass on future cruises will display your tier level, immediately after your Captain’s Club membership tier.
To be absolutely clear, the Captain’s Club and Blue Chip Club are not linked. They’re completely separate and you’ll have different membership numbers for each.
The only time you’ll see your tiers together is when printed on your SeaPass.
Blue Chip Club Levels
There are six membership tiers in the Celebrity Cruises Blue Chip Club. The most basic is Pearl, followed by Onyx, Amethyst, Sapphire, Sapphire Plus, and then Ruby.
Each tier comes with different benefits to use on the cruise and in the casino.
Pearl
Points Required – 1
Pearl is the basic membership tier for the Blue Chip Club. When you are a Pearl member, you’ll get:
- The chance to use Redeemable Points for free casino play
- Invitations to casino-only events
Onyx
Points Required – 2,500
Onyx is the second tier for the Blue Chip Club. As an Onyx member, you get the same perks as a Pearl member, along with:
- Waived credit card cash advance fees – withdraw cash using your credit card for use in the casino without the additional fees
Amethyst
Points Required – 25,000
Once you reach Amethyst level in the Blue Chip Club, you start to unlock a much longer list of perks. You’ll get everything in the Onyx level, along with:
- Free play credit on every sailing – either $100 or 5% of the amount you spent in the casino on your last cruise, whichever is bigger
- Priority embarkation for your cruise
- 60 minutes of free internet access per cruise
- An unlimited digital photo package for your cruise
- The chance to enjoy an Annual Cruise Benefit (free or discounted cruises)
Sapphire
Points Required – 100,000
As you get to the Sapphire level, your benefits improve significantly once again. You’ll get everything in Amethyst, as well as:
- Upgraded free play credit – either $500 or 10% of the amount you spent in the casino on your last cruise, whichever is bigger
- One free internet package for your cruise (instead of the 60 minutes of free access, you don’t get both)
- A Classic Beverage Package for your cruise
- An invite to a Casino Host event onboard
- Access to the VIP Lounge on the ship
- Shoreside Concierge services for help booking your cruise and activities before you sail
Blue Chip Club members enjoyed an exclusive whiskey tasting featuring Jack Daniel's Sinatra Select and food pairings onboard #CelebrityReflection.
— Celebrity Cruises (@CelebrityCruise) April 9, 2019
Join the Blue Chip Club today for access to special events like this and other benefits: https://t.co/ZdmSChG4zb pic.twitter.com/n9nomQ9x4G
Sapphire Plus
Points Required – 500,000
Sapphire Plus doesn’t introduce any new perks upon reaching this tier, but a couple do get upgraded:
- Free play of $1,000 or 10% of the amount you spent on your last cruise
- A Premium Beverage Package for your cruise
Ruby
Points Required – 1,000,000
Ruby is the top tier of the Blue Chip Club. It includes everything in the earlier tiers, but with a couple of additional or upgraded perks:
- Upgraded free play credit – either $2,500 or 15% of the amount you spent in the casino on your last cruise, whichever is bigger
- 2 free internet packages for your cruise
- Gratuities paid for your cruise
How Tier Points Work
To climb the rankings of the Blue Chip Club, you need to earn Tier Points.
However, you have to do so within an earnings period – once you reach the end of a period, your points are wiped out. Though, you’ll remain at the tier you were at previously, provided you have at least gambled in the casino once.
You earn Tier Points in the following ways:
- $1 wagered on slots = 1 Tier Point
- $2 wagered on video poker = 1 Tier Point
- $1 wagered on table games = 8 Tier Points
It’s all about how much you wager, not how much you lose. If you were the luckiest person in the casino, you could wager the same $1 on slot machines, constantly winning it back, and you’d be racking up the Tier Points without losing any money.
In reality, cruise ship casino slots tend to have a fixed payout somewhere around 90%, though it can vary. So you’re pretty much guaranteed to lose out if you continue playing.
With video poker it’s similar, and with table games, it all comes down to your luck and knowledge of the game.
Here’s a guide to how much you must wager to reach each tier. You have to wager this within an earning period, so you usually have a maximum of 18 months.
| Tier | Slots | Video poker | Table games |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pearl | $1 | $2 | $1 |
| Onyx | $2,500 | $5,000 | $313 |
| Amethyst | $25,000 | $50,000 | $3,125 |
| Sapphire | $100,000 | $200,00 | $12,500 |
| Sapphire Plus | $500,000 | $1,000,000 | $62,500 |
| Ruby | $1,000,000 | $2,000,000 | $125,000 |
Moving Between Tiers
It’s a little confusing if you’re used to the way the Captain’s Club works, so I’ll work through an example.
Earnings periods typically last for 18 months but can be extended. Let’s assume that an earnings period runs from January 2024 until June 2025.
If you have never cruised with Celebrity before, you will become a member at the Pearl level after you earn your first point.
If you then earn 2,500 points before June 2025, you’ll move up to Onyx immediately, and earn those benefits.
However, if you earn only 2,499 points, then you will remain at Pearl, and from July 2025 you’ll have to earn another 2,500 points to reach Onyx.
Now, let’s say you’re in Onyx already before the earning period begins.
If you earn between 1 point and 24,999 points within that earning period, you’re still classed as an active player, and you’ll remain at Onyx level once the earnings period ends.
However, if you don’t gamble on a Celebrity cruise at all in that 18-month window, you’ll be demoted to Pearl.
You can only be demoted by one tier at a time. So if you were Ruby and you took an 18-month break from cruising, you wouldn’t fall all the way to Pearl – just back to Sapphire Plus.
How Redeemable Points Work
Redeemable Points are separate from Tier Points in the Blue Chip Club, but they are earned in a similar way. Redeemable Points are points that you can earn and then ‘spend’ on a cruise to claim rewards.
You earn Redeemable Points slower than you would Tier Points, and you don’t earn them for playing table games.
The values are:
- $5 wagered on slots = 1 Redeemable Point
- $10 wagered on video poker = 2 Redeemable Points
You can trade Redeemable Points for various goods and services mainly in the casino, including free slot plays or promotional chips for table play. You can redeem 50 points for $1 of free play, though there’s a minimum redemption of $5.
So once you’ve wagered $1,250 on slots, you’ll have earned 250 Redeemable Points, which you can then trade in for a free $5 slot machine credit.
It might not sound like much – a free $5 in exchange for having wagered $1,250 – but it’s free.
How To Get A Free Cruise With Casino Points
While you can earn free cruises with the Blue Chip Club, it’s not something you can redeem with a set number of points.
Instead, once you reach Amtheyst level, you be eligible for an Annual Cruise Benefit, which can include either discounted fares or the offer of free cruises.
Celebrity Cruises will contact you, typically via mail or email, and offer you a selection of options. Bear in mind that you’ll still have to pay port fees and taxes even on a free cruise.
The offers you’re given will be based on how much you play in the casino, so they’re loosely tied to your points, but basically, the more you play, the more likely Celebrity Cruises will be to offer you a free cruise.
How To Contact the Blue Chip Club on Celebrity Cruises
If you need to contact the Blue Chip Club on Celebrity Cruises, you can email [email protected].
If you live in the US or you don’t mind dialling internationally, you can also call +1 866-461-7170 from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 7 pm EST.
The cruise line’s website does say that they are in the process of developing a web portal to let guests check their tier, but they expect it to be live “by the end of 2018”. So it’s a little overdue to say the least…
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Blue Chip Club FAQs
Currently, you can’t use any Blue Chip Club benefits in the casino on Royal Caribbean ships, though the cruise lines have said that they are open to exploring this in future. Currently, the benefits in Royal Caribbean’s casinos and Celebrity Cruises’ casinos remain separate.
It is possible to earn comps – complimentary drinks and other items – during your cruise. These are separate from the benefits in the Blue Chip Club and are issued by the casino staff at their discretion. The Blue Chip Club doesn’t overrule any comps.
You can’t save Redeemable Points between cruises – you have to redeem them on that particular cruise, so it makes sense to trade them all in before the last night of your sailing so you can make use of them.
Final Word
I’ll be honest, Celebrity’s information around the Blue Chip Club is a little sparse, and the information they do have can be a little dated.
I even spoke to the cruise line to clarify a couple of points in this post and their response included phrases like “I believe” and “it seems”, so I’m not sure the customer service team were 100% confident in the answers!
Still, this guide should clear it up for you, and so if you do want to use the casino when you’re on a Celebrity cruise, you now know that extra perks and benefits you can earn, and how to do so.
Related Posts:
- Victory Casino Cruises – Everything You Need To Know
- Celebrity Cruises Concierge Class Benefits
- Celebrity Cruise Stock Benefits Explained
Jenni Fielding is the founder of Cruise Mummy. She has worked in the cruise industry since 2015 and has taken over 30 cruises. Now, she helps over 1 million people per month to plan their perfect cruise holidays.
