How Royal Caribbean Group Just Changed Cruise Loyalty Forever​

Royal Caribbean Group has just dropped one of the most guest-friendly loyalty updates the cruise world has seen in years – and it is a big win for anyone who sails Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises or Silversea. With the launch of Points Choice in January 2026, cruisers will be able to earn points on any of the three brands and then decide where those points should live, supercharging status on the program that matters most to them.​

What Is Points Choice?

Points Choice is a new, group-wide loyalty feature that lets guests redirect the points they earn on one Royal Caribbean Group brand to the loyalty program of another. That means a sailing on Celebrity can now boost your Crown & Anchor Society balance, or a Silversea voyage can help you climb faster in Celebrity’s Captain’s Club or Silversea’s Venetian Society.​

Launching with cruises departing on or after 30 January 2026, Points Choice is positioned as an enhancement to the group’s already strong loyalty ecosystem rather than a replacement. At its core, it is about giving frequent cruisers more control and more flexibility over how – and where – their loyalty counts.​

How It Works in Practice

Royal Caribbean Group is keeping the earning side simple: guests will continue to earn points exactly as they do today with each brand’s existing rules. The key change happens after the cruise, when members have a window of up to 14 days to decide whether to leave their points where they are or move them to a different program within the family.​

The process is designed to be digital-first and easy, with guests able to request the reallocation online or via the app, putting control firmly “at their fingertips”, as the group describes it. Importantly, Points Choice will only apply to sailings departing from 30 January 2026 onwards, so previously earned points remain locked to the brand where they were originally accumulated.​

Built on Status Match

Points Choice does not arrive in a vacuum – it builds directly on Royal Caribbean Group’s Loyalty Status Match program, introduced across Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Silversea in 2024. Status Match already allows members of Crown & Anchor Society, Captain’s Club and Venetian Society to enjoy equivalent tier status when they move between brands, preserving key benefits like priority services, discounts and onboard perks.​

By adding Points Choice on top of Status Match, the group is effectively closing the loop: status is recognised across brands, and now the underlying points can be directed where they will have the most strategic value for the guest. For multi-brand cruisers who like to mix a family-friendly Royal Caribbean sailing with a more boutique Celebrity itinerary or an ultra-luxury Silversea voyage, this creates a far more unified and rewarding experience.​

Why This Matters for Cruisers

At a time when many travel loyalty programs are quietly trimming benefits or making elite status harder to reach, Royal Caribbean Group is very clearly moving the other way. Points Choice turns every cruise within the group into a building block toward a single, guest-defined loyalty strategy, rather than three parallel tracks that sometimes compete with each other.​​

For guests, the benefits are clear:

• More flexibility to grow status where perks feel most valuable – whether that is free laundry on Silversea, cocktail hours on Celebrity or onboard discounts on Royal Caribbean.​
• Better incentive to try a sister brand without feeling like they are “starting from scratch” on the loyalty ladder.​
• A more connected experience across more than 50 ships and nearly 1,000 destinations served by the three brands combined.​

A New Standard for Cruise Loyalty

With Points Choice, Royal Caribbean Group is sending a strong signal about where cruise loyalty is heading: integrated, guest-centric and brand-agnostic within a wider portfolio. For frequent cruisers – and especially those who already split their time between Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea – this is one of the most meaningful loyalty upgrades in years, turning a collection of individual programs into a single, flexible ecosystem.​

For anyone planning a cruise from 30 January 2026 onward, it may now be worth looking at your future sailings not just in terms of itinerary and ship, but also how each voyage can be used to strategically build status across the entire Royal Caribbean Group family.