Comp Cruises in 2026: Earn Free Cruises with Credit Card Rewards | Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast
Join host Justin Vacula and returning guest Marc Konchinsky on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast as they explain practical strategies to earn complimentary cruises in 2026.
Learn how to combine credit card points, casino loyalty programs, and MyVegas games to sail for little out-of-pocket cost.
Justin and Marc discuss how to:
Turn everyday spending into free or discounted cruises
Use MyVegas and MGM status for comp cruise offers
Stack credit card rewards with casino benefits
Status and offer match into additional cruises
Improve your odds of room upgrades and better offers over time
They also discuss recent changes to cruise offers, the current landscape of MGM status benefits, creative ways to upgrade cabins, and how upcoming events and meetups can help you level up your travel game.
Recorded December 10, 2025. Subscribe for more strategies to travel more while spending less.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast
00:45 Meet the Guest: Marc Konchinsky
02:22 Why Choose Cruises?
03:54 Earning Comp Cruises with MyVegas
07:30 Status Matching for Comp Cruises
09:02 Maximizing MGM Rewards for Cruises
13:13 Gambling and Credit Card Strategies on Cruises
17:33 Best Practices for Cruise Travel
21:04 Announcements and Upcoming Events
23:13 Conference Circuit and Meetup Growth
24:12 Comp Cruises in 2026 with Marc Konchinsky
24:26 Upgrading Rooms on Cruises
24:40 Bidding for Room Upgrades
31:38 MyVegas and Other Rewards Programs
33:53 Upcoming Credit Cards and Travel Plans
38:30 Cruising from Local Ports
42:01 Final Thoughts and Future Episodes
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Rough Transcript:
Theme Song: [00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures tales to be told, make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness. Pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.
Justin Vacula: You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you make money, save money, and travel the world in next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Returning guest Marc Konchinsky joins me today to talk about earning comp cruises in 2026.
Why should miles and points people want to cruise? What are some actionable ways to get comp cruises in 2026? Visit [00:01:00] meetup.com/philly miles and points to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and Points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetup is December 21st, 2025.
Also find social meetups in 2025 and beyond. This December I added Lancaster and Boston. Find a link in the show notes. For more content between shows follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and x. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips and posts.
Read articles I write at travelzork.com. For more information, including select podcast transcripts, go to HurdyGurdyTravel.com. on with today’s episode recorded December 10th, 2025. Welcome back to the show, Marc. Thank you for having me. Always good to be back. Yes, a [00:02:00] returning episode. This is maybe episode four or five.
You’ve been on, we’ve mentioned cruises in the past. So let’s revisit the topic recording today in December of 2025, to prepare people for 2026. How many cruises have you gone on this year? This year? Two and a third coming up? Yes. And for those on the fence about cruising or even opposed to cruising, why should listeners consider cruises?
Marc: I like cruises because all of your opportunities, all of the adventure kind of things are done in one. You’re not traveling and dealing with parking and all that kind of nightmare, like what to do, where to go, where to eat, all that kind of stuff. With a cruise, you’re picking from the best options.
And what do you feel like doing in that given moment?
Justin Vacula: Lots of food, lots of different destinations.
Marc: Shows and the hot tub and pool and everything else
Justin Vacula: running into me. Coincidentally in [00:03:00] The Bahamas
Marc: it was the MSC cruise and we were happened to be down at mass on the same time you were on a celebrity cruise.
On the silhouette.
Justin Vacula: The two ships arrived in the same place. Totally unplanned,
Marc: right? Absolutely. The Nassau is a very popular port to begin with, but to be there in the same day is really ironic.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, pretty funny. One big appeal for me is the ability to take comp cruises, often paying just taxes, tips and fees, sometimes even less than that.
Personally, I wouldn’t pay 1500 thousand to go on a cruise. I’ve seen some of those rates, but I’m happy to take the comp cruises and cruise at low cost Offers have come and gone, but we’ll discuss what’s possible and actual for 2026. We can also often match offers from one comp cruise. To another. So let’s start with an on-ramp.
How to get your first comp? Cruise? The MyVegas free to play mobile games Auto Spin to win. Deploy your phone Army. [00:04:00] They’ve been a reliable way to cruise at low cost. Currently in December of 2025, MyVegas is offering a comp Norwegian cruise from San Diego to Mexico, Yoho, Mexico, and a comp cruise to The Bahamas in addition to a $750 off voucher.
In the past there were comp cruises and discounts with celebrity, but they’ve come and gone. They’ll probably be back, would be my guess. For more about the My Vegas games, including gameplay and strategy, see my, my Vegas videos on my Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast, YouTube channel. Mark, what’s your experience with my Vegas and the My Vegas booked cruises?
Marc: So we’ve done my Vegas for the Brigada in Atlantic City and had overnight stays, free food vouchers, free gameplay. Free parking, although you can get a free parking on your own. And then also we’ve done the discounted promotion for Norwegian. So we did, Jade twice, actually two different cruises in the same ship.
Justin Vacula: By we you mean you and [00:05:00] your girlfriend Kelly, right?
Marc: Correct,
Justin Vacula: yes. So you’ve taken some of the My Vegas cruises with her?
Marc: Absolutely. So you’ll get an email that tells you a specific phone number to call you, talk to a real life human. Tell them what crews you want to go on and they’ll give you the offer.
There’ll be a discounted offer for your player. Two, they’ll be in the room with you and I’m guessing player three and four if you’ve got like the whole family going, and then you’ll book the cruises at the discounted price and go from there.
Justin Vacula: Earning the currency in the My Vegas games, I’ve talked about the phone Army doing this with multiple phones.
And I found it pretty easy to earn these loyalty points. Typically, the cruises will be a million loyalty points, sometimes more, sometimes less. At the time of recording in December, 2025, even after many redemptions, I’m sitting on 31 million of the gold coins or loyalty points, and this is just having the phones at home, spinning them, checking them on the go.
At times I think it’s [00:06:00] pretty easy to earn the points and I know your auto spinning to win as well.
Marc: If only they were worth real money, it would be such a nice little nest egg to build up.
Justin Vacula: I would gladly cash out my 31 million points for $3,100. So if you’re listening my Vegas, even if you want to give it out in gift cards, we’ll take it.
Marc: Absolutely.
Justin Vacula: We’ll make a business decision, that’s for sure. ’cause I think it’s so easy to earn the points so we can earn even more. And I went on some of them early on, I went on a Caribbean cruise with them. I went to Alaska even. So it was nice to have that opportunity that was from Vancouver to Alaska one way.
So I had to fly back from Alaska. That was a lot of flying in one day, but I think a pretty reliable way to earn a comp cruise through my Vegas.
Marc: Yes, I wanna say that some are discounted vouchers towards any career choice with that company, and some are very specific, probably low. They have probably a lot of availability.
You’ll [00:07:00] be able to actually book a cruise for free, just paying taxes and port fees.
Justin Vacula: In the past few years that you’ve been doing this, you’ve seen the cruise offers on there. They’re quite common, right?
Marc: Yes. Um, but the ones that I’ve taken, just because I have to request off from work, I’ve actually just used the voucher portion.
Justin Vacula: Okay. And you have options anyway. And if you go part-time or quit your job in 2026, then you’ll have even more time to cruise. You keep
Marc: saying
Justin Vacula: that. I’ve said that to Darren as well. Another way to get a comp cruise is through status matching at Ocean Casino in Atlantic City, no s no apostrophe S. It’s still not oceans, and it never was.
Ocean now gives a comp Virgin Voyages cruise, I think an upgrade from MSC after matching status or earning the ocean prime status. This time this year. And late in 2024, they added a change that you needed 250 tier points. So that’s going to be some [00:08:00] casino play, preferably in video poker and Ocean now limits matching to once every two years.
You’ll need status from a competitor’s casino to match to Ocean Prime status for this comp cruise. Previously, many had Caesar’s Diamond status through Founder’s Card or the Wyndham Business credit card. The War on Happiness hit and it’s no longer free Caesar’s Diamond status for everyone. With the Wyndham Business credit card, we would match status to hard rock for status with hard rock, used to be rock royalty and now icon, I believe, and then you would match that hard rock status to ocean Prime.
Now, hard rock also limits matching to once every two years, so it’s gotten a little bit more difficult on that front. But regular listeners should know that you can get MGM Gold status. And even MGM Platinum status from spending on MGM credit cards, the no annual fee. MGM MasterCard has been around for years, and this year they released the new MGM iconic credit card.
I’ve discussed earning MGM status [00:09:00] and these credit cards in past podcast episodes. And for a bonus, MGM Gold status now gives you a comp cruise. They added this in 2025 and platinum as usual offers. Another comp cruise. So Mark, what’s your experience with this? With Atlantic City and MGM?
Marc: Actually you took us around.
You were available and we were, had a MGM free night at pr and you took us around for the merry-go-round, as they call it. And we did the whole, I have a Windham business card and then we did that to, Caaesars. I had the MGM status. We went over to Hard Rock and then went over to Ocean.
Justin Vacula: Everything worked out and you got, at that time it was an MSC cruise with Ocean, right?
Marc: Yes. We really enjoyed that.
Justin Vacula: And now you’ve been working on getting MGM status independent of the status matching that was going on because you’ve had the MGM no annual fee card for some time, and you’re planning on applying for the MGM iconic card in December.
As of timer [00:10:00] recording, it’s a 45,000 point welcome offer compared to the previous 30,000. It’s gonna be even easier for you to get status and you even crushed it this year. You well out earned the 75,000 tier credits that you needed for MGM Gold status.
Marc: Yes, when my December, early December here closes, it will of the spend in already, just haven’t received the points yet to get to the next status.
Yes,
Justin Vacula: platinum, you’ll have platinum 200 K to your credits. Very doable. It’s easier for us in Pennsylvania. Having access to that MGM online, casino, Borgata, online casino, and other sites. But gold, I think very attainable for most.
Marc: Even regular folks who are not being creative find ways to get to gold, bring gas spend and grocery.
Justin Vacula: Yes. And one of those cruises, as we mentioned, can get you several cruises and we’ll get into that a little bit later. There’s also the Caesar status we mentioned. [00:11:00] You can earn Caesar status from play, particularly on a 10 x tier credit multiplier day. I discussed this with Darren in a previous episode.
Many falsely claim that the status matching game is dead, but we know that’s not the case because we can still earn status. It’s gonna take a little bit more effort than simply applying for a Barclays credit card and maybe maybe not sending in all kinds of identification and going through several phone calls to get approved.
But I think it’s still very doable and the MGM status proposition got even better as they added that comp cruise at gold this year, 2025. And they’re offering what they call reciprocal earning on top of the regular onboard credits and free play they offer too. Play on board with celebrity of Royal Caribbean and earn MGM Tier.
As you’re also earning with Celebrity and Royal Caribbean, you’re getting credit card spend in, you’re earning the MGM Tier and you’re potentially getting return offers [00:12:00] with Celebrity or Royal Caribbean and maybe, maybe, maybe you also get reward points or comps with MGM. So what do you think about this big stack with MGM?
Now,
Marc: I wanna say that MGM has the best program going in terms of rewarding their players. You actually feel appreciated.
Justin Vacula: You’ve done, I think zero gambling in person with MGM and you’ve still been able to get status thanks to the wonderful credit cards.
Marc: Correct.
Justin Vacula: Reach status even easier because we’ll earn tier from the play on board.
Marc: Yeah, double-dipping because you’re gonna do well with getting spend with Royal and then, or celebrity for that matter. And then also doubles dip with MGM itself.
Justin Vacula: All the stacking and as usual, the answer to everything is more credit cards. So having both MGM credit cards will make it even easier.
Unfortunately, it’s only one signup bonus per year, so if you’ve had that no annual fee card, it’s been more than a year, you’re welcome to apply for the Iconic. But if you’re new to this, you [00:13:00] get the Iconic, then you’re gonna have to wait a year to get the no annual fee card. And I like having both more credit limit, more opportunities for spending and even more benefits.
And
Marc: that’s why
Justin Vacula: I’m gonna
Marc: go for the Iconic. Now
Justin Vacula: more MGM. I think another interesting part of cruising is the ability to essentially gamble with credit directly or indirectly. Basically charge to your room or folio with credit, and for the most part, incur no fees at machines like video poker. Sometimes fees at the tables, sometimes not.
It’s a great opportunity to spend on a bonus travel category on a card with statement credits or points bonuses for cruise companies. Or even reach a signup bonus or a high spend goal. If you lack spend and don’t have cards, bonusing cruises. You might also get the best of both worlds where you have that travel multiplier or cruise multiplier in a certain bonus category, and you’re working on a signup bonus or a high spend goal.
What’s your experience with this mark?
Marc: On my MSC cruise, there’s using the US Bank [00:14:00] Altity Reserve to have my gambling become earning towards. The four X category for that,
Justin Vacula: the 4.5% with the altitude reserve, correct? Yep. Alright. But the war on happiness struck and that card’s being devalued or already has been devalued.
So I downgraded, I have the Altitude Connect card, so that’s gonna be 4% cash back on cruises. So pretty close to the 4.5 we were getting with the altitude reserve. The Chase Sapphire Reserve lost its three x for cruises, so now the Chase Sapphire Preferred should give two x on cruises. A nice opportunity here if we’re giving up a little bit to the house, but we’re overtaking that in credit card rewards.
I think it’s a fantastic opportunity.
Marc: Oh, definitely. Absolutely.
Justin Vacula: Another good part of the gambling on cruises is getting return offers after the cruise is sometimes even onboard. Offers like spa time, massages, food upgrades and more. There were times I went back to my room and I would see a note on the door, [00:15:00] something on the bed.
Oh, compliments the casino. Here’s this invitation or free thing, and I’ve been getting many of these return offers with celebrity. They still come in the mail, they still come in email, and it’s been months since I last cruised with them. I had the Travel Hackers dilemma strike recently because I got an invitation to cruise in Greece and that I don’t think I’ve seen before, and I’d like to go there.
It’s a new location or a new cruise location. I’ve been on land in Greece, staying there in Athens. But I haven’t cruised around or from Greece, but unfortunately, or fortunately, I have an Australia trip booked at that same time. So I’m hoping for different mail offers for different destinations. So from going on one with a comp offer, gambling, playing video poker around 8,000, 9,000 in play through, I keep getting these return offers.
So even more stacking there,
Marc: they’re just hoping you’re gonna change your mind and start playing the slots.
Justin Vacula: Hold the [00:16:00] line. Say no to slots. Just say no. Matches with cruises have come and gone. This year. I matched my MGM Booked Celebrity Balcony offer from the platinum status to many companies, including Princess Virgin Voyages and Margaritaville at Sea.
We’re recording this podcast on the 10th. I’m gonna be cruising on the 12th. In the past, I also match to Carnival. You can check cruise company websites. For these offer matches or even email accrue casino rep, I matched with Princess through email and to my knowledge, this wasn’t publicly advertised, but they still gave me the comp cruise anyway, at the time of recording December 10th.
Norwegian is also offer matching, but only for first time cruisers is my understanding. Dave Grossman at Miles Talk, he wrote, you can submit a land-based casino, offer a free cruise offer. Even just a high tier loyalty card from a casino. Visit CasinosAtSea.com. That’s [00:17:00] CasinosAtSea.com. Mark, what’s been your experience with the cruise matching?
Marc: Just because I have the full-time job, it’s limited by how much cruise I can do, so we’ve just been, just had enough going on with the cruises that we’ve done discounted through my Vegas and the free cruise from MSC. This past year, so haven’t really been looking for more opportunities yet.
Justin Vacula: In the MGM Gold Cruise, you’re going to take shortly?
Marc: Yes. So that we do that with Royal Caribbean. We have a three night cruise planned.
Justin Vacula: And let’s talk about some best practices. Personally, I arrive at a hotel the night before the cruise. I don’t want a chance flying out the same day a flight is delayed or canceled, and I miss the cruise ship. What’s been your experience with that?
Marc: Yes. That’s the general practice that they suggest is that to arrive a day early to allow for, mechanical difficulty on your flight or weather delays or anything like that. And whereas a lot of people who do [00:18:00] this, like they’re traveling for a crew, they’ll fly in like late, they’ll be one of the, like an evening flight.
They’ll come in and then stay over at a hotel, and Kelly and I have been making that part of the adventure. So we’ll try to get the first flight out the morning before. Then actually enjoyed the city we’re traveling to. So we actually flew in early to Miami. When we did the Norwegian cruise, we did the five day with them and we stayed for, we went down a day early, went first thing, enjoyed Miami, and then also did an extra day after the cruise and stayed over Miami and really had a lot of fun there.
And then again, when we did this Alaskan cruise with Norwegian we flew into Vancouver. Actually I drove, we drove down to Washington Dulles from our house here in Pennsylvania. Drove down to Washington D to fly direct with no layovers, just to make it faster to get to Vancouver and enjoy the day there.
And then we had the cruise in Seattle and we took one of the last flights out of there [00:19:00] going back to Dulles to enjoy Seattle as well.
Justin Vacula: I like the day after too. There were times where I would get off the cruise ship around noon. And there weren’t many flights for that day. This happened in London.
Most of the flights from London to Boston where I was returning to, they were early morning flights. And for me to try to rush to get off the ship and get to the airport seemed like a recipe for a disaster. So I stayed in the London area or outside. It was South Hampton, and then went to the airport the following day.
So that was nice, not rushing. Usually I just wait on the ship. In those cases, some people try to get off really early. I’ll wait for the last call. I’ll hang out in the lounge area, let the rideshare area clear out. It’s usually pretty difficult getting rideshare after the cruises. It’s very crowded and those one night stays.
I think it’s very doable. Even using Wyndham points and just staying at a really cheap property, or maybe [00:20:00] you have an expiring certificate to use with Hyatt. Or Hilton. I tend to save my Hilton free night certificates for some ritzier properties. When the cheaper options, the cheaper points options aren’t so available.
But there were times where the area was a really expensive one, and I ended up using a Hyatt certificate for a category four, and I thought that was a pretty good use of the cert.
Marc: I do like the idea of making it part of the adventure. You figure you’re already there, you’re already at the.
Destination. If it’s a one way or round trip cruise, you’re already there. You’ve already, essentially you’re paying to fly or drive there. You might as well enjoy that particular city before you go on your cruise or after you come back from your cruise.
Justin Vacula: And if you’re flying to California, you can always stop in Las Vegas on the way if you’re coming from the East Coast.
For a future trip, I’m going to be staying in Las Vegas and then flying out. So take a little bit of a break from flying. Not do too much. In one day, we’ll take a short break for [00:21:00] announcements and we’ll get back to listener questions and feedback. I’ll be speaking at and helping organize a frequent Traveler University event in Irving, Texas near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.
Join me May 1st through the third 2026 at the Nylo Las Colins Hotel by Hilton for social events and educational sessions. Ticket sales are live $200 for FTU members. $249 for non-members. You can also grab an FTU annual membership for online courses, virtual seminars, member perks, event discounts, and more.
The next virtual seminar is December 13th. Please use my affiliate link in the show notes for membership and conference tickets. Mark, will we see you in Dallas? May 1st through the third, but I’m already busy with all my
Marc: cruises in top.
Justin Vacula: The travel hacker’s dilemma exactly. Strikes again.
Marc: Along with having a full-time job, it’s kind tough.
2026,
Justin Vacula: only get put my days off. [00:22:00] 2026. This episode is supported by card pointers. If you have multiple credit cards, like me and Mark card pointers helps you automatically activate bank offers it knows which card to use. For maximum rewards card pointers saves me time and money. Use my link card pointers.com/herty.
Gerdy travel for a discount on annual and lifetime plans. I also host monthly travel and points meetups in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Our next meetup is December 21st, 2025. If you’re local or wanna make the trip, it’s a fun, casual way to talk point strategies. Meet like-minded travelers and share ideas.
RSVP at meetup.com/philly. Miles and points. In addition to meetings, check for new social events. Stay tuned for events in January and beyond. Mark, you went to an early meetup and you got to experience the wonder that is the giant in Willow Grove, America’s favorite Chinese food.
Marc: In
Justin Vacula: Giant. In Giant. That’s what the menu used to say in Giant.
Now it says Inside Giant. Also [00:23:00] Super Hong Kong chef, but a mountain of food for $10 ish and redeeming grocery rewards for Chinese food remains one of my favorite redemptions.
Marc: And it’s good Chinese food too. It’s not like it’s not
Justin Vacula: bad. It’s your, it’s good stuff. Always fresh order from the menu, not the case.
And a nice room. The conference center we have upstairs, we have a private room. Very spacious. Last meetup we had about 15 to 20 people. So we’re getting bigger as time goes on.
Marc: Absolutely. It’s just a little too far for me personally, to drive ’cause I’m about two hours away from that. So it’s, it is a little tough.
Justin Vacula: What if we offer you free ice cream from Weiss?
Marc: Yeah. I don’t have my local Weiss. I’ll have the ice cream deal.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. War unhappiness. No ice cream for you. You must pay the toll, pay the ice cream toll. Pretty much. Pretty much. Maybe get three X on Chase Sapphire Reserve, maybe not.
Marc: Yeah. For those out of the area, Weiss does have their own brand that ice cream we’re talking about, and they’ll have a deal where you can redeem a hundred points in some of their stores for the ice cream.
And they [00:24:00] have a remarkable number of flavors and they’re actually not bad.
Justin Vacula: Moose tracks included. Yeah. Strange. Although I did get in trouble one time for bringing in ice cream and they said, oh, you should be bringing in outside stuff. Alright, back to the episode. We’re recording today talking about Comp Cruises in 2026 with returning guest Mark Ksky.
Let’s move on to the listener questions and feedback. Podcast listener and supporter Michael Traeger of Travel. Zork asks, what if you want to upgrade to a better room, type on a cruise. Is this an okay deal? What do you think, mark?
Marc: We’ve done it on both in Norwegian cruises. We actually end up taking the upgrade.
They’re basically. Send a email out to you and you’ll have the opportunity to look at different room types that are higher up than yours, obviously. And there’s a sliding scale, and then the little meter tells you how likely you are to get the room based on what you’re offering. So it goes from poor to fair to good, and then to like [00:25:00] excellent.
Basically, based on what you’re willing to offer per person for the crews. We’ve always the two times we’ve done it so far. We’ve done very low offers and picked up both opportunities, which means that they had fewer people who were willing to bid at all. They much have an extra capacity. And also for this upcoming rural Caribbean cruises, there were a remarkable, like four or five rooms you could choose from both ocean view upgrades and also balcony upgrades.
And we just bid for the two different ocean view upgrades very little, just because. It’s not that big of a deal to us. It’s a very short cruise, so I’m not I’m spending a whole lot of money to, to get a fancier room, but it’s been fun
Justin Vacula: on the past cruises, do you remember what it costs to go from something like interior to ocean view or interior to balcony?
Marc: I wanna say, we did a five day on the Norwegian jade in Miami that went to The Bahamas. [00:26:00] And I want to say we got, we went from our regular. Ocean view room to which we paid for, ’cause that was a discounted voucher from my Vegas. We paid, I want to say $65 per person, so $130 essentially.
Justin Vacula: Oh, not bad.
Marc: To a club balcony suite, oh, wow.
Even better. Yeah. It was like two tiers up basically. And then we spent, it was, I believe, $90 per person for the balcony on the region J again. So happened to be the same ship to Alaska. And but that was really nice because Alaska and balconies go together here in the van.
Justin Vacula: Yes. You get to see the glaciers or other sites outside of the room, maybe some wildlife or ocean marine life spotting.
And it’s also a bigger room, not just the view.
Marc: Correct. You actually have a separate seating area with on a Norwegian ship. Separate seating area and a draw shade in between the two. So if one person in your [00:27:00] room wants to stay up late, like watching tv, then the other person can still be sleeping or napping.
Justin Vacula: And what about at Booking? Have you ever made a room upgrade at Booking?
Marc: Really only did when you’re making the initial call, when you’re using a voucher from my Vegas, because they’ll, it’ll be like 500 or seven 50 or a thousand dollars off a cruise. So it’s a matter of whatever you wanna book. They can tell you what the overall cost will be, whereas the bidding for upgrades is probably the better return on your investment.
You are offering something less than what they’re charging. It doesn’t matter whether it’s good enough for them to call on you.
Justin Vacula: A little bit of a risk with the bidding, where if you bid and it said maybe fair or good and you really, really wanted that balcony, you just might not get it if other people bid more or people actually straight up pay.
Marc: Correct. Kelly and I with a discussion about what’s it worth to you, as we’re making our little slide scale bids, they will pick you anywhere up [00:28:00] to and including the day of departure. So you actually might arrive there and have to quick make, they’ll give you like handwritten luggage tags to tag your bags to the right room.
You might find out you won your upgrade at that point, but there’s no harm in bidding because if you. Are not chosen, they won’t be charging a credit.
Justin Vacula: Okay. So at least, probably at least bid 25, $50. Some like low ball.
Marc: There will be a minimum as to what you could bid.
Justin Vacula: So the minimum might be that 25 or 50 50 or 75.
Marc: Correct. We are only throwing in bids on two different upgraded ocean view rooms. So for the ocean view rooms where one was like larger and we’re bidding $30 per person. Then for one that’s expansive. Apparently, I’ve never been on a Royal Caribbean ship to, to know the difference as far as that goes.
That one we paid $35 person, so we’ll, 70, 70 bucks essentially, or 60, and [00:29:00] we’ll see what happens. We just figured if we win it, great being, it’s a three day cruise, three nights, three night cruise. If we win it, great, we don’t win it. No big deal.
Justin Vacula: And with the MGM Platinum offer, you’re automatically getting the balcony offer so you don’t have to play all.
Those games and you just get the balcony and then you could use that to offer match in the future as well and potentially not have to bid. I got the balcony with Princess and with Margaritaville at sea. I’m on the islander ship and I have the, I believe it’s called the terrace or the equivalent to a balcony, and with virgin voyages.
I also had a balcony room that had a hammock, so the MGM Platinum matching to others. Very valuable.
Marc: Absolutely, and we’re just bidding on essentially two larger sizes of Ocean View room, what we have. But there, the balconies were available to bid on as well. It’s just not worth it to us. And again, when you go on a Royal Carribean and a celebrity balcony cruise, you’ll have the opportunity to bid on
Justin Vacula: [00:30:00] larger balconies than the one that gave you the next question.
Michael Traeger asks Any way to get elevated cruises? With companies like Seaborn or Silver Sea,
Marc: two different places I’m not familiar with. I’d have to look it up.
Justin Vacula: I think that’s a, no, I haven’t seen those before, but celebrity I think was pretty good. Virgin Voyages was pretty good. I’ve cruised with Holland America as well.
Maybe they’re a little bit more in the middle, but for those, I haven’t seen any comp cruises. Another question, he notes sometimes you have to do something else to get a cruise. In the past, win Las Vegas offered a status match and a cruise comp, but you needed to stay two nights at win-loss Vegas for a comp cruise.
Many including myself, did that. We went to win. We did the status match, gave a comp cruise with a two night stay and a $150 birthday dining credit past [00:31:00] podcast guest, Mandy joining me for that. My birthday in the month of September. Hers was in October, so we got to. Have the wind buffet twice, going in September, going in October.
So that was pretty cool and we got two cruise offers out of that. So what do you think, stay two nights and get a comp cruise? I’ve also used the FHR benefits to get $300 off. I think that was a really good deal.
Marc: Absolutely. Discounted or free travel and free crews. How can you go wrong?
Justin Vacula: Maybe some other offers like that where you have to do something else to get the comp.
Cruise Ocean we mentioned, changed their terms a bit, where now you have to gamble a little bit to get the cruise and of course the My Vegas games are requiring a little bit of effort to actually quote unquote, play the games. To run the setup. And can you talk a little bit more about your MyVegas daily or mostly daily routine?
Marc: Just [00:32:00] because some of the games are not really auto playing for me, I just tend to just log in and have bingo going. I’m not traveling as much as you, so I’m not gonna go through my points in general as much. So Bingo is the only one I consistently play.
Justin Vacula: Yes, the My Vegas Bingo game, you just have to be in the lobby to earn points.
For me. Blackjack is often reliable, just sitting in the lobby, but that times out occasionally. Then the My Vegas mobile, my Konami, I can run those. My konami, I usually just run on browser. And then on my main phone I have the Tetris game too. Simply opening gift boxes to get bonus gold coins logging in to get bonus gold coins.
Pop slots and MGM are also on my phone as well. Five games on my main phone, and then the rest of them in the phone. Army. I think at worst you could even just run the bingo game while sleeping, not actually playing Bingo. You wake up and then you’ve earned your allotment for the day. [00:33:00] But getting cheap phones, HSN and QVC have been common ones.
You found many deals with them, and I’ve seen cheap smartphones, a Dollar General, and Walmart. So if you’re paying something like 25 or $30 for a smartphone, I think it’s an incredible investment if that’s gonna get you that comp cruise in the future.
Marc: Folks could even start with their older, retired phones.
If they have something with a crack screen and they might have moved on as a personal phone, they still have life in them and you can just plug them in and use them as the start of the phone. Army.
Justin Vacula: Yes, you just need wifi tablets can work. Dell laptops, all those Dell credits out there, you can do a lot and accumulate points.
I still actively play. I’m around 31 million. In the past there have been gift card cash outs and other rewards they add to the game. So I wouldn’t want to miss out should they introduce new rewards to the game. Alright, closing out some upcoming credit cards for you. You’ve mentioned the MGM Iconic you’re [00:34:00] going to apply for in coming days.
Any other ideas for upcoming credit cards?
Marc: Most folks wouldn’t have it on the radar, but I think for us as at this point in the game. That becomes the more important of any card to apply for is the one that’s gonna give you a free cruise or, or make it easier to cruise for free. And also the newer Atmos card,
Justin Vacula: the Atmos summit card with Bank of America.
Marc: Yeah, that, that’s the one that might be appealing. I have to look at more of the details about that, but definitely iconic for sure.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. Nice for you. I think mostly flying outta Philadelphia, taking domestic flights. A lot of code shared flights where you can book with. Alaska points or miles, but then you’re flying with American.
I’ve seen many really cheap flights out to Las Vegas. Certainly a mandatory trip for you in 2026.
Marc: Yes, and I wanna say American has been difficult to come up with points. There’s not a whole lot of different offers and bonuses for them, so
Justin Vacula: just lots [00:35:00] of spending on city credit cards and the Barclays a business, if you.
Have had it. I think that’s not open for applications, but I could be mistaken. And Barclays is supposed to move out of the AA landscape in 2026.
Marc: RIP Barclays.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. War on Happiness. We’ll see what happens with that. Any predictions for 2026 or maybe something you would like to see in terms of comp cruises?
Marc: I think that it’ll make it probably more challenging, unfortunately, to get, oh no,
Justin Vacula: they’ve given away too much. Exactly. We’ve ruined it all. We’ve killed all the deals.
Marc: MGM is full force, but it does seem the my Vegas games require more effort. Ocean requires more effort.
The Hard Rock requires more effort. Now. It’s not that it’ll be like eliminated completely, but they just wanna make sure that they’re not being abused, which makes sense.
Justin Vacula: Yes, you might have to go the Dave Ramsey route. He was encouraging his fans to [00:36:00] pay something like $2,000 in cash money to cruise. When we’re on here talking about saving money, he wants you to spend that $2,000 or so.
Don’t you know, mark that the banks, you’re a slave to the banks mark. And I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re just going into debt. You love debt. What are you doing, mark?
Marc: Exactly. No reply. You’re spinning the wind. You’re getting discounted cruising. You’re always saving money over paying what the average newbie gonna pay.
If you work hard and you know you wanna enjoy yourself, you only go around the world once. So you know, why not do it for free or discounting rates.
Justin Vacula: And of course, don’t get into debt with credit cards. Pay balances in full, don’t overspend. I maintain my frugal cred.
And it’s interesting with the comp cruises, because you have much of what people consider fine dining on the cruises that’s included. So instead of on land paying a hundred, $150 for a [00:37:00] so-called nice meal, you can have many of these experiences on cruises, on comp cruises.
Marc: Absolutely.
Justin Vacula: You spent a lot of time in the main dining room on these cruises.
How was that experience for you?
Marc: Main dining’s been nice. Sometimes it takes a little longer than you, you might want, so you might hit the buffet. And we’ve also done some of the more premium dining with package from Princess, which I think you’ve done here at this point. I got a bunch of fancy desserts and whatnot, but I found
Justin Vacula: Great value in the princess packages.
I’ll give them credit for that. I remember paying something like 60 or $80 a day for their packages and it included wifi gratuities. Dining upgrades, photos, upgraded meals and other perks. The princess prizes, random chances to win freebies like that spa time, free play and so on. So I give them a lot of credit.
Marc: Yeah. Kelly won, actually won a hundred dollars onboard cruise voucher too. So [00:38:00] apply that to our wind charges,
Justin Vacula: which was nice. Oh wow. So offsetting. Some of the excursions or wifi if that package wasn’t included on that one.
Marc: Absolutely.
Justin Vacula: A thing you’d like to see in 2026 for cruises.
Marc: Probably more activities that don’t require a fee.
They do like bingo where you’re paying money. We were on a carnival cruise and they were like teaching the thriller dance, which was interesting just for a free day, during the day activity. That was nice. So things that don’t cost additional funds,
Justin Vacula: maybe some cruises out of Philadelphia.
There was an announcement that cruises will be coming outta that Philadelphia port, I think with only one cruise line so far. So maybe other cruise companies will arrive or depart from Philadelphia.
Marc: I do follow. It’s could be Norwegian, cruising out that port. They’re not gonna use it year round. There’s a bit of a issue getting like from the airport or from center City.
To the cruise ports. I’m interested to see if SEPTA plans on adding any bus routes or other [00:39:00] ways to get from the various points in the city to the cruise port, because that way they would be able to very easily have more folks go on the cruise rather than everyone having to hire like Uber and Lyft
Justin Vacula: or maybe some sort of bus or shuttle.
Marc: Correct. That’s a hundred percent what I’m suggesting. I think that’d be very good.
Justin Vacula: Maybe some cruises from Boston. I’ve definitely stopped in Boston before, but haven’t cruised out of Boston. Usually a quick flight from Philly to Boston on JetBlue. Take the MBTA, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority.
Maybe say hi to past podcast guest Purple Princess Perry from the Netflix show. Love on the Spectrum riding the tee and potentially cruising. From Boston. Nice to see some local stuff for us in Pennsylvania as we’re usually flying out to Florida. Flying out to California or Vancouver.
Marc: Yes, but it is much easier and more stress free if you are departing from a local port.
So for us here on the east coast [00:40:00] living where Justin I do of you can easily get to Manhattan and Brooklyn. And then also Cape Liberty or Port Liberty. Then, of course Baltimore is not that far of a driver either, so it’s very convenient now Philadelphia joining the choices. That’ll be great,
Justin Vacula: and possibly taking Amtrak as well, maybe going to Center City and taking the Amtrak to New York rather than paying the really high, typically really high parking costs in New York.
Marc: Yes, we did the $45 a day in Brooklyn.
Justin Vacula: Oh my god. It was ridiculous. A y
Marc: Yeah. But actually even for us here ’cause I live in Lehigh Valley area, for us, there is a busing company that if you drive to Lehigh Valley Airport and park in their parking garage, lot, you actually can hire a bus service that takes to Manhattan now that only certain crews come are cruising from Manhattan.
But it’s a nice little spec, nice little offer because basically you’re, you are paying for parking, but it’s insecure lot obviously. [00:41:00] And then once you’re on the bus, you can now relax and not deal with driving in Manhattan.
Justin Vacula: So maybe some improvements and ew driving in New York. Right? So avoiding all that and the tolls to get there I think was like, one of them was like a $16 toll or a tunnel fee.
Marc: Oh, those surge things they’re doing, aren’t they? That’s cameras. If they’re just surge, like the camera watching will drive through and then attaching it to your license plate.
Justin Vacula: Oh, it keeps getting worse, huh? Crazy. Yeah, absolutely. Actually, there’s no fun in New York past podcast Guest Decker, please leave New York.
Leave New York. 2026. Leave New York. All right, the winds. The winds continue though I think a lot of wins in 2025. I’ve cruised seven times and we’ll take the eighth cruise shortly after recording this episode. Wanted to get this out before flying away. So stay tuned for some of those cruise videos on the Her Gerdy Travel podcast, YouTube channel.
And please comment, have you gone on cruises in 2025? What was your experience? Do you have any cruises planned for 2026? We’d like to hear from you [00:42:00] in the YouTube comments. Thanks everyone for listening, and mark any other thoughts as we come to the end here?
Marc: No, I think it’s about it. Thanks for having me.
I always happy to join your show.
Justin Vacula: Thanks everyone for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. For more content between shows, follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and x. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips and posts.
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