How does a "guaranteed" stateroom work?

[susiesan]

JMO

A lot of O cruisers book early ..give their deposit

Then someone comes along asking for a GTY booking or books close to sailing in hopes of getting an upgrade

 

My thinking may be flawed but...

 

The people that should be offered an upgrade are those that have invested their money early with the cruise line.

If we all waited to book in hopes of an upgrade the cruise line would not have operating capital ;)

 

I prefer to know my cabin # so I book early but everyone is different

 

Lyn

 

I did my booking and paid my deposit over a year in advance of the original sail date. I don't care what cabin I'm in. I like to be surprised upon arrival at a ship!

[JimandStan]

I did my booking and paid my deposit over a year in advance of the original sail date. I don't care what cabin I'm in. I like to be surprised upon arrival at a ship!

 

 

You are off track in thinking that buying a stateroom Guarantee is similar to playing stateroom roulette, or to making a bid in a blind stateroom auction.

 

A Guarantee is neither of those things, and never has been (on ANY cruise line).

 

Guarantee's are not sold or advertised as a method for making an upgrade more likely. They are a program created to fill cabins which come back onto the market late in the game.

[hondorner]

... Apparently with O, one cannot keep a guarantee booking until close to sailing to find out the cabin. It gets assigned immediately.

Correct.

 

I remembered from 4 years ago when I went through this same frustrating experience of trying to have a true GTY with O that they just don't like to do it.

Sort of correct. I don't now whether it has anything to do with what they "like" to do, but I do know that for whatever reason, it's not their policy. I imagine they have sound business reasons for the policy.

 

O needs to educate the agents who sell their cruises not to offer GTY cruises at all...

Correct -- but all agencies who are familiar with have been "educated", and the policy is clear for any agent who takes the trouble to ask, and passengers should probably avoid those who haven't bothered to learn, no matter what the discount is.

 

...because they don't really sell them under the same terms as all other cruiselines do.

Bingo.

 

When a TA requests a GTY booking for a client O should tell the agents they don't sell guarantees.

In your case, the TA accepted your proposed booking for a guarantee, and probably didn't ask until you paid the deposit and therefore made the actual reservation -- if he or she asked at all. I have no doubt that you and the TA even engaged in a conversation about booking a guarantee, both assuming it worked the same way as on other cruise lines. I speculate that the TA went merrily on with the booking without ever considering, and thinking to ask, whether the policy is different. In other words, if it led to your disappointment, you should look to your TA, not Oceania.

 

 

 

I did hear from my TA -- here is his response, in detail:

 

Each gty booking is for a specific category. There are no "any category" gty bookings. There can be a gty booking for a specific category with additional waitlist for other category(ies) that are not available at that time. When you call Oceania to book a specific category, there may be staterooms numbers available and gty's available as well. If there are stateroom numbers available but you decide to book a gty instead, at midnight the system will automatically take your gty and assign an available stateroom number in the category booked.

 

You can not hang on to a gty if there are available staterooms in that category. The system will automatically assign an available stateroom. You can call back the next day and switch it back to a gty but at midnight you will end up with a stateroom assignment once again as long as there are stateroom numbers available in that specific category.

 

 

I may not get as much of a discount, or as many perks, as I would from some agencies, but I have an agent who knows how Oceania works. Apparently I have some reputation as being somewhat of an Oceania guru; I don't deserve it. Everything I know about Oceania I have learned from my agent and the agency owner.

[LHT28]

I don't care what cabin I'm in. I like to be surprised upon arrival at a ship!

 

Well you have a cabin & if you have not had the same cabin on the ship before you will be surprised ...right :D

 

enjoy the cruise

[Mparis184]

I called Oceania to book the Maiden Voyage on the Marina. I called promptly at 8:30AM when the bookings opened up. Even that early all the inside and outside cabins were completely sold out and they booked me an outside guarantee.

 

It looks like a lot of CC board folks on our Maiden Voyage thread also have outside guarantees booked. I can't wait to see what is going to happen with all of our bookings when O has time to start moving cabin assignments around. Our final payments are due this weekend.

 

Marion

[wripro]

Some people will drop out at final payment time so when they will have a clearer picture of the load and be able to start assigning cabins.