Airline Loyalty Rewards
Norwegian Air Rewards Loyalty Program Review
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Branded and Partnered Credit Cards
Norwegian Rewards Credit Card
The Norwegian Rewards Card is not like your typical airline credit card — it doesn’t earn redeemable miles, but rather cash-back that you can redeem towards flights with Norwegian Airlines in the form of “CashPoints.”
The Norwegian Rewards Card earns 2% back in CashPoints for purchases with Norwegian, 2% back on dining and grocery purchases, and 1% back on all other purchases.
Other benefits of the Norwegian Rewards Card include priority boarding, no foreign transaction fees, no annual fee, and an anniversary bonus of $100 in CashPoints when you spend $20,000 on the card in a year.
Additional Travel Rewards Cards Options
Seeing that the Norwegian Rewards Card is essentially a cash-back card where the rewards are locked into use with Norwegian, there are many other solid travel rewards cards that are worth considering.
When you are dealing with a program that doesn’t partner with one of the major flexible point transfer programs (e.g. Chase or Amex), it’s important to know what your other options are.
Capital One and Barclays offer credit cards like the Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card, and the Barclaycard Arrival® Plus World Elite Mastercard®, which earn miles that can be redeemed as a statement credit against the cost of a Norwegian flight.
Here’s a list of the best travel rewards cards, with Capital One and Barclays as the banks you want to focus on.
After being approved for one of these card options and meeting the minimum spend requirement, you’ll be on our way to having enough miles for a free flight in no time!
Norwegian Air Overview
Norwegian Air Shuttle (better known as Norwegian Air) is a low-cost airline with a frequent flyer program called Norwegian Reward.
The airline joins the ranks of Ryanair and easyJet in focusing on high-frequency travel for flights both within and to Europe.
Every time you fly Norwegian, stay at a partner hotel, or drive a partner rental car, you earn CashPoints that can be used to book award flights. CashPoints can also be earned through Norwegian’s other list of non-travel partners.
When the time comes to redeem your CashPoints, they can be used for a full or partial redemption for your next Norwegian flight, extra baggage, seat reservation, cancellation insurance, or booking changes.
Joining Norwegian Reward
Signing up for the Norwegian Air frequent flyer program is free by filling out this online form.
After you sign up, you’ll have the ability to earn and redeem miles not only for Norwegian flights, but also expenses like baggage and seat reservations.
How to Sign in to Your Norwegian Reward Account
Head to the Norwegian Air Rewards login page, where you’ll enter your email/username and password to access your frequent flyer account.
Hot Tip: Award availability can be searched without signing into a Norwegian account since the program uses a revenue-based currency. When searching on the website, it’s important to note that 1 CashPoint = 1 Norwegian Krone (1 NOK = ~$0.11 USD).
Viewing Your Account Activity
To see the CashPoints that you are earning, you’ll need to log in to your account.
The process to review your CashPoints is easy:
- Log in to your account
- Click “Menu” in the top left of the page
- Click “My Travels”
- Click “View Transactions”
Points Expiration
CashPoints expire every 24 months at the end of the calendar year in which the CashPoints were earned, unless you’re a Norwegian Rewards Card cardholder, in which case, your CashPoints expire every 48 months, doubling the time you have to make a redemption.
Norwegian Rewards Program
Norwegian Rewards Elite Status
Unlike American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines, Norwegian doesn’t have elite status within its award program.
Instead, the program rewards flyers by offering a benefit for every sixth flight you fly.
Here’s how the benefits work:
The first benefit of 2% CashPoints kicks in after you fly 6 Norwegian segments. You have access to additional benefits the more you fly — but for the first 6 segments, Norwegian selects this benefit for you.
After your twelfth segment (i.e., second sixth segment reward), Norwegian lets you select from a broader slate of benefits.
The rewards are as follows:
- 2% CashPoint boost on all LowFare tickets, which can be used 5 times. If you choose this Reward every 6 segments, you will earn a 12% CashPoint boost after 48 segments.
- Free Fast Track on all flights.
- Free seat reservation on all flights.
- Free baggage on all flights (must fly 18 segments to be able to choose this benefit).
If you want to dive deeper into the Norwegian Rewards program, everything you need to know can be found by checking out this page.
If you fly a significant amount of Norwegian segments in 1 calendar year, you may want to consider the Limited Edition Rewards.
With Limited Edition Rewards, you have 2 tiers: Premium and Long Haul.
By flying 10 round-trips (20 segments) on a Flex ticket and you’ll earn a Premium seat upgrade for a flight in the following calendar year.
If you double that with 20 round-trips (40 segments) and earn 3,000 CashPoints, you’ll earn a long-haul ticket for a flight in the following calendar year.
For those who fall into these buckets, more information about Limited Edition Rewards can be found on this page.
Value of Norwegian Rewards Benefits
Norwegian is a low-cost carrier, so it’s important to recognize that the benefits offered will not compare to those of major airlines in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
The value of the 6 segment rewards really kicks in when you’re able to select either the Seat Reservation or Baggage benefit.
If you’re buying LowFare domestic and/or long-haul tickets (where a seat assignment and checked bags aren’t included in the cost of your ticket), the Seat Reservation and Baggage benefit can save you some money.
For example, if you’re flying an international long-haul LowFare flight, Norwegian charges $12-$31 for a seat assignment and $90 for a checked bag.
International long-haul includes flights to/from the U.S., Canada, Thailand, Argentina, and Singapore (except flights between U.S./Canada and Caribbean).
Bottom Line: After you’ve flown 12 segments, you’ll earn the ability to waive either the Seat Assignment or Baggage fees, which can save you money on Norwegian Air flights.
How to Earn Norwegian CashPoints
Norwegian Air is unique — instead of earning airline miles as you do with most airlines, you earn CashPoints, which are a percentage of the amount you paid for the flight.
CashPoints can be earned not only by flying on Norwegian Air, but also via hotel stays and car rentals.
Earning Points Through Flying
Norwegian awards CashPoints based on the type of fare that you booked.
For LowFare flights, you’ll earn 2%-5% of the revenue cost of the flight in CashPoints. With Flex tickets, you’ll earn 10% CashPoints.
The Norwegian program is part of the Airlines for Europe (A4E) alliance, joining the likes of Air France-KLM and Lufthansa, but there are no reciprocal benefits (e.g., you can’t use Norwegian CashPoints to book a Lufthansa flight).
Bottom Line: Norwegian doesn’t use airline miles as a currency and instead uses CashPoints, which are earned based on a percentage of the revenue cost you paid for the flight.
Earn Points With Credit Cards
Norwegian Rewards Card cardholders can earn additional CashPoints for purchases they make with the card. The Norwegian Rewards Card earns 2% back in CashPoints for purchases with Norwegian, 2% back on dining and grocery purchases, and 1% back on all other purchases.
Norwegian Rewards Card cardholders also receive benefits like priority boarding, no foreign transaction fees, no annual fee, and an anniversary bonus of $100 in CashPoints when you spend $20,000 on the card in a year.
Hot Tip: Earning transferable points with travel rewards credit cards can be a great way to capitalize if you’re flying Norwegian regularly!
Earning Bonus Points in Other Ways
The main way to earn CashPoints is by flying Norwegian regularly either on LowFare or Flex tickets or by using the Norwegian Rewards Card.
However, the frequent flyer program offers additional ways to earn CashPoints. Using its travel, home and lifestyle, and dining and shopping partners, you’ll have no shortage of options to earn CashPoints.
Complimenting your earnings from flying by spending with Norwegian’s partners can help ensure you always have plenty of CashPoints on hand for an award flight.
How to Redeem Norwegian Rewards CashPoints
CashPoints in the Norwegian program are equivalent to cash: you can redeem them for Norwegian flights with no blackout dates and no minimum amount required to use for redemption.
One of the many unique aspects of Norwegian Rewards is that you can use your CashPoints on an array of items including flight tickets (taxes and fees are eligible), extra baggage, seat reservation, cancellation insurance, and booking changes.
Norwegian doesn’t offer business class, but they do sell premium economy tickets on 787 Dreamliner international long-haul flights to/from the U.S., Thailand, Argentina, Singapore, and Caribbean (excluding flights between the U.S. and Caribbean).
Bottom Line: Norwegian is a budget airline offering points that can be great to use on its international long-haul premium economy flights.
Partner Awards
Norwegian is part of the Airlines for Europe (A4E) alliance, but that partnership won’t help you much.
This is because Norwegian and the partners in A4E don’t provide reciprocal benefits like you’ll see with the Oneworld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance.
Therefore, if you need benefits across an alliance, you’ll want to look outside of the Norwegian Rewards program.
Booking Online
Norwegian flights will not show up on online travel agency portals like ThankYou Rewards, Ultimate Rewards, and Membership Rewards because the airline doesn’t participate in the systems that load its flights on to a travel portal.
With that said, you can still redeem CashPoints online by logging into your Norwegian account.
It’s important to note that you’ll only see Norwegian flights when you use the airline’s search engine.
Hot Tip: CashPoints is a revenue-based airline currency that has a fixed value (unlike flexible program points where you can receive varying levels of value). 1 CashPoint = 1 Norwegian Krone = ~$0.11 USD.
The information regarding the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
The information regarding the Barclaycard Arrival® Plus World Elite Mastercard® was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Norwegian Air Rewards is the free frequent flyer program of Norway-based Norwegian Air.
The program allows you to earn CashPoints that can be redeemed for a number of items including an award flight.
The benefits that you earn with the program are based on the number of segments that you fly.
For every 6 segments, you earn a new benefit. For example, after your first 6 segments, you earn 2% CashPoints based on the revenue cost of the flight.
The benefits that you can earn include:
- 2% CashPoint boost on all LowFare tickets
- Free Fast Track on all flights
- Free seat reservation on all flights
- Free baggage on all flights
Norwegian doesn’t offer elite status and instead focuses its program towards the budget flyer.
The airline doesn’t have any airline partners but is part of an alliance called Airlines for Europe (A4E).
With that said, you won’t be able to use your CashPoints on any flight except for Norwegian Air.
You can access your Norwegian account by signing in here.
Signing up for the Norwegian Air program is free by filling out this online application.
You can find your Norwegian Rewards number by signing in to your account, looking on your membership card, or through a variety of marketing emails that they send to you.
If you can’t find it there, try using the “forgot my password” tool to reset your account so you can get in. Alternatively, try calling the customer service desk to find your number.
You can review the activity in your Norwegian account using the following steps:
- Login to your account
- Click “My Account” at the top
- Scroll down to “CashPoints History” on the left
It normally takes 14 working days after the transaction data has been received by Norwegian for CashPoints to become available for use by the Member.
Your CashPoints are valid until the end of the second year after you made your purchase.
For example, CashPoints for a flight purchased/paid for on July 1, 2022 are valid until December 31, 2024.
Reward benefits expire 12 months after the month in which a member no longer has enough qualifying flights for the reward to remain available to him or her.
Yes, frequent Norwegian Airlines flyers can apply for the Norwegian Rewards Card. The card earns 2% back in CashPoints for purchases with Norwegian, 2% back on dining and grocery purchases, and 1% back on all other purchases.
Other benefits of the Norwegian Rewards Card include priority boarding, no foreign transaction fees, no annual fee, and an anniversary bonus of $100 in CashPoints when you spend $20,000 on the card in a year.
A segment is the take-off and landing of 1 flight. For example, if you fly from Washington, D.C. (DCA) to Dallas (DFW) to Miami (MIA), that’s a total of 2 segments.
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About Michael McHugh
Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, Michael took his first international trip in 2013 with friends to the Bahamas. Although he didn’t travel much in his younger years, on that trip, he caught the travel bug and has been hooked ever since.
Michael first caught wind of the points and miles game in 2014 while at a bar in Washington, DC where the conversation amongst friends was quickly derailed because of an alert on a friend’s phone about a mistake fare. That’s where the love affair with points and miles began.
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18 comments
Rebecca Morris
April 27, 2019
Utterly frustrating and slow website at Norwegian Rewards.
I registered a Family account with my son’s name and the account didn’t show up, so I tried 3 more times. His name didn’t show up so I abandoned it.
3 days later, my son has 4 accounts.
I added my partner, who became a ‘crew’ member.
My partner booked a flight and I tried to claim reward points for this on his name in our family account, but suddenly his name isn’t in the list of family members so I can’t claim for him. So I tried to claim under my name, but 2 days later, Norwegian emailed me to say I cannot claim for my partner’s ticket under my name!
Very frustrating and slow and more like using snail mail.
Horrible website.
Pretty generous rewards, but trying to use the website is so off-putting.
Michael McHugh
May 01, 2019
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for letting us know and we hope that Norwegin will help you get this resolved.
Carlos Medina
November 01, 2019
Hello. I just back from a trip to Europe and want to subscribe to the Rewards Miles program.
Christine Krzyszton
November 02, 2019
Hello Carlos. You can sign up for the Norwegian Air Rewards program here: https://en.norwegianreward.com/blimedlem
Ricardo
January 07, 2020
Hi there Michael,
I loved your detailed explanation of the Norwegian reward system.
I was wondering if you could help me? As knowledgeable as you are in the sector, I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction as to whom to speak or contact at Norwegian to join their program.We are offering a unique service that any traveler visiting Europe would value, I could talk to you more about this in private.
I would greatly appreciate if you could help us with this and if not still let me know when you visit Barcelona so we can grab a coffee.
Best regards,
Ricardo
Jarrod West
January 08, 2020
Hey Ricardo,
Your best option would be to contact Norwegian through their Contact page. They also have a chat function available if you prefer that. I hope they are willing to work with you, and thanks for reading!
Mary Morrison
January 26, 2021
Since Norwegian just canceled long haul flights, I can’t use my cash points in the USA. How can I get reimbursed for the flight they canceled in summer 2020.
I can’t even find an email address to contact them.
Jarrod West
January 26, 2021
Hi Mary,
I recommend you contact them by calling 1-800-357-4159 to hear what your options are.
Norma
June 14, 2022
Hi Mary,
Did you ever hear back from Norwegian? What was their reply back to your problem? I had the same thing happen to me and they said that I could only use my points in Europe or gift them to my friends and family. I know NOBODY is Europe and very frustrated that they do not share their points with the other airlines they are in partnership with.
Milda Kaitz
April 29, 2022
Since Norwegian canceled long haul flights, I’m unable to use my Cash points to fly from USA to Europe. They expire Dec 2022. How can I get an extension on Cash points expiration date? Or can I get reimbursed for the flights Norwegian canceled in summer 2020?
Jarrod West
May 19, 2022
Hi Milda,
If you contact Norwegian they might be willing and able to extend your points for you.
Sarah Lee
July 07, 2022
Do you know if I have to fly or just book a flight before 12/31/22?
Sarah Lee
July 07, 2022
They told me that I can’t receive cash for my points from the cancelled flights. Mine also expires on Dec.31, 2022. So I just need to book the flight before the end of the year or do I actually need to travel before Dec. 31? They cancelled three round trip long haul flights in 2020 so I have a lot of points. This has been very frustrating.
Sarah Lee
July 07, 2022
I’m in the same situation. They told me no cash for the points.
Mary Schuneman
May 24, 2022
Hi Jarrod, this number 1-800-357-4159 is out of service. Do you have a working number to contact Norwegian Airlines from the United States? Thanks.
Christine Krzyszton
June 01, 2022
Hi Mary. This is the phone number currently on their website but is is saying out-of-service for me as well. While I couldn’t find another phone number, you can chat online with them or complete a form inquiry here: https://www.norwegian.com/us/help-contact/
Sheila merrigan
August 04, 2023
I was given $1000.00 reward points last year and booked a flight. Now that Norse has taken over, will they honor this flight? Have heard nothing from the airlines.
Jarrod West
August 09, 2023
Hi Sheila,
I cannot say one way or the other. I recommend you get in contact with the airline to see if they will still honor your flight, and if not what your options are.
Any thoughts or questions? Comment below!
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