InCruises Review v2.0: Monthly passive income and recruitment
InCruises launched in early 2016 and operate in the travel services MLM niche.
BehindMLM reviewed InCruises on January 16th, 2016 and concluded it was your usual “access to discounts” fare.
This is problematic as in MLM access to third-party discounts isn’t a product in and of itself (you can’t just charge a fee to provide access to someone else’s discounts).
“Cruise Dollars” go some way to alleviate this compliance issue, providing essentially credits that can be used towards discounted travel.
Additionally the InCruises compensation plan had no retail volume qualifiers, allowing an InCruises affiliate to qualify for commissions via affiliate recruitment (affiliates being the majority holders of travel discount memberships).
A few weeks ago I was informed by a BehindMLM reader that InCruises has ‘a complete new (compensation) plan called 2.0 that is changing all the troubles and risks.’
Today we review InCruises’ new compensation plan and seeing if that’s the case.
InCruises Affiliate Ranks
There are nine affiliate ranks within the InCruises compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
- Affiliate – sign up and pay the InCruises affiliate fee
- Marketing Manager – generate $3000 a month in downline travel membership sales
- Senior Marketing Manager – generate $10,000 a month in downline travel membership sales
- Marketing Director – generate $25,000 a month in downline travel membership sales
- Senior Marketing Director – generate $50,000 a month in downline travel membership sales
- Regional Director – generate $100,000 a month in downline travel membership sales
- National Director – generate $200,000 a month in downline travel membership sales
- International Director – generate $300,000 a month in downline travel membership sales
- Executive Director – generate $500,000 a month in downline travel membership sales
Recruitment Commissions
InCruises pay affiliates to recruit new affiliates who also sign up with a travel membership.
How much of a commission is paid out is determined by how many affiliates are recruited each month.
- earn $50 when you recruit your first affiliate
- earn $60 when you recruit your second affiliate
- earn $70 when you recruit your third affiliate
- earn $80 when you recruit your fourth affiliate
- earn $90 when you recruit your fifth affiliate
- earn $100 when you recruit your sixth affiliate
- earn $110 when you recruit your seventh affiliate
- earn $120 when you recruit your eighth affiliate
- earn $130 when you recruit your ninth affiliate
- earn $150 when you recruit your tenth affiliate (and every affiliate thereafter)
Note that at the end of each month recruitment commissions reset to $50.
Producer Bonus
For every three non-affiliate travel subscriptions sold within a month, an InCruises affiliate receives 100 Cruise Dollars.
Residual Commissions
InCruises pay residual commissions via a unilevel compensation structure.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.
If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
InCruises cap payable unilevel levels at five, with commissions paid out at a flat rate of $5 per month per travel subscription sold and maintained within the unilevel team.
This includes both affiliate and retail customer travel subscription purchases.
To qualify for residual commissions an InCruises affiliate must sell and maintain five active travel memberships (affiliate or retail) and personally recruit at least one affiliate who has done the same.
Rank Achievement Bonus
InCruises pay affiliates the following monthly Rank Achievement Bonuses if they qualify at an appropriate rank.
- Marketing Manager – $500
- Senior Marketing Manager – $1000
- Marketing Director – $2500
- Senior Marketing Director – $5000
- Regional Director – $10,000
- National Director – $20,000
- International Director – $30,000 a month plus a Rolex watch (one-time)
- Executive Director – $55,000
Bonus Pool
InCruises take 5% of company-wide sales volume and pay it via equal shares to “qualifying leaders” each month.
Qualification criteria for “qualifying leaders” is not provided in the InCruises compensation plan.
Travel Rewards
If a new InCruises affiliate recruits seven affiliates who each buy a travel membership, within 60 days of signing up, they receive a “50% off” coupon for a “Company Sponsored Dream Cruise”.
If a new affiliate recruits fourteen travel subscription affiliates within 60 days of signing up, they ‘earn a Dream Cruise booking for two with no out-of-pocket expenses‘.
Joining InCruises
InCruises affiliate membership is $195 and then $95 each year thereafter.
Conclusion
The question of legitimacy with respect to InCruises MLM offering still lies in how many non-affiliates are purchasing the travel subscription.
Suggesting that retail focus is lower than ever, InCruises affiliates can only earn on retail membership sales residually.
These commissions are locked up behind a “sell and maintain five memberships” wall, whereas affiliate recruitment commissions can be earned right off the bat.
The recruitment commissions alone drag InCruises into pyramid scheme territory.
In an attempt to justify paying a commission on the recruitment of affiliates who purchase a membership, the InCruises FAQ states
inCruises does not pay for the recruitment of Partners. We only pay commissions for the personal enrollment of Members, including Partner Member memberships.
“Partner memberships” are recruited affiliates who sign up with a travel membership. There’s no retail component to the equation so paying a commission per affiliate recruited is definitely a recruitment commission.
This is problematic as InCruises have now added a passive rank-based monthly commission to the compensation plan.
A passive monthly payment for maintaining rank can be seen as a securities offering ($195 plus $100 a month investment, recruit others who do the same and earn a passive ROI of up to $55,000 a month).
Worse still if the majority of memberships company-wide are held by affiliates, InCruises are effectively recycling newly invested funds to pay off existing investors. This is Ponzi fraud.
The good news is ascertaining whether this is taking place on a micro-level is relatively easy. As a prospective InCruises affiliate, ask your potential upline whether they qualify for residual commissions.
This requires 5 membership sales, and what you want to find out is whether they’re qualifying via active retail memberships or recruited affiliate memberships.
If it’s recruited affiliate memberships, there’s a good chance this is happening company-wide.
On top of the compliance issues raised above, this scenario also draws into question the retail viability of InCruises’ travel membership.
I was weary of InCruises initial offering. In revamping the compensation plan, in my opinion, the company has gone from a questionable business model to a mix of pyramid and (potential) Ponzi fraud.
Update 27th August 2022 – BehindMLM has revisited inCruises and published an updated review.
A few things about inCruises. First they do not discount cruises although they do price match.
I have found that the prices are the same as on Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Princess…. Websites. So inCruises is matching the lowest price on the internet. The value of a membership is in the savings of money towards cruises.
There is no cost to join and no contract. Cancel at any time and a full 30 day money back guarantee.
Dues for members are $100 a month and the club matches this so every month you get $200 cruise dollars in your account. inCruises even allows provisions if you don’t make a payment for up to 12 missed payments. A
fter 5 months you have put in $500 but have $1,000 cruise dollars. Cruise dollars never expire as long as you stay active. Like I said inCruises has provisions if you miss payments.
For me any MLM the product has to make sense. With inCruises the doubling of your money makes sense if you like to cruise. Your first 12 months you can use up to 60% of your cruise dollars.
So after 10 months you have paid $1,000 and have $2,000 cruise dollars in your account. You want to go on a cruise that costs $1,000. No problem. You use $1,000 of your cruise dollars to fully pay for the cruise.
The same price everyone else on the ship in a similar cabin pays BUT you have $1,000 cruise dollars left in your account. The person in the cabin next to you also paid $1,000 for their cruise but has nothing left in their savings.
If the cruise had cost $1400 you could have used $1200 cruise dollars and $200 on your credit card. You still have $800 in your cruise account.
The person in the cabin next to you paid the full $1,400. You paid $600 for your $1,200 cruise dollars plus $200 on your credit card so you paid $800 for the same cabin the person next to you paid $1,400.
The second year you can use 70% of your cruise dollars, the third year 80%, then 90% the fourth year and after your 49th monthly payment you can always use your full cruise dollar balance.
After 50 payments you have paid in $5,000 but have had access to $10,000 cruise dollars.
To become a partner and be able to sign people up as members costs $195 the first year and $95 each year after. The first step is to find five others that like to cruise. One of which can be your spouse or travel partner.
When you maintain five active members that you recruited your monthly dues are waived. This is potentially a $2,400 cruise dollar value. Over 5 years a $12,000 value.
You ask is there a market for this. Just type in Carnival Cruise lines in the Facebook search. you will find about 100 groups with over 1,000 members each. Some groups with over 200,000 members that LOVE to cruise.
Besides getting your dues paid for by having five active members there are multiple other ways to get paid and earn cruise dollars.
I had a friendly competition with another travel agent. The parameters were the same. 60 people from a church going on a 10 day Holy Land cruise on Princess Cruise Lines 20 months from now.
We had three other travel agents judge us. After commissions and savings I beat the other quote by $22,800.
Same cruise, same cabins, same payment plan, same number of people. One group using inCruises, one group getting a group price from Princess.
In my example 12 people signed up as PARTNER/MEMBERS, 48 joined just as MEMBERS.
Incruises provide access to discounted cruises. You’re essentially paying money to (theoretically) save money.
Getting paid to recruit in MLM is pyramid fraud and negates the legitimacy of whatever else might be offered.
If I can sign up as an Incruises affiliate, ignore retail and just get paid to recruit new affiliates – as far as regulatory due-diligence goes that’s a scam.
You get no pay at all if someone signs up just as a partner or affiliate. There is no requirement to be a partner or to be a member. You can do one or the other or both.
Your commissions aren’t tied to being forced to buy the product. inCruises has many more members than it does partners or affiliates.
The InCruises compensation plan I reviewed in April, 2017 saw affiliates paid directly to recruit each month.
If the majority of travel subscriptions in an affiliate’s unilevel team are held by affiliates, they are also paid a residual recruitment commission.
And you source for this claim is?
I Heard that all money safe in Incruise as they also insured our money with some insurance company so in case if any thing goes wrong with incrusice that insurance company will pay our money or refund.
Oh “you heard” did you? That’s some top-notch due-diligence right there.
Nevermind the fact that Incruises uses your money to pay commissions as soon as you deposit it.
Hearing about something is one thing. Finding out if it’s actually true is another.
Because it’s actually too late when people start losing their money and there wasn’t really any insurance coverage to begin with.
I have been curious to know how InCruises has been handling the Covid squeeze on cruising.
I have looked on the site, and asked members if they have gotten and feedback or updates on how the company is addressing things.
I assume (yes I know) that many people can’t keep paying the $100 these days. So considering Covid is not going away anytime soon, what is the company doing with the money members had faithfully paid that’s just sitting in the account?
They did offer a ONE time join back for a fee/penalty of $200 Cruise dollars. But that was only if you did so within one year.
We are already coming up on a year since cruises stopped running, so I am surprised there has not been more information and guidance out there.
Answer: Nobody.
Which as far as the MLM opportunity goes doesn’t matter, because InCruises has always been heavily weighted towards recruitment over retail.
CLIA
SOT
Trust my travel
5/1 member/partner ratio
5 years old
Debt free
If there is one company out there that anyone should be working with it is this one. Noone is ever robbed for their money in any part of their plan. Everything is fair and valid. Great company and great leaders.
Marketing a cruise related MLM in the middle of a global pandemic when nobody is cruising?
Yeah, speaks volumes about the legitimacy of Incruises. Recruitment commissions ahoy!
If you ever believe that the world will come back to normal. Why not market a payplan for future hollydays?
Save up the Credit and book your cruise when things open up. I got many friends that just booked their first cruise this month after savign up for a little over a year and paying less. Is that wrong?
Normal people value their lives and health more than saving for something that might never happen and that is sh1t anyway and involves scammers like you when doing it.
You’re a flake. Own it. Yes, it’s very wrong when when you lie and steal
Because, as detailed in the review, InCruises has always favored recruitment over retail.
Hypotheticals are one thing but they don’t change the reality that the majority of Incruises’ travel memberships are likely held by affiliates.
Stevie – lol.
Mr Oz, there is a few things wrong in the review. Incruises do not pay you to get affiliates. I do however agree that recriuting partnermembers will on its own not favor teh companie.
Today there is a healthy ration on partner vs members 1/5. however i wish to see one day the company have a much higher ratio.
I do read alot of reviews on here and i truly think many of them are wery fair and give good insight on alot of companies. There are even some more dirty than said on here.
But are there a list over MLM companies that behindmlm would recomend? Or are you just taking any consept apert looking for the negatives? Or are MLM in your mind 100% negative?
I got some years of experience with mlm. And i would say that alot of what rolls out is shit and alot of what is protected inside the directselling assosiations are also way out of line.
I would like to have a lot more clear rules on what is ok or not. But for now InCruises are closer to what i think is good than it is bad. Not perfect but close to it.
However i would love to see the membership part would have gotten a remake and be more flexible to attract the those who just wants to travel and see the world.
The membership program however is very good. But shold be more flexible to attract more of the members only.
Sure they do:
I’m also calling BS on this:
There is no way after over a year of global pandemic and zero cruises that an MLM company focused on selling cruises has a 1:5 active affiliate to non-affiliate retail customer ratio.
The only way you come up with numbers like that is by misleadingly counting inactive affiliates as retail customers, weighed against what is likely a very small number of still active affiliates.
The FTC has categorically made the distinction that active or inactive affiliates are not retail customers (ref: FTC v. Herbalife, FTC. v. Vemma).
With the goal remaining impartial, BehindMLM does not make MLM company recommendations.
Mr Oz, yea the 5/1 ratio i can agree on to believe has some inactive partner or partnermembers not renewing them selfs as pertner but still want to cruise.
you know that over 200k has cruised the last year? with MSC 50k. People have bin out there during the year of pandemic.
To become a afilliate you pay 195 and 95 a year. You have the same rights as any partner or partnermember to make money from you sales. But recriuting a partner will not reward teh sponsor.
If you see the membership savingsplan you do know that you will want to save now so you can order one heck of a trip when things opens up. That is what i am doing. The money is insured so nothign to loose. if incruses can deliver a cruise ill take my money and go do somethign else.
I partly agree with you. But again. InCruises is not perfect, but closer than most of the mlm/directsellig companies.
Well they’re not retail customers, so any figures quoting them are irrelevant.
Source? The cruise industry has been in standstill for most of 2020 and still is.
There might be some smaller operators running in some places but the big players are all grounded.
Cruising is literally banned in most countries:
ship-technology.com/comment/cruise-industry-2021-outlook/
This is where you have to look past the pseudo-compliance. If the majority of InCruises affiliates have memberships then it’s a defacto recruitment commission.
Some cruises started up in august 2020.
traveldailynews.com/post/msc-cruises-welcomes-back-first-guests-on-msc-grandiosa
I see what you are saying about partnermembers. And i do not totaly disagree.
But as a company and with many years looking at companies i do think that value of product, entry price, partenr/customer ratio and services that provide members and partners with good value for money is important. This company can score better on making memberships more attractive for anyone not wanting to be a pertner member.
I agree that it can be seperated better and seperated to actually also make it more fun to sell and look for travelars only.
MSC literally has had one cruise ship operating since Aug 2020. A second will return to service on May 1st, 2021.
cruiseandferry.net/articles/second-msc-cruises-ship-to-return-to-mediterranean
40K passengers on one ship since Aug 2020. That’s not nothing but let’s not pretend there’s a functional cruise industry.
From a compliance perspective if an MLM company is primarily paying commissions on affiliate recruitment, what they bundle with affiliate membership (travel memberships in this instance) is irrelevant.
If the FTC came knocking and demanded to see how many travel memberships were held by retail customers versus affiliates (current and historical data), given the way InCruises compensation plan is structured, I’m confident for the majority of time more affiliates would hold memberships over retail customers (true retail, not inactive affiliates).
It is getting back to something. Personally i got a few that has ordered just this week with MSC for a cruise this summer.
I will order one before the year is over but i will wait for my family to get together and figure out some dates.
The membership in its self i valid now as it has ever bin. The pandemic will pass or the world will adapt and so will the cruise industry also.
What you are saying is an assumtion you got and not a stated fact. But, i do believe that there are plenty partnermembers that should just have bin members and that many has bin going frmo PM too member due to not renewing the partnership anually.
That is a big chunk of what is said to be members in the ratio i have for sure i also what i believe.
But also it is an easy fix for this company if they need to do so due to the lack of members only pr partner ratio needs to be better.
Incruises’ compensation plan is not an assumption.
Neither is the fact that there is and has been no cruise industry for ~1 year, so it follows nobody outside of the income opportunity is buying cruise memberships.
In light of the above facts, what you believe doesn’t matter.
Do teh compensation plan tell you what is marketed or not. In any persentation everyone are being ofered member only, partner only or partner member. I wish there was a clear memebr only presentation though.
So you are saying it is not smart or relevant to put aside some money for travel the passed year? And that not one travel agency or in this case a membership should do business while there are a pandemic?
I am more than happy to save up and so are many i know. Not all wants to do the recriuting many just wants to be a member and cruise with saved money when the world opens up again.
saying that you shall not save and get redy for a hollyday to come is truly irrelevant. And any member gets good value and anything form desent to great savings.
Yes, by way of what the focus is on (see review you’re commenting on).
I’m saying InCruises had a pyramid centric model before the pandemic. The cruise industry going tits up during the pandemic likely killed off what little retail they had.
Numbers for 2020 where down compared to 2019 as far as i have seen.
That said. Numbers on diesel enguine sales are down to. Should they stop making diesel enguines for that matter?
Or stop selling diesel fule? You can stop selling just because you market had a “crash” for a short periode.
Look, strawman arguments aside (Google if you dont understand your comparison is stupid and irrelevant), you’re free to throw money at any pyramid scheme, even ones that are on their way out and based on a flimsy model at best.
Just don’t complain when you lose your money, and don’t bloody recruit others to try prop up yourself.
Now this is a lolzk at you. Throw trash and have just nothing to add to the argument.
I agree. InCruises don’t sell diesel engines so it’s a strawman.
Best of luck with the silly arguments.
Incruises had a great thing going and no it was not a pyramid or ponzi scheme. However, with the recent so called upgrade to 2.0 what once was a great thing is now just another travel company with nothing special to offer.
Their upgrade is in fact a downgrade providing the members a product that is much less in value.
They only needed to add some of the new things and tweak what they had but they went way too far off the boat (pun intended) with this 2.0 downgrade.