Bank issuers promote cruise offers to stimulate big-ticket purchases.

The possibility of big-ticket transactions has lured some bank card issuers into promoting cruises.

Bank of New York (Delaware), NationsBank Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., and First Interstate Bank of California are among the banks that have stuffed promotional inserts from Cruise Central into customer statements.

3 Cruise Lines

The St. Paul travel company offers credit card holders exclusive offers from the Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Princess cruise lines.

Ellen Elliott, vice president and product manager at First Interstate, said 200 of her bank's customers have signed up since September.

Like many other banks, First Interstate is trying to come up with additional benefits to retain customers, Ms. Elliott said. The bank went with Cruise Central because it was the only such company to approach them.

Interest, Not Fees

On the short end, Ms. Elliott said, the arrangement does not automatically make money for a bank because it inserts Cruise Central's material for free.

But John Wicka, Cruise Central vice president, said the bank makes up for its expense with the interest income generated by the price of the cruise.

In most such marketing arrangements, banks get a $15,000 fee for one million statement inserts, Mr. Wicka said. With Cruise Central, banks can generate $50,000 to $60,000 in interest income, he estimated.

The offers usually combine upgrades or price reductions on top of the cruise line's lowest rate, which beats what other travel agencies offer, Mr. Wicka said. "We know from card-member profiles that one of the most valuable uses of their credit card is charging vacations," he said.

Choice of Cruises

Credit cards are becoming a preferred method of payment. To make it easier to pay by card, Royal Caribbean began accepting payments by telephone in September.

Cruise Central has been offering banks its cruise deal for six months. Mr. Wicka said NationsBank will insert an offer this month for the first time giving customers a choice of dates from January through June.

Research shows that giving customers a choice of dates and cruise ships prompts three to four times as many purchases, Mr. Wicka said.

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