What is a meta upgrade?

While looking at our ncl mastercard account after ( of course paying it off every month). Hate paying interest and only use cards with points or miles was wondering what that term meta upgrade meant? And how is it used? I currently have over 50,000 points on both ncl and also rccl and a week scheduled on both next year.. Thanks for any info...

I had no clue myself because I don't use that but I did a quick Google search and came up with this.

https://www.ncl.com/world-points

Scroll down and click on the T/C's. It's explained there.

Hope that helps.

I believe you'll find that a "meta" upgrade means you stay within the same cabin category, just a "better" (subjective by cruise line) cabin. So, if you have a balcony, you can get a mid-ship balcony with your upgrade. They used to have "cross meta" and "double cross meta" upgrades with the NCL card, where you could go from an inside to a oceanview, or an inside to a balcony, etc. Those have gone away. (Although they never applied to Haven cabins.) Now, I just use my points for OBC, since we usually spend $$ on board for massages.

I just looked at the card website and still find the double cross meta available. We have used it before and it was a great deal.

Inside To Balcony Stateroom Upgrade On 5-Day Or Longer Cruise (Double Meta Upgrade)

60,000 Points

• Description [active tab]
  Carry the card that elevates your outlook. Upgrade from an Inside Stateroom to a Balcony Stateroom on any 5-Day or longer sailing with Norwegian Cruise Line. And the best part is — it’s free with your Norwegian Cruise Line WorldPoints® rewards.
   
  

I'm new to the "meta" club and just used 30,000 of my points to upgrade from an IF (lowest inside) to an OK(obstructed OV). I would've done the double meta, Inside to balcony, but I was short about 7000. points. I should have enough once my cruise payment posts and then it's possible that I could do another upgrade for 30,000 to balcony. I saved about $1200. Of course, the price of the cruise could drop to less then I paid and then I wasted points since final payment is made!

I'm new to the "meta" club and just used 30,000 of my points to upgrade from an IF (lowest inside) to an OK(obstructed OV). I would've done the double meta, Inside to balcony, but I was short about 7000. points. I should have enough once my cruise payment posts and then it's possible that I could do another upgrade for 30,000 to balcony. I saved about $1200. Of course, the price of the cruise could drop to less then I paid and then I wasted points since final payment is made!

When do you use the points? As soon as you make your reservation or after final payment ? Do you have to contact NCL or BOA since its their card?

When do you use the points? As soon as you make your reservation or after final payment ? Do you have to contact NCL or BOA since its their card?

You need to have a reservation and then you would call World Points to see what's available . I just found all this out a couple days ago. We just booked a cruise for Sept and the cruise is already in final payment. I called reservations and in my case I only had 53,000, so enough for Inside to outside or outside to balcony. I did the lowest category IS, which was an IF and they gave me an OK outside with an obstructed view. Once this month credit cart statement is out, I should have enough to go from OV to balcony if it's available.

What I don't know is if you make a reservation and use your points and if before final payment is made you have to cancel, I don't know if your points would go back into your account. I would think that there are others here that have more info then I do. Hope this helps!

The double cross meta upgrade is IMHO the absolute best use of your reward points as long as you do it on a very long cruise. The upgrade is good to move from inside to balcony (can't go any higher) for the whole cruise, no matter how long. While there are some who have been able to use it for a B2B2B (when also sold as a single itinerary) and therefore "saved" $5,000 or more, we used ours for a 19 day cruise on the Sun and went from an inside to one of the two forward facing balconies. We "saved" slightly over $2,000 which is a much greater value than the same number of points would have as OBC or as a statement credit ($600).

We are using a second one this fall for our 14 transatlantic. Not as good a value as the cost difference between inside and balcony aren't as great but given all my other reward cards have been devaluing their awards, I was afraid (since there isn't another long cruise on the horizon) that we might loose out. So on this one we are only "saving" about $1,000.

There is a (very) long sticky at the top of this forum about the card and using the points. I would suggest start reading at the last post and go backwards, otherwise you likely will never make it through the whole thing.

Be sure to check out the "NCL Mastercard FAQ" sticky at the top of this NCL page. It has thousands of posts, but if you read through the last few pages you may have a lot of your questions answered.

We used 60k points to upgrade from an inside to a balcony on our recent Alaska cruise. It was worth a lot more than just using those points for onboard credit or credit on my card bill. We saved about $2500 with the upgrade.

I originally booked an inside O4 meta room on Norwegian Gem then used 30k points to upgrade to a balcony and the rep said there were only 4 room available, all with privasea views or partially enclosed balconies. My category now says OF-BF. Where can I find a list of category metas?  
 

I went online to act like I was booking another cruise and there are plenty of 4 person balcony rooms available. We are now in room 8536.