HAL Upsell (not upgrade) Question

[glutenhab]

I just booked an inside M guararantee on a 58 day Australia/Asia sailing on Zandaam in November (first time booking a guarantee).

Are upsells offered at random or will everyone else be offered upsells before me?

Will I increase my chances of getting a better upsell offer if I book say an outside guarantee instead of an M guarantee?

Because this is a B2B 28/30 (actually 14/14/14/16) will my chances of an upsell be less?

And would I increase my chances by booking say the 28 day in an outside guarantee & the 30 in an inside guarantee? (I have heard they do their best to keep you in the same cabin on B2B's.)

 

We are very comfortable in an inside, but if the chance of an upsell is there, we want to increase our chances of being offered one.

A pipe dream maybe, but I would love to be offered an upsell to a balcony for say $1000.00 each but would not part with several thousand each to book this in advance.

Am I dreaming in technicolor or is it possible, & if it is would having an outside guarantee increase my chances of this?

 

Please, no lectures on booking only what you are comfortable with. We are fine in an inside if that happens. Just trying to increase our chances of getting an offer.

Also, I am not referring to upgrades here, only upsells.

[kazu]

wow! a lot of questions ;) and some good ones - I don't know if I can answer them all, but if you are hoping to be upsold to a balcony, I am guessing you would need to be in an outside at least?

 

My experience has been those in the next level are offered the upsells first. So, if the ocean views are offered, the odds are they will take it. (for examples superior verandah suites are offered the deluxe at the upsell rates before anyone else).

 

In some ways being on the whole thing helps and in others, hurts.

 

If you can swing the ocean view and like the room, I would go there if you are hoping for a balcony upsell. JMO - hopefully the wiser people know more than I.

[Randyk47]

I too have always thought it was like a ladder, one step at a time for the most part. It gets a little gray because people are offered upsells for cabins several categories up but it's probably transparent what happened before they got the offer. By that I mean HAL went through all the categories in between and still had cabins available so they made an offer. For instance, I was in a B category on the Veendam and was offered an upsell to an S category but I always assumed, and granted I may be totally wrong about this, that the folks in A category cabins were offered the upsell first and HAL still had S category cabins available after that process. I guess my point is the greater the number of categories between your booked cabin and the one you'd like to get offered the smaller the chances they'll get to you. My gut reaction is while anything is possible the likelihood of being offered an upsell from an M to a veranda cabin is probably slim and hooking that many back-to-back cruises together is probably not going to help matters.

 

As for what the offer will be in terms of cost, that's problematic. Going back to my case the B to S offer was for the full fare difference which was $1,999 per person. Obviously no bargain as it would have doubled our fare for the 14-day cruise and with what I'd already paid for the B cat cabin would have been more than I could have gotten an S for in the first place through my Internet TA. Needless to say I declined. However, others have been offered just fantastic bargains so I may have just been unlucky or on a really popular cruise where HAL felt they could charge the max.

[catl331]

Just trying to increase our chances of getting an offer. Also, I am not referring to upgrades here, only upsells.

Contact your TA or PCC and tell her/him that you want an up-buy, and what you are willing to pay for what level of move. We did once, and it was done in a couple of hours. It just depends on what's available.

[garydm]

Don't wait for an upsell to be offered to you. Have your TA contact HAL at some point close to departure and ask what is available in terms of an upsell. I did this on our trip two cruises ago, and they wanted X$ three weeks out, so I declined. One week out, he checked again, and we were offered half of X$. We took it.

 

Gary

[glutenhab]

Don't wait for an upsell to be offered to you. Have your TA contact HAL at some point close to departure and ask what is available in terms of an upsell. I did this on our trip two cruises ago, and they wanted X$ three weeks out, so I declined. One week out, he checked again, and we were offered half of X$. We took it.

 

Gary

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by glutenhab

Just trying to increase our chances of getting an offer. Also, I am not referring to upgrades here, only upsells.

 

Contact your TA or PCC and tell her/him that you want an up-buy, and what you are willing to pay for what level of move. We did once, and it was done in a couple of hours. It just depends on what's available.

 

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Great feedback from all, thanks.

I did make it VERY clear to my T/A that I am interested in hearing any & all upsell offers.

Her answer was that they usually come after final payment & that makes sense.

Now I guess I have to make the decision on whether or not to pay in advance to move to an outside before this time comes.

 

Any other ideas/suggestions are welcome.

[Randyk47]

Quote:

Originally Posted by glutenhab

Just trying to increase our chances of getting an offer. Also, I am not referring to upgrades here, only upsells.

 

Contact your TA or PCC and tell her/him that you want an up-buy, and what you are willing to pay for what level of move. We did once, and it was done in a couple of hours. It just depends on what's available.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Great feedback from all, thanks.

I did make it VERY clear to my T/A that I am interested in hearing any & all upsell offers.

Her answer was that they usually come after final payment & that makes sense.

Now I guess I have to make the decision on whether or not to pay in advance to move to an outside before this time comes.

 

Any other ideas/suggestions are welcome.

 

Yep, I forgot to mention up sells and upgrades usually don't happen until two to three weeks out. Obviously the problem is the waiting, sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it just doesn't happen. As long as you understand that and you're really happy as you stated with your present guarantee there's not much to be done but to sit back and see what happens. Good luck!

[Krazy Kruizers]

i see that your back-to-back is also offered as 4 different cruises

 

this actually gives you less of a chance for an upgrade on the entire cruise you have booked

[PennStateMom]

We booked an HH partial view guarantee and we were assigned a GG, fully obstructed view about 14 days out from departure. I was a little disappointed but knew that was the gamble we took. I emailed HAL and asked about an upsell to an F guarantee (oceanview) for $40 pp and got a form letter (email) response that everything has to go through our TA. On Wednesday, 10 days out, our TA received an email offering an uprade to a verandah for $59 pp which we jumped on. I have no idea if the email to HAL had anything to do with our TA receiving the offer, but it couldn't hurt.

[Essiesmom]

I think that cruise lines assign all of their gtys, then if they have cabins in higher categories available, and more demand for lower priced cabins that they can resell, they will offer you an upsell. So, if you are in a category that they think they can resell, they might offer an upsell. If there isn't much demand for your category, your chances of an upgrade/upsell are slim. EM

[serendipity1499]

I just booked an inside M guararantee on a 58 day Australia/Asia sailing on Zandaam in November (first time booking a guarantee).

Are upsells offered at random or will everyone else be offered upsells before me?

Will I increase my chances of getting a better upsell offer if I book say an outside guarantee instead of an M guarantee?

Because this is a B2B 28/30 (actually 14/14/14/16) will my chances of an upsell be less?

And would I increase my chances by booking say the 28 day in an outside guarantee & the 30 in an inside guarantee? (I have heard they do their best to keep you in the same cabin on B2B's.)

 

We are very comfortable in an inside, but if the chance of an upsell is there, we want to increase our chances of being offered one.

A pipe dream maybe, but I would love to be offered an upsell to a balcony for say $1000.00 each but would not part with several thousand each to book this in advance.

<SNIP>

Also, I am not referring to upgrades here, only upsells.

 

 

I don't know the answer if an "M" guarantee or an outside guarantee make any difference, but this is our experience..

 

We normally travel with friends on the longer cruises & never have requested an up-sell..Our reservation is always marked "do not upgrade" But for the first time in many years, we booked a seven day cruise by ourselves to Bermuda last Aug... We booked a confirmed "D" outside cabin & also joined the roll call...As soon as I heard HAL was offering up-sell's to Lanai's & Balcony's, I called our TA & advised him we would like to be considered for a lanai up-sell..

 

A few days later, HAL offered us an up-sell to a balcony for $199 per person which was $56.85 more per day for the two of us or a Lanai at $99.00 pp which was approx $28.30 more per day for the two of us..We took the Lanai & loved it..:D The balcony amount was similar to what PennstateMom paid for their up-sell..

 

However, you are hoping for a much less expensive up-sell of $34.50 per day to a Balcony from an "M" guarantee...I wonder if HAL has previously offered these very low-ball up-sell offers on the longer cruises?

 

If not, perhaps you should either slightly increase your offer or book an outside guarantee..

 

Realize that some posters are hesitant to actually give $$ amounts on up-sell offers but perhaps your TA could advise you about this..

 

Maybe some other posters who have taken longer cruises with up-sells will weigh in here too..

 

Whatever you do, I'm very jealous ;):):D of your 58 day cruise, but hope you have a wonderful time..:)

 

Cheers....:)Betty

[MightyQuinn]

Because this is a B2B 28/30 (actually 14/14/14/16) will my chances of an upsell be less?

Yes. HAL will want to maximize $$ for all cabins by selling each segment separately. If some segments are combined as Collectors Cruises, they will be marketed and possibly upsold together. In that case, you may get an upsell to the same cabin for some of your segments. But I think it quite unlikely that you'd be offered an upsell to the same cabin across all 4 segments.

[glutenhab]

We booked an HH partial view guarantee and we were assigned a GG, fully obstructed view about 14 days out from departure. I was a little disappointed but knew that was the gamble we took. I emailed HAL and asked about an upsell to an F guarantee (oceanview) for $40 pp and got a form letter (email) response that everything has to go through our TA. On Wednesday, 10 days out, our TA received an email offering an uprade to a verandah for $59 pp which we jumped on. I have no idea if the email to HAL had anything to do with our TA receiving the offer, but it couldn't hurt.

 

So you think upgrades are done before upsells are offered?

[Randyk47]

So you think upgrades are done before upsells are offered?

 

I think it's the other way around, up sells then upgrades. Makes more sense for HAL to get money for moves rather than give them away free.

[kazu]

I think it's the other way around, up sells then upgrades. Makes more sense for HAL to get money for moves rather than give them away free.

 

That's what I have always thought too. Normally we got our upsell offer before all of our cc friends' guarantee cabins were assigned.

[m steve]

from my balcony cabin to a deluxe suite but I don't want to pay 2x the cabin price. Maybe $500 more pp.