Do cruise ship employees get to keep frequent flyer miles from the flights that get them to & from the ship?

Question

Do cruise ship employees get to keep frequent flyer miles from the flights that get them to & from the ship?

Answer 1

Depends on the ticket...

If the company books a regular ticket without your frequent flyer account, all they'd have to do call the airlines after the ticket is booked to attach it or just have it done at the ticket counter upon departure.

The downer is if you've been issued a "travel industry rebated ticket."  There's usually no way around that.

So, the answer is, it's all depending on the cruiseline.

Answer 2

Usually they can!

Answer 3

Depends on the company, also if the company issues the tickets there is Z class which is a travel industry class with no points

Answer 4

Cruise ship employees live on the ship.  The same employees stay on the ship for usually around 9 months (depends on the line).  They tend to not actually have apartments/houses.  

Basically the schedule is like this, you sign on the ship for the contract (6mo, 9mo, 1 yr) and you move on the ship.  A lot of the employees go in together for a large storage unit for their stuff if they have to store it.  Then you set sail Sunday, get a day off on one of the islands or you have so many hours to yourself during the day (depending on position on ship).  The hardest work days are the weekend, when you are in the departure port.  You have to get the whole ship completely cleaned and restocked.  Then the ship sets sail again with the same crew.  You aren't switching ships (unless your ship goes in for repairs) and therefore there aren't any freq flyer miles to be accumulating.  

At the end of your contract you have several full months off until the next one.  Say you work 9 mo--you'll have a couple months off until the next one starts.

Hardly anyone works on a ship more than a few years b/c its very taxing.  You have virtually no expenses so all of your paycheck is saved.  Many international crew members (my waiter was from Romania) were sending over 50% of each paycheck home for the family.  As the food is free, the housing is free, you have no car and no real cabin room if you buy much in port--you are spending very lil money each month.

After about 5 yrs max, they quit.  Everyone I talked to had planned to do this for 2-3 years.  It is quite different for entertainment (like comedians just there for 1-2 nights and get off at the next port) as they are actually flying into ports to board different ships.

Thats the way it works for most of the crew on Carnival, NCL and RC.  I've never talked to the crews on other cruiselines.