Lessons from another “free” cruise booked: Holland America via Wynn Platinum status

In April and May, there was a limited-time status match available to match from Caesars Diamond status to Wynn Rewards Platinum status. That was really notable for a few reasons: First, Caesars Diamond is easy-to-get; you only need to get the Wyndham Earner Business credit card (which has just a $95 annual fee) and then you can match the Wyndham Diamond status given to Wyndham Business cardholders to Caesars Diamond status and that made it possible to match to Wynn Platinum. Second, Wynn doesn’t often offer status matches (before this one, we last saw a match in 2021). Third, and the crux of today’s post, is that Wynn offers an opportunity for Platinum members to get a complimentary Holland America cruise. My wife and I both did the match in Las Vegas last month; this week, we booked two 2025 cruises (one each) using the Wynn Rewards offer. I’m happy to report that it was easy as pie to book this offer — and in the process, I learned a few interesting things that are worth knowing if you did this match (or ever get an opportunity to do one in the future).

The Wynn status match (which is no longer available)

The status match opportunity at Wynn Las Vegas is no longer available. That might make this post seem worthless for those who didn’t do the match while it was available. It’s true that if you didn’t take advantage of this when we posted about it (you can read full details of how the match worked here), then you can’t do it right now. I still think there were some takeaways from this offer that might be worth knowing for anyone who wants to engage in the status matching opportunities for free cruises in the future (See: How to get free cruises by gaming casino status matches).

The booking process

I was really pleasantly surprised at how easy this “free” cruise was to book. I put free in quotation marks because most of the free cruise offers aren’t quite free. Depending on which Holland America cruise you choose, it can be almost free or it can be not even close to free, but either way it’s going to be heavily, heavily discounted over what you’ll find anywhere else (we’re talking thousands of dollars off the price you’ll find elsewhere). And you can also upgrade the offer for a very reasonable cost in some cases — more on all that in a second.

Once you have Wynn Platinum status (and presumably only after you’ve completed two non-consecutive stays, which is listed as a requirement for the free cruise), here’s the flow:

• First, you go to this page on the Wynn site and submit your cruise request (H/T to Dave Grossman of MilesTalk for sharing that link with me). Don’t overthink it: all that really matters here is that you include your Wynn Rewards number on this form. There are fields to enter your desired cruise dates and where you’d like to sail, but none of that matters at all as you’re ultimately going to book through Holland America. My guess is that these fields are an artifact of a time when Wynn handled the booking part of the process, but they don’t today.
• Next, a Wynn Rewards rep will email you to confirm that they have forwarded your information to Holland America and that you will receive your cruise certificate from them within 5 to 7 business days. I was really surprised by the turnaround time here — my wife did this, I did this, and a family member did it all at separate times this week and each of us received the Wynn Rewards email within less than 2 hours of submitting the form.
• Next, a Holland America representative emails a certificate. Surprisingly, this happened for each of us within just a couple of business hours of the Wynn Rewards email. Note that you should read on in this post because not everything in this email is correct. All you really care about is the cruise certificate number and the phone number included in the email as you’ll call that number and provide the cruise certificate number in order to book.
• Next, you’ll call the number in the email and provide the certificate number and book — but before you do, you’ll want to first have your Mariner Number ready (if you have already joined Holland America’s rewards program) and you’ll want to have read the next section so you’ve selected the cruise you want from all of your available options.

I was really impressed with the turnaround time. The Wynn Rewards representative that forwards your information on to Holland America presumably first checks to make sure that you meet the requirements (including your status and the required two non-consecutive stays). In our case, we had made two stays 72 hours apart that we had booked via Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts in my wife’s name (and I ended up with an extra room booked in my name on one of the nights, so I did end up checking in to a room under my own name once). We stayed at Encore Las Vegas (part of the Wynn complex). A reader had tipped us off to the fact that a couple playing in two-player mode could get both of their names and Wynn Rewards numbers attached to a single hotel reservation and both get credit for the same stay. That must have worked for us. My wife had brought both of our Wynn Platinum cards to the hotel front desk at check-in to make sure that both names and numbers were on the reservation (the people at the Wynn Rewards desk had said that there was no way for them to associate it). It’s impossible for me to know whether that worked or whether the rep forwarding info to Holland America didn’t check that we’d met the stay requirements, but the turnaround time was much faster than I’d expected.

Of crucial importance though is that the information in the “cruise certificate isn’t quite right — the real deal is better than advertised. Knowing that is helpful because you can look up which cruise you’d like to book before you get on the phone.

The free cruise rules are better than advertised

Oddly, the email from Holland America indicates that the complimentary cruise offer is good for an ocean view cabin on a cruise of up to 7 nights in the Caribbean, Northeast US/Canada, Alaska, Mexico, or Northern Europe. However, the real deal is better than that.

When each of us called to book, the representative asked for our certificate number and then read aloud the terms of the offer. Despite what the email says, here are the key details:

• You must book by 1/31/25
• You must sail by 7/30/25
• You can choose a cruise of up to 12 days. There is no way to pay a supplement to take a longer cruise.
• The cruise is nonrefundable. You’ll pay the fees at the time of booking and you lose it all if you cancel. They offer to sell you “cancel for any reason” protection. That might be worth it for some folks, though you’d have to compare against a travel insurance policy or credit card trip cancellation protection depending on the card you use.
• The complimentary offer is for the lowest-level Ocean View cabin. In my experience, a cabin that accommodates 4 passengers requires paying an upgrade fee (I didn’t check this on every ship, but it was true on every ship that I checked).
• You can pay to upgrade to a higher level room. More detail in the next section, but the short story is that the cost to upgrade to a verandah (balcony) cabin on both of the cruises we booked was significantly less than the price difference between an ocean view and a verandah cabin on a full-price booking.
• There do not appear to be geographic restrictions. The email listed qualifying regions. When it comes to Europe, the email only listed Northern Europe. We had no problem booking a (very much not Northern) European cruise in the Mediterranean.
• Right now, guests 3 and 4 sail free and that stacks. You will of course pay the taxes for every passenger in the cabin, but there was no cruise fare add-on to pay for our kids. That was awesome! I don’t know how long that promotion is scheduled to last.
• You will pay taxes, any room upgrade fees, and $100 per passenger for passengers 1 and 2 that you get back as an onboard credit (so if you’re sailing with two passengers in the cabin, you’ll pay $200 on top of the taxes and you’ll get $200 in onboard credit)
• There is a targeted current Amex Offer that’s good for $300 back on $750 or more at Holland America. It took more than 24 hours to receive it, but I did get the “Congratulations, you just used your Amex Offer” email about 24 hours after making my booking.
  

Knowing how this works can help you with the research phase. Before you call, you can look up available cruises right on the Holland America website with the knowledge that you’ll be able to book a cruise of up to 12 days in length. My wife did ask about whether she could pay a supplement to upgrade to an even longer cruise, but that is not possible. I would expect that there are some blackout dates, but none were mentioned. I don’t know for sure that you can book any cruise with available cabins for sale (sometimes casino offers only have access to limited inventory, though I’ve mentioned before that I think MSC has access to any available cabin — YMMV as I don’t know which is the case for Holland America). We picked out the cruises we ideally wanted and had no trouble booking our first choices.

All of the above is quite good. Note that Holland America has fewer cruise options than some other lines (and if you’re unaware, it is worth knowing that the crowd on a Holland America ship skews on the senior citizen end of the spectrum). However, the price here can be right even if not free.

How much does the “free” Holland America cruise from Wynn Platinum status cost?

As noted in the previous section, you’ll be on the hook for the following costs:

• $100 per passenger for passengers 1 and 2 that you receive back as an onboard credit (up to $200 in onboard credit per cabin). I should note that in the past, we had to pay a supplement / fee for guests 3 & 4 in our cabin — I believe that the “kids sail free” promotion we took advantage of this time is limited-time only. Keep in mind that even if you have 4 passengers in the cabin and even if you pay a supplement for guests 3 & 4 (like if you don’t book during that current promo), the maximum you’ll receive in onboard credit is $200 per cabin.
• Taxes & port fees. These range wildly from one cruise to another. Our European cruise had $120 per passenger in taxes & fees. We also booked a Caribbean cruise with $260 in taxes & fees per passenger. Our Alaska cruise last year ran three or four hundred bucks in taxes & fees per passenger. It all depends on the itinerary you choose, but keep in mind that just like with flights, these are taxes & port fees that every passenger pays whether the cruise fare is free or not. You can see the port taxes listed at the Holland America website by selecting a cruise cabin category (it’s listed at the bottom in small print before you select a cabin and click through)
  
• Any upgrade fee if you want a higher category cabin.
• Note that you will pay service charges / gratuities at the end of the cruise (I believe those are now $17 per adult per day on Holland America), but you don’t pay those at the time of booking.
• Note that you can also add the “Have It All” package during the booking process. This might actually be a good value. What is included in the “Have It All” package varies a bit, but with current promotions at the time of writing, for our European cruise, this would have included the service charges, Premium Wi-Fi, one specialty dining, one shore excursion up to $100, and beer, wine, cocktails, soda and specialty coffee (up to $15 per drink). Note that I don’t think it always includes Premium Internet and perhaps not some of the other stuff. A phone rep told me that this package costs $55 per passenger per day (and you don’t have to get it for kids). The math didn’t work out on that for my wife and I, but it nearly did. For a 10-night cruise (for example), we’ll each be on the hook for $170 in gratuities and we’ll probably each buy Premium Internet (because I’ll likely work during the cruise and my wife will be stuck in the room when the kids go to sleep at 8pm, so she’ll probably want to surf and stream), which I’d expect to cost around $150 each (cruise Wi-Fi is still expensive). So for about $230 more per person, we could get a specialty dining, a “free” excursion (we’d have still ended up paying for the kids though), and unlimited drinks. We aren’t heavy drinkers (we aren’t even daily drinkers on a cruise), but if you’d do a couple of alcoholic drinks and a cappuccino each day, I suspect the math could easily work out on this.

I was particularly surprised at how reasonable it was to upgrade to a verandah (balcony) cabin on one of our cruises (though it was kind of expensive on the other even if significantly less than the cost difference between the cabin types online).

For instance, on the Caribbean itinerary we booked, an Ocean View cabin for four passengers would have been $3300 all-in without the casino offer. An unobstructed balcony cabin on the same cruise would have been about $4800.

With the casino offer, we would have had to pay the following at minimum:

• $260 in taxes x 4 passengers ($1,040 total)
• $100 x 2 passengers ($200 total) that we get back as an onboard credit
• $60 x 2 passengers ($120 total) to upgrade to an ocean view cabin big enough to accommodate 4 passengers
• Total: $1360 for a “complimentary” ocean view cabin

That’s obviously not “free”. At the same time, it’s almost $2,000 less than the going price of the cruise.

However, before I completed booking, I asked about the cost to upgrade to a verandah cabin (what other cruise lines call a balcony cabin). I expected to be quoted an additional $1500 since that was the cost difference between an ocean view cabin and a verandah cabin if booking a normal paid rate. I was very surprised when the agent came back with the following all-in totals for an aft verandah cabin:

• $1760 with a steel balcony (one where you can not see through the balcony).
• $1860 with a normal glass balcony (which makes for easier viewing of the scenery)

Whereas the difference in cost between an ocean view and a verandah was ~$1500 on an ordinary full-fare booking, the difference when booking through the casino offer on this specific cruise was $400 or $500. For a 10-night cruise, that seemed very reasonable to me. We went with the glass balcony. As noted above, I got the email indicating that the $1,860 charge triggered the Amex Offer, so I’ll be getting back $300 from that for a net cost of $1,560 for 4 passengers for 10 nights + $200 in onboard credit. Again, that’s far from free, but it’s a substantial ~$3,000 discount from the ~$4800 price tag without the Wynn Platinum offer.

However, it is important to note upgrade fees vary significantly from one cruise to another. Whereas an upgrade to a verandah cabin on our Caribbean cruise was only $400-$500, an upgrade to a balcony cabin on our Mediterranean cruise was ~$1,000,which effectively doubled the cost of the cruise since taxes & fees were significantly lower, so the all-in cost of an ocean view cabin on that cruise would have been less than $1100 (which would have been less than $800 after the Amex Offer!). But even with the $1,000 additional for a verandah cabin, that still made for a discount of more than $3,000 over the full cost a a verandah cabin on the same cruise.

Both booking phone calls were very simple and the agents with whom we spoke were very friendly and professional. We found the cruises we booked just by going to the Holland America website and looking at all cruises they sell and picking the ones that appealed to us. I think that this offer may have some blackout dates, but those weren’t mentioned on the call (and apparently we didn’t run up against them). I was surprised by the quality of Holland America’s data collection. We cruised with them last year because my wife and mother-in-law did the Holland America match (see more detail in our complete guide to How to get free cruises by gaming casino status matches). On that cruise, we actually booked one of my kids in my mother-in-law’s cabin so that we’d only pay the additional passenger supplement for one kid (which is to say that the passengers listed in my mother-in-law’s cabin were her and one son and the passengers listed in our cabin were my wife and I and our other son). Despite our previous booking being sort of fragmented like that, and despite the fact that my wife submitted this Wynn cruise match request under an entirely different email, once she provided her Holland America Mariner ID number, the agent immediately had all of our names and information. We just confirmed which of us would be on the cruise, but she had our kids’ names and birthdays at the ready.

The phone agent will also offer to help with things like booking your airfare or hotels before or after. I politely declined that assistance, so I can’t speak to how good or bad it is.

Bottom line

We booked two more “free” cruises, this time for 2025 and via the Wynn Platinum status match. I was really pleasantly surprised that the cruise offer was better than it sounded in the email (which is to say that it is valid on longer cruises than it says and on more regions than it indicates) and by how easy the entire process was. We did the research to find the cruises we wanted before calling to book, so the booking phone calls were smooth and easy. I’m further excited by the cruises we picked. We didn’t love everything about Holland America (food was very good on our Holland America Alaska cruises, but the ship itself wasn’t very exciting), but we’re very much excited by the stops on the cruises we picked for next year, so even if the ship itself doesn’t excite us much, we really can’t complain with getting accommodation, daily breakfast and dinner (we’ll mostly eat lunch in port), some entertainment, and transportation to a bunch of places we want to visit for the cost of these free cruise offers. Given how easy Wynn has been to work with on this, I’d certainly prioritize getting to Vegas if Wynn ever offers this type of match again in future years.

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