Shareholder benefits

[Kendhni]

For those that do not know there is additional on baord credit (OBC) available if you own shares with the parent cruise company (e.g. Carnival and Royal Caribbean). For a 2 week cruise this is worth £150 on P&O or up to $250 on American lines. You can also claim OBC for each cruise you do.

Useful links
Link to Carnival Shareholder Benefits
Link to Royal Caribbean Shareholder Benefits

[Wina G]

Just applied for ours as we paid the final balance last week

[Jackie]

Hi This is my first time posting on here! I also have claimed my shareholder benefit for my Aurora world cruise segment. The shares have so far proved very beneficial!

[Romig1]

Welcome Jackie!

[jacksparrow]

Unfortunately they dropped a bit in price today....

[Wina G]

I did a screenprint this morning to send to Karen (ours are held in a Share dealing account) & I thought they'd gone up to around £26+ ... did they go back down

[CaroleF]

Am I right in saying that you can no longer send proof of shareholding by email and have to either send it to Karen Hawkins either by post or fax? I think I read it on another site but thought I'd check with those who have done it recently.

Carole

[Romig1]

Carole,

Wina did it by email today and got it sorted and returned.

On the return email, the wording did talk about proof of ownership by fax or post for future cruises.

[Emrobo]

I would like to do this, but don't really know where to start (never had a go with shares!!)

[Romig1]

Emrobo,

Many banks have share dealing accounts who will buy and hold the shares on your behalf. They will charge a small amount to make the transaction, and the you don't get a share certificate as such. The deal can be organised by phone or online. When you wish to claim your shareholder OBC you do a screenprint (assuming you've registered to view your shareholding online) and forward it to P&O proving that you own the shares.

You can also purchase shares through a broker. I think this way you will get a share certificate. if you have one of these you simply give P&O the certificate number. I think you only have to do this once as they can check that you still own the shares for future cruises?

You will have to decide whether the extra benefits work for you and whether you are prepared to possibly lose your investment in a worst-case scenario.

We have been grossing a return of around 10% pa from our shares since we bought them - excluding any capital gain.

The minimum holding for the benefits is 100 shares (about £2500? at the moment)

[Kendhni]

EmRobo, I used the Halifax share dealing service to buy mine online. I opened the account, transferred the money (plus a bit extra to cover movement in the market) and purchased the shares in a matter of minutes. A couple of days later I then transferred excess money back to my bank account. As Romig says you need to buy 100 shares,

Always remember that shares can go up and down and they are reasonably high at the minute. In the time I have been tracking them the price has ranged between £10.75 and £31.52 with an average of £21.30. However if you are a regular cruiser and ar ehappy to hold on to them for a long period then the return from OBC and dividends make them a worthwhile investment.

Once you own the shares then you only need to contact the very helpful Karen Hawkins about 4 weeks before you sail. Since my shares are held in an account Karen has always been able to find them and give me my OBC without any further information, other than an email requesting the OBC. All the email addresses and details are in the links in my original post.

[Emrobo]

Thanks for the info Romig and Ken, think I will need to wait for them to come down a little first. I would like to start investing in shares, I do it for my daughters through the child trust fund, so these are a bit safer, but it would be long term

[jacksparrow]

The Shareprice according to the Beeb is currently 2604....

[CaroleF]

Romig thanks for the information - we'll try sending proof by email and see what happens. My husband said today that the shares are now worth more than we paid - took a while!

Carole

[Quizzical Bob]

I've just had the acknowledgement for our next cruise. The wording was:

'Thank you for your application for shareholder benefit and I am pleased to confirm that I have granted you £125 shareholder onboard credit for your ******** cruise **** ref. ******.

For any future cruises you may book, please contact me after your cruise balance has been paid but no later than two weeks prior to departure date. As you hold a Carnival share certificate, I will not require further proof of shares each time you cruise. For your own security please do not quote any account or certificate numbers in any correspondence. All I require for future cruises is a note of your booking reference.

I wish you a most enjoyable cruise on ******.

Kind regards

Karen '

So if you hold a share certificate there is no need to send proof of ownership each time.

[Kendhni]

How can you hold shares without a certificate of some sort?
I thought that if the certificate was held electronically then you did not need any further info but if it was held as paper then you may have to supply comething else ... but I could be wrong .. I get lost in this one.

[Romig1]

Ken, we have neither a share certificate or the number of one.

I don't understand how it all works but I thought they held the shares in an electronic nominee account of sorts?

[jacksparrow]

I got a certificate of which I emailed a copy to Karen. Does it depend on whom you trade with as to whether or not you get one?

[Wina G]

Maybe Jack, we used the Halifax Share Dealing Service

[jacksparrow]

I used LLoyds....

[CaroleF]

I emailed proof our our Carnival shares to Karen Hawkins a couple of days ago and had a very prompt reply saying she had granted the OBC and that in future we should send proof by fax or post. We don't hold a Share Certificate either it's a form which shows our holding in Carnival from our brokers. We just have to get dated proof of owning the shares.

Carole

[Wina G]

We received the same email as you Carole, I can't see that there's any point posting the details as the information will be out of date by the time Karen receives it!

[Boris+]

A very big vote of thanks to other forum members for pointing me in the right direction - we simply sent an email to Karen Hawkins asking about shares and she then telephoned us. We followed through what Ms Hawkins had talked about, and before we knew it the certificate had come in the post (Royal Mail). Because the whole thing had been done using the system outlined by Ms Hawkins she had already had notification of our certificate number.

Since then we have simply sent an email to Karen Hawkins giving our reservation number for a cruise once we have paid the final balance, and we always receive then the reply email confirming the shareholder obc, but we always receive a new copy of the booking confirmation for the cruise - and this shows not only that the amount has been paid in full, but also the amount of shareholder obc granted. This gets printed out - and we take it with the e-tickets for the cruise. We have always then on the first day onboard checked that the onboard account is showing the obc and shareholder obc, and we have never had a problem.

It's the best thing we have done.

Em

[melsea]

Today I rang the share dealing department to get the OBC onto our two cruises. When we did it the first time we just had to tell them our name and share number and it came up on the system. Incidentally we bought ours while on Aurora last year by using their telephone at the future cruise desk. They were very obliging as we were buying shares. Done very well so far, lets hope it keeps on. Since we bought ours we would have made around £600 profit if we sold them now.

[Boris+]

I thought that the 'extra' dibbins at the end of last year was nice too.

Currently I am trying to persuade 'him indoors' that we will get best value for money by booking loads of cruises to get loads of shareholder benefit! Slowly slowly catchee monkey!

Wish me luck.

Em