Bidding on Cabin upgrades

I just got an email from Celebrity about a program I'd never heard of before. It's been over a year since I last sailed with them so this may be old news. The email was an offer to put a bid on a cabin upgrade. They were asking how much I'd be willing to offer to bump my cabin up to a better class. There is a little meter that looks likd a gas guage and tells you if your bid is weak, moderate of strong.

Is anyone familiar with this? Has anyone ever used it?

There are several recent threads about the bidding process, do a search and you’ll find them.

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We received this today, in error per Celebrity. There are no such cabins available for bidding on our cruise.

We received this today, in error per Celebrity. There are no such cabins available for bidding on our cruise.

We got the same today.

Could it be they are just seeing how much more a person would pay for an upgrade...kinda like a survey?

They are arranging ‘standby’ guests if there are last minute cancellations therefore avoiding serious price cutting possibly on more expensive rooms. For example, starting from the top....If the PH cancelled last minute in the past they would either have upgraded a RS guest free of charge or would have phoned a few offering an upgrade at a price....The then empty RS could be offered to CS or SS and on down the upgrading would go.

Now by having guests pre bidding they know which guests at a range of levels are interested in an upgrade and who will pay the most for it....From feedback so far on CC upgrades do not seem to be cheap, frequently don’t exist and you could possibly upgrade at a lower price by simply logging on and seeing if any rooms higher than yours are available and at what price....

Personally I think it is a pity....previously we have spoken to frequent cruisers, a couple on honeymoon and a couple celebrating their golden wedding who had been thrilled to received free upgrades.

Looks like the upgrade fairy who brought a bit of magic to the lives of so many guests has had her magic wand stolen....

Out of interest, were these free upgrades in the last couple of years? I can only recall, and personally come across, upsells. Admittedly at far lower amounts than the Move Up minimum bids our Roll Call has been invted to submit though!

Out of interest, were these free upgrades in the last couple of years? I can only recall, and personally come across, upsells. Admittedly at far lower amounts than the Move Up minimum bids our Roll Call has been invted to submit though!

The golden couple was on an RC cruise the other two were both on the same sailing about 4/5 years ago. I am sure we have heard from the ‘real’ no cost involved upgrade fairy more recently than that on CC though....I seem to remember congratulating someone on their good fortune fairly recently.

Ironically, as the honeymoon couple were telling us about their upgrade another couple were quite upset as they were celebrating a significant birthday and hadn’t been offered an upgrade....I guess the upgrade fairy couldn’t please everyone either!

Having never been visited by an upsell fairy let alone upgrade fairy it will be interesting to see if we receive a mail for our upcoming cruise which has been sold out for months!

We were on Millennium Feb 2016. 3 couples we chatted to had free up grades from Aqua to Sky Suites. On recent cruises have not heard of any one getting free up grades but when there is 2500 plus passengers do not get to speak to everyone 😀

Would love it if the up grade fairy wafted over us some time.

We were on Millennium Feb 2016. 3 couples we chatted to had free up grades from Aqua to Sky Suites. On recent cruises have not heard of any one getting free up grades but when there is 2500 plus passengers do not get to speak to everyone 😀

Would love it if the up grade fairy wafted over us some time.

Free no longer - not when X can generate additional revenue from the MoveUp programme ;).

We’ve just received our first upsell offer ever....on Princess (only our second ever cruise with them). No bidding just a straight $99 for 10 days if we are interested.

I wish X would tell people in the MoveUp offers that cabins on which they are bidding may not be available.

I do realize that they include some sort of "no guarantees" language, which covers them legally. And that folks can search to see whether cabins appear to be/are available. AND that one should always book the cabin they will be happy with. AND that there are marketing/research benefits that allow them to set future prices.

The above said, when people receive an offer to pay for something, there is a presumption that something is actually available when, in the case of MoveUp, there often is not. It's about managing expectations. If you know that you're really bidding for an eventuality (last minute cancellation), then you know that, regardless of how much you bid, chances of moving up are minimal (and you might choose not to spend the time doing it). If there are cabins available, that might influence whether you bid and what you bid.

I understand all the reasons X doesn't provide more info on what's likely available -- but IMHO it's unfortunate and evidences a lack of care for customers. JMHO.

What a great idea by Celebrity to get cruisers to bid, basically against themselves, and then get told their bid is good or weak bid.

Gotta love it.

I just got an email from Celebrity about a program I'd never heard of before. It's been over a year since I last sailed with them so this may be old news. The email was an offer to put a bid on a cabin upgrade. They were asking how much I'd be willing to offer to bump my cabin up to a better class. There is a little meter that looks likd a gas guage and tells you if your bid is weak, moderate of strong.

 

Is anyone familiar with this? Has anyone ever used it?

Yes, there are a few threads already about this. I first received the Move Up e-mail for our May 13th Summit cruise. We did not bid as the prices were crazy high.

Yesterday we received the Move Up e-mail for our September 9th cruse on Summit, but our bids were all weak as I really don't want to pay that much more for the cruise. I'm sure they will not be accepted.

I wish X would tell people in the MoveUp offers that cabins on which they are bidding may not be available.

 

I do realize that they include some sort of "no guarantees" language, which covers them legally. And that folks can search to see whether cabins appear to be/are available. AND that one should always book the cabin they will be happy with. AND that there are marketing/research benefits that allow them to set future prices.

 

The above said, when people receive an offer to pay for something, there is a presumption that something is actually available when, in the case of MoveUp, there often is not. It's about managing expectations. If you know that you're really bidding for an eventuality (last minute cancellation), then you know that, regardless of how much you bid, chances of moving up are minimal (and you might choose not to spend the time doing it). If there are cabins available, that might influence whether you bid and what you bid.

 

I understand all the reasons X doesn't provide more info on what's likely available -- but IMHO it's unfortunate and evidences a lack of care for customers. JMHO. There are sites that do provide more info on the numbers of cabins available, including =x='s UK site, at least the last time I checked.

I bid on our recent Summit cruise, slightly over the minimum, but never felt that there was any misdirection. In fact, there were 5 RS available, and not long after the offer, they either sold or upgraded 4 of those. They did send an email a few days before the cruise advising that there were no more move-up opportunities. I too liked the old method of the upgrade fairy, occasionally, visiting.

We booked a sky suite for our November ‘17 Panama Canal Cruise. I was just looking at our cruise after final payment to check out the excursions and noticed that a Signature Suite was available for about $900 less than we had paid for our Sky Suite! We had already agreed to the price, so got no cash back. Got on the phone and asked for the Signature Suite. We had to pay $50 apiece, the standard for an up sell and we got it!

PS we love Joey!

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We booked a sky suite for our November ‘17 Panama Canal Cruise.

If you do not mind, when is this sailing? Signature Suite has to be on Reflection. I have not been able to find it. :confused:

On 8/14/2018 at 11:36 PM, ahannas said:

I just got an email from Celebrity about a program I'd never heard of before. It's been over a year since I last sailed with them so this may be old news. The email was an offer to put a bid on a cabin upgrade. They were asking how much I'd be willing to offer to bump my cabin up to a better class. There is a little meter that looks likd a gas guage and tells you if your bid is weak, moderate of strong.

 

Is anyone familiar with this? Has anyone ever used it?

i bid on 3 . . . waiting now.  it's KILLING ME.  lol

On 8/15/2018 at 3:38 PM, CruisingChick said:

 

Yes, there are a few threads already about this. I first received the Move Up e-mail for our May 13th Summit cruise. We did not bid as the prices were crazy high.

 

Yesterday we received the Move Up e-mail for our September 9th cruse on Summit, but our bids were all weak as I really don't want to pay that much more for the cruise. I'm sure they will not be accepted.

we bid basically the minimum on all 3 suite upgrades.  why not?  it was still cheaper than purchasing it originally - you never know!