In addition to potential stock market gains and dividends, many companies provide additional benefits to their shareholders. In fact, all publicly traded cruise lines have offered some form of benefit to shareholders for years. When the process first rolled out, you had to fax over a copy of your brokerage statement. Eventually, this process got easier when email and online forms rolled out. Now, Carnival Corporation has rolled out an app-based approach for all of their brands using a 3rd party app called StockPerks.

For details on the 2024 Shareholder Program, check out our detailed post: Carnival Shareholder Credit (2024).

For step-by-step instructions on using the StockPerks app, read on.

What Is StockPerks?

According to Carnival Cruise Line, StockPerks is “a more automated and streamlined process for the processing of shareholder benefits.” Instead of faxing or emailing in proof of ownership, you download the StockPerks app and prove your ownership via an automated process.

As Carnival rolled this out, we’ve received a LOT of questions about the app and the submission process. That’s why we’ve created this StockPerks Step-by-Step Instructions for Requesting Carnival Shareholder Benefit to help you navigate the new process.

Big Changes on How to Request Carnival Shareholder Benefits

With the full transition to Stockperks, Carnival now requires you to download the Stockperks app from either the Apple or Google Play Store depending on your device. While the download was quite simple, there were quite a few steps before we could actually submit our request.

Creating a Stockperks Account

• Download the Stockperks App from either the Apple App Store or Google Play Store
• Upon launching the app, you’ll find a quick tutorial that you can swipe through; when finished, click the Get started button

• You’ll be asked to either sign up with email or to sign in with Google or Apple authentication. If you’ve previously registered, there is an option to Sign in at the bottom

• Before you can continue on any option, you must first accept the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy
• I chose the Sign up with Google option and followed the steps to give stockperks.com access to “name, email address, language preference, and profile picture”

• Once your account is created, you’ll receive the “successfully created” screen. From here, click the Let’s go button

• Stockperks asks for personal information, including Date of birth, Gender, Phone number, ZIP code, and Annual income (interesting…)

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Proving You Own Stock

• The app gives you two options to prove you are a shareholder-
  Automatic broker connection: The app’s recommended option
  Manual statement upload: the app warns that this takes longer, however, is required if you have an account with Fidelity, Edward Jones, or Ally

• Choose the option that applies to you and click the Next button

If you choose the Automatic broker connection you’ll be prompted to connect your account-

• The next screen informs that you will be connecting through a secure connection called Plaid and to follow the on-screen prompts to connect your brokerage account

• Before I could continue, I had to also confirm my cell phone number and validate it with a text that was sent to my device
  
• Once Plaid confirmed I was real, and I owned the cell phone I was using, it asked me to Select broker out of 11,000+ Institutions. Thankfully, there’s a search box. However, if your financial institution happens to be listed on the screen, it’s even easier; just click the logo to continue

• Here’s where the magic / scariness happens. Plaid asks you to log in to your financial institution and grant them access to your account. I got a scary warning from my financial institution which I had to accept before I could link my account. But that wasn’t it. I was asked again to provide my consent – my financial institution wanted to make sure I was super-duper sure about this decision

• I selected the accounts to provide Stockperks access to and clicked the Done button
• After a few screens that flashed up, I got the message, “Broker Connected!” and my only option was to click the Done button

• I then clicked on Carnival Corp. & plc and… nothing! The Redeem perk button was greyed out and the message, “You don’t own shares from this company” displayed on my screen. Grrr. I most definitely own shares. In fact, when I clicked on Eligible benefits, Carnival Cruise Line was listed as Eligible.

Tip: If this happens to you after you connect your Brokerage account, kill the app and relaunch it. That should save you a message to support (I never did hear back from them…)

• Once you reload the app, the Redeem perk button should be green and clickable

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Requesting Your Shareholder Benefit

• Select the company you are requesting the Shareholder Benefit for. In this case, I chose Carnival Corp. & plc
• Click the Redeem perk button to continue
• On the Enter cruise details screen, you’re asked to enter the following information: Booking Number, Cruise Date, First Name, Last Name, Email, and Select a ship

• Once you’ve entered the data, click the Confirm button to continue
  
  None of these fields auto-populate. And there’s no option to enter multiple booking numbers at a time. So… if you have a lot of cruises, be prepared to repeat this process again and again.
  
• If successful, you’ll receive the “Your Onboard Credit claim has been submitted!” message with a cartoon character covered in confetti. The screen informs you that Stockperks will contact you within seven (7) business days if your claim is approved. Your only option on this screen is to click the Done button

• You’ll also receive an email with the subject “New Perk redeemed!” which is super confusing. When you read the email, it informs you that it’s just an acknowledgement and you’ll find out in five (5) business days whether or not your request has been approved

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Confirmation that OBC has been applied

After submitting my Shareholder Benefit request, I only had to wait three days before receiving an email confirming that OBC was applied! Watch for an email with the subject line: Successful OBC Application to Itinerary. The email includes the shareholder name, booking number, sailing date, and total amount of onboard credit applied to the reservation.

Because I submitted a request for five upcoming Carnival Cruise Line sailings, I received five individual emails confirming that the onboard credit was applied.

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Support-Related Questions

If you need help with StockPerks (connecting to your brokerage, redeeming your perk, etc.), there’s are two options: email and app chat. When Carnival denied our emailed Shareholder request, they pointed us in the direction of StockPerks and told us that if we had any issues to email carnivalcorp@stockperks.com.

Alternatively, if you’ve downloaded the app and set up your account, there is a Contact us option under the profile page:

Our Thoughts on Stockperks

Overall, it was a fairly smooth process following the on-screen prompts. With that said, it definitely took a LOT of steps to accomplish the simple task of requesting our Shareholder Credit! Additionally, as others have mentioned, I don’t love giving Stockperks access to my entire portfolio. They now know how many shares I own of not just Carnival, but every other company I hold in my portfolio.

The app bug of having to kill and relaunch and the disconnected verbiage between the app and email (seven days versus five days) creates a bit of an unpolished feeling. Not something you necessarily want to feel after you’ve granted the company full access to your investment portfolio.

CRUISE TIP: To avoid having to share all the details of your investment portfolio with Carnival Corporation, consider opening a separate brokerage account where you hold ONLY your cruise stocks. Then, provide Stockperks access to this account.

Carnival Corporation Shareholder Benefit

We’ve written about Carnival’s Shareholder Benefit Program for years now. You can find details on the 2024 Carnival Shareholder Benefit on the following dedicated page:

2024 Carnival Shareholder Benefit (valid through December 2024)

Conclusion

If you can’t tell, we were big fans of simply emailing the Shareholder email address requesting our Shareholder Benefit. The new process adds extra steps, connections, and repetitive manual entry. With that said, when we can get up $250/cruise in onboard credit, we’ll jump through whatever hoops Carnival puts in front of us! 😉

Have you used the StockPerks process to request your Carnival Shareholder Benefit? What are your thoughts? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Have a non-support related question? Drop those in the comments, too!