Chances of an upgrade

[Slaideen]

So......hubby and I are sailing on Conquest next week (YAY!). We booked our cruise with our United mileage, on United.com website. On our cruise documents, it's showing we "paid" $1100 for the cruise, for an interior room. What do you think the chances are if I call and ask for an upgrade, to an ocean view at least? Can Carnival see that I used miles to book the cruise?

 

Thanks!!!

[Canadian_J]

My first thought is that if you call Carnival, they're going to call you to call United, since they're you're "agent" in this case.

 

My second thought is that your odds are slim. I can almost guarantee they have a way of seeing that it was paid in miles, plus even if it was paid cash, this plan doesn't make a lot of sense. You'd need to have Early Saver and a higher category would need to both be available and lower in price to what you'd paid.

 

Not to be a Negative Nancy, but I don't think an upgrade is in your future. You used miles to get an inside cabin, that's what you're entitled to.

[crusinpsychRN]

I called my PVP yesterday and told her I'd reluctantly give up my OV for a balcony on Sunshine 4/8/16 which is almost sold out. She said she'd pass it on.

[fsa1155]

How do upgrades work? I've only been on a couple of cruises. In the past, I have always booked an ocean view cabin. This time, I booked an Ocean Suite with the Early Saver deal on Carnival Vista. Does Carnival email me and ask if I want to move up to a grand suite? I guess I don't understand the whole upgrade thing and how it comes about.

 

Karen

[bigdog1958]

How do upgrades work? I've only been on a couple of cruises. In the past, I have always booked an ocean view cabin. This time, I booked an Ocean Suite with the Early Saver deal on Carnival Vista. Does Carnival email me and ask if I want to move up to a grand suite? I guess I don't understand the whole upgrade thing and how it comes about.

 

Karen

 

No one does... at some point carnival looks at the sales of the cabins and decides whether they need some of a certain type. If so, they will randomly pick some people in that type of cabin and ask if they want an upsell to a better cabin. The person then decides if they want to pay the additional money or not for the upsell cabin. This can happen by phone call or email. There have people that have cruised on carnival over 20 times and never received an upsell, and there are people who have only cruised once or twice and have gotten the offer.. It appears to be just luck.. sometimes the deal is good, other times its not that good of an offer

[lizardhowson]

Upgrades - as in Carnival "giving" you (for free) a better cabin than you paid for are nearly non-existent. Rarely does anyone post here of receiving an upgrade.

 

Upsells - as in Carnival offering to move you to a better cabin for an amount less than the current booking cost are very in-frequent. You see a few examples each month of people posting of an upsell offer.

[Earthworm Jim]

No one does... at some point carnival looks at the sales of the cabins and decides whether they need some of a certain type. If so, they will randomly pick some people in that type of cabin and ask if they want an upsell to a better cabin. The person then decides if they want to pay the additional money or not for the upsell cabin. This can happen by phone call or email. There have people that have cruised on carnival over 20 times and never received an upsell, and there are people who have only cruised once or twice and have gotten the offer.. It appears to be just luck.. sometimes the deal is good, other times its not that good of an offer

 

Which is why upgrades on guarantee cabins are now pretty uncommon. It used to be there was a reasonable chance of getting a free upgrade. But now they decided why give yo you for free when they can call some other cruisers and get them to pay a few bucks for that upgrade?

 

Kind of hard to blame them. Unless you argue that some free upgrades on guarantee cabins here and there would be good advertising, making more people be willing to rolls the dice on a guarantee, thus propping up the price they can charge for a guarantee cabin.

[Aplmac]

If you're a big spender

(your onboard account spending record shows that!)

then you stand a chance.

 

.

[nwo4life]

If you're a big spender

(your onboard account spending record shows that!)

then you stand a chance.

 

.

 

 

If this is true, I know why I never get called.

[fsa1155]

Thank you all. That does help explain it.

[srp1419]

I was booked in an interior unknowingly it could hold 4 people and I was just one. A week before the cruise, carnival called and asked if I would like to upgrade to a balcony for $400. I declined. A few days later they called and offered me a balcony for $200 extra. I thought this was great and took it. She told me they offered it to me because I was only 1 in a room for 4. And that their interior room for 4 was easier to sell than the balcony for 4 they put me in. Makes sense.

This time we are 2 people booked in a room for 2, so I doubt the same kind of call will be coming.

[AdGuyMG]

Upsells - as in Carnival offering to move you to a better cabin for an amount less than the current booking cost are very in-frequent. You see a few examples each month of people posting of an upsell offer.

 

Concluding that upsells are rare or infrequent because of a small amount of "upsell fairy" posts on Cruise Critic is inaccurate. The Cruise Critic community represents 1% maybe 2% of the 4 million people who cruise Carnival yearly or ever have cruised with Carnival.

 

I'm fairly good friends with a woman who works full time as an Upsell Fairy at Carnival HQ and she produces about $1 Million dollars of annual revenue for the Upsell Department. And she has 8 co-workers in her department doing around the same amount of business or more. And they are all primarily compensated by commission. So somebody is getting the calls and taking the offers.

 

Carnival has 24 ships with 60,000 berths sailing each week. Their schedule is out into mid 2017 so there are lots of upsell opportunity calls going out every day.

 

Just because you or someone you know or frequent CC posters who represent a teensie minority never got "the call" doesn't mean they are not actively happening.

 

As to the OP's question about a free upgrade... fuggetaboutit.

[BuckeyeMan]

Concluding that upsells are rare or infrequent because of a small amount of "upsell fairy" posts on Cruise Critic is inaccurate. The Cruise Critic community represents 1% maybe 2% of the 4 million people who cruise Carnival yearly or ever have cruised with Carnival.

 

I'm fairly good friends with a woman who works full time as an Upsell Fairy at Carnival HQ and she produces about $1 Million dollars of annual revenue for the Upsell Department. And she has 8 co-workers in her department doing around the same amount of business or more. And they are all primarily compensated by commission. So somebody is getting the calls and taking the offers.

 

Carnival has 24 ships with 60,000 berths sailing each week. Their schedule is out into mid 2017 so there are lots of upsell opportunity calls going out every day.

 

Just because you or someone you know or frequent CC posters who represent a teensie minority never got "the call" doesn't mean they are not actively happening.

 

As to the OP's question about a free upgrade... fuggetaboutit.

 

Can she shed any light on strategies if one does receive a call? If they offer it at $xxx will they come down on the price? Any tips?

[AdGuyMG]

Can she shed any light on strategies if one does receive a call? If they offer it at $xxx will they come down on the price? Any tips?

 

From my understanding, the Sail Support Department reviews the available cabin inventory and determines where there may be excess availability. The Revenue Management Department then determines and sets the pricing. The Upsell department gets a package of Availabilities/Pricing and their team makes the outbound calls. Upsell Fairies have no power to negotiate or undermine Revenue Management's pricing just as your PVP can't negotiate pricing.

 

I believe the only negotiating would be for the Owner Suites on the Fantasy class ships where the goal is about $2000 on the short cruises and even then it's ultimately Revenue Management's final call.

 

I also know that when calls are made, no research, time or effort is expended to determine or differentiate whether they are calling someone who's booked on their 1st cruise or 100th cruise. It's just a name on a list. No answer? No sale? No problem. Leave a message and on to the next call.

 

I also know that people booked with TA's do not get the call for a variety of reasons.

[lizardhowson]

Concluding that upsells are rare or infrequent because of a small amount of "upsell fairy" posts on Cruise Critic is inaccurate. The Cruise Critic community represents 1% maybe 2% of the 4 million people who cruise Carnival yearly or ever have cruised with Carnival..

 

While Cruise Critic does represent only a small percentage of all Carnival cruisers, the scarcity of upsell and upgrade posts is representative of the decline numbers of this happening overall. Years ago, upgrades were not uncommon, today - extremely rare. And even upsells are on the decline if the recent volume of posts here is any indicator - which I think it is as many like to "broadcast" their upsells.