Arzeena Posted December 29, 2018 #1876 Share Posted December 29, 2018 12 hours ago, Ella2 said: If the TA has added the prepaid gratuities and they are paid in full before the upgrade offer comes into play...it's all good. I prepaid my own gratuities with final payment, knowing that upgrade offers typically come very close to the sailing date. By doing so, you have locked in that gratuity level, and you do NOT have to pay the higher Haven gratuities. Of course, tip the butler, concierge, and any additional to the room steward as you see fit. As for the bids...NO, you do not need the TA's approval at all. We are not involved in the process other than to say as an agency that we want clients to be part of the Upgrade Advantage program. At 80 days prior to sailing, you should get the email about the upgrade bidding. At that point, it's all your call on what you do. And again...we have absolutely NO say in the bid acceptance. I wish, LOL! It's all NCL's process. Are you 80 days or less prior to sailing? That is when the upgrade offers come. Some agencies do not opt in to the upgrade bidding process, although I have no idea why they do not. I love when clients are able to take advantage of the opportunity to experience either a better stateroom or the Haven! Hope that helps to answer your questions! Thank you. That was great information! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njkate Posted December 30, 2018 #1877 Share Posted December 30, 2018 I have forgotten, when do the upgrade offers come? After final payment or at 80 days out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phaedrus78 Posted December 30, 2018 #1878 Share Posted December 30, 2018 55 minutes ago, njkate said: I have forgotten, when do the upgrade offers come? After final payment or at 80 days out? 80 days out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prnsessmoi Posted December 31, 2018 #1879 Share Posted December 31, 2018 If we were to have a bid accepted for an upgrade, but not have received that confirmation (no access to email or anything) and have baggage tagged to original cabin, what would happen? We will be vacationing for several days pre-cruise, and while I may not be able to keep myself from checking, I almost think it would be fun to wait till check-in to find out if we get the upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kskelley40 Posted December 31, 2018 #1880 Share Posted December 31, 2018 2 hours ago, Prnsessmoi said: If we were to have a bid accepted for an upgrade, but not have received that confirmation (no access to email or anything) and have baggage tagged to original cabin, what would happen? We will be vacationing for several days pre-cruise, and while I may not be able to keep myself from checking, I almost think it would be fun to wait till check-in to find out if we get the upgrade. Interesting question....I wonder the same. Will your bags find you? Or would you have to track them down once on the ship? We are also flying in early and not sure if I will be able to check on an upgrade. Trying to go low tech this trip so not taking any electronics that would give me access to internet or emails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oracer Posted December 31, 2018 #1881 Share Posted December 31, 2018 I would at least have some way of looking at your checking and credit card statements. That way you can see the charge that hits that for the upgrade. Since your bags will have the old cabin on it and by chance you get upgraded, I am sure they will be sitting in front of that cabin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KDCXO82 Posted January 1, 2019 #1882 Share Posted January 1, 2019 13 days out from sailing on the Getaway and impatiently waiting on my upgrade offers... eek! 😬 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FPJC03 Posted January 1, 2019 #1883 Share Posted January 1, 2019 Sailing on Getaway on 3/10 and booked into midship mini-suite - changed bids OLD: Forward suite, Aft suite, spa suite, courtyard NEW: cancelled forward and aft suite bids. Increased spa suite bid from $500 to $650 (upper limit of poor), increased courtyard bid from $600 to $700 (same level). Hope to snag one of them by end of February or early March,.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRex7 Posted January 3, 2019 #1884 Share Posted January 3, 2019 Was checking on my upgrade advantage bid (leaving on Sunday the 6th), and my banner and e-mail were gone from MyNCL. I went back to one of my upgrade advantage e-mails and accessed my bids that way - all bids were marked "expired" except one, which was marked "processing". I go back an hour later to check, and now they all say "processing" again. What is going on? Are they trying to kill me with anticipation - did I get an upgrade or not? No activity on my credit card yet. Shouldn't have looked... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oracer Posted January 3, 2019 #1885 Share Posted January 3, 2019 TRex7, good luck!!!! I am on the cruise right after you and have put in bids. What level did you bid on? Were they in poor, fair, good range? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phaedrus78 Posted January 3, 2019 #1886 Share Posted January 3, 2019 7 minutes ago, TRex7 said: Was checking on my upgrade advantage bid (leaving on Sunday the 6th), and my banner and e-mail were gone from MyNCL. I went back to one of my upgrade advantage e-mails and accessed my bids that way - all bids were marked "expired" except one, which was marked "processing". I go back an hour later to check, and now they all say "processing" again. What is going on? Are they trying to kill me with anticipation - did I get an upgrade or not? No activity on my credit card yet. Shouldn't have looked... That's weird. I'd bet you get the one that you saw originally marked "processing", but who knows? Best of luck to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRex7 Posted January 3, 2019 #1887 Share Posted January 3, 2019 Oracer, I bid in poor to low fair range. The bid that I thought was accepted was in the low fair range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tw in OR Posted January 3, 2019 #1888 Share Posted January 3, 2019 Sailing 1-6 on Breakaway. Started in an OC assigned O1, booked with a 20% latitudes discount. Got the invitation to upgrade at about 60 days. Bid $5 more than the cheapest cost to upgrade OX to MX (high poor range, I think). Upgrade bid for an MA accepted at 3 days before sailing. When BX dropped below what I paid I called my PCC to see if he could upgrade me, and he told me no--that if the balcony was even $1 he would do it, but couldn't if it was less. Said I could buy up to MX, but that would have cost me another $300 in fare PLUS I'd lose all the Free at Sea amenities (some of which I need.) The O1 is pretty cool, I would have been happy there also, so we just waited for the bidding process. Now we get to try out a mini suite-- sweet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRex7 Posted January 3, 2019 #1889 Share Posted January 3, 2019 27 minutes ago, oracer said: TRex7, good luck!!!! I am on the cruise right after you and have put in bids. What level did you bid on? Were they in poor, fair, good range? My banner and e-mail are back on MyNCL and still "processing." Things are not boding well for me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulInPGH Posted January 3, 2019 #1890 Share Posted January 3, 2019 Hi all. Just won my very first bid; extremely excited! We've cruised on NCL 4 times previously, but this was our first bid experience due to our TA not participating until recently. We booked the cruise (Getaway leaving this Sunday, Jan. 6) about two weeks ago - very last-minute. We got the offer to upgrade about two days after we booked. We originally booked a midship balcony (BB). I put in two bids for a Haven Spa Suite (H9) and a Haven Courtyard Penthouse (H5). The minimum bid was $400 for each category. I bid $1000 PP for each cabin type and won the Spa Suite! Got the notification email today, 3 days prior to the cruise. All told, we'll be sailing in the Haven for the first time for about $1500 less than what it would have cost to book the cabin outright. Yay. Cheers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner22aa Posted January 4, 2019 #1891 Share Posted January 4, 2019 16 Days to go and patiently waiting to hear about my bids on the 20 Jan 19 sailing on the Escape. Never done this bidding thing before and now it seems like I'm a 7 year old on Christmas eve! All the bids are still pending so at least they have not thrown me to the sharks just yet. Anyone out there bidding on the same cruise heard anything yet? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDnKY Posted January 4, 2019 #1892 Share Posted January 4, 2019 We are sailing on the Breakaway on Sunday and just got our upgrade yesterday, 3 days before sailing. We went from a Mini-Suite to a Haven Courtyard Penthouse. The others that bid for balconies or spa suites were upgraded about a week before us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phaedrus78 Posted January 5, 2019 #1893 Share Posted January 5, 2019 18 days to go (since it's past midnight) until our cruise on Epic, 1/23. We're booked to an inside cabin, and have bids in for balcony, spa balcony, mini suite, and spa mini. I've been tracking inventory, and in the past week available balcony rooms have fallen from 48 down to 0. All available balconies were family category (B5, B4, B3 and B2). They fell off in chunks for a few days, down to 26 B2's yesterday morning, then all the rest dropped off today. BF rooms were selling as GUAR until 3 days ago, now those are gone as well. B4's are now selling as GUAR. Interiors and mini-suites are available as sail-away only, and there are 6 Haven rooms still showing (4 H2, 2 H4). The price for those Haven rooms has dropped pretty dramatically, but only 1 H4 has sold in the past week. Prices for everything else has remained stable. I'm not sure what any of this means for my bid hopes, but I'm not optimistic. My guess is that the rooms dropping offline are due to them being assigned for sail-away and GUAR purchases, and that there's not going to be much inventory left for upgrades. I guess we'll see... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare mking8288 Posted January 5, 2019 #1894 Share Posted January 5, 2019 Followup to post #1828 (Dec. 21, 2018) ... now that the deadline has passed and all pending bids either expired or upgraded. For the January 6, 2019 Escape 14 days W. Caribbean sailing out of NYC, the cruise was "sold out" at least 2 days ago, off the booking site entirely, not even Insides ... a month ago, there're easily 200+ balconies unsold & available. IMHO, NCL clearly knew what they are doing in partnership with PlusGrade, and, they seemed to be modifying, changing and fine tuning this upgrade game, to maximize revenue for the corporate bottomline. Our winning bid was $125 p/p for the balcony (that's $250 for 2 person over 14 nights - it was borderline between Poor & Fair, at times middle of "Fair) and it was a late booking, about 50 days out. We bidded $125 p/p last October for a balcony on the Halloween Escape or 7 nights, but it was not accepted. There are probably a good # of last minute solo cruisers this Sunday and the best deal in the past week was not for an Inside but for a balcony @ Sailaway pricing. It seemed like a few of our fellow Roll Call members were still waiting for words this Friday (yesterday) morning ... 2 reported success moving up to the spa mini-suite and also inside to balcony ... up to them to post their details, as they so choose. Patience is one of the keys to this mind game at play. Good luck to those close to their sailings and each ship/itinerary were a little different, with a complex set of variables, IMHO. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luvmypups Posted January 5, 2019 #1895 Share Posted January 5, 2019 17 hours ago, BigDnKY said: We are sailing on the Breakaway on Sunday and just got our upgrade yesterday, 3 days before sailing. We went from a Mini-Suite to a Haven Courtyard Penthouse. The others that bid for balconies or spa suites were upgraded about a week before us. Congratulations! Do you mind sharing your bid? Have a great time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasonmom Posted January 5, 2019 #1896 Share Posted January 5, 2019 I've read back a way but not found answer to my question (sorry if I missed it). Does getting an upgrade have anything to do with how much you originally paid? For example - if I paid 500 a piece for double occupancy and then price goes up and people pay 700 a piece occupancy, does this play into who gets upgrade? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare JamieLogical Posted January 5, 2019 #1897 Share Posted January 5, 2019 23 minutes ago, Jasonmom said: I've read back a way but not found answer to my question (sorry if I missed it). Does getting an upgrade have anything to do with how much you originally paid? For example - if I paid 500 a piece for double occupancy and then price goes up and people pay 700 a piece occupancy, does this play into who gets upgrade? No one really knows for sure. The amount you originally paid *is* passed off to Plusgrade (the third-party that processes bids), but no one knows if or how it is factored into bid acceptance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
travelhound12 Posted January 6, 2019 #1898 Share Posted January 6, 2019 On 11/30/2018 at 9:26 PM, Wyatt ncl said: I went 10/8/2017 on the Breakaway through a travel agency rec'd an upgrade email 80 days out. Went on the Pearl 8/13/2018 through a travel agency rec'd an upgrade email 80 days out. Going on the Escape 1/6/2019. No upgrade email rec'd. I called NCL customer service and rec'd an upgrade email 10 minutes later. Called Norwegian and was told explicitly that I wouldn't get the upgrade offer because I got a low rate through my TA. My TA participates in the upgrade program. That makes no sense that I won't be given a chance to pay extra money for an upgrade because I save a couple hundred dollars off my initial booking. It would make sense for that to be a factor in accepting my bid. I'm 42 days out. I'm traveling with others who booked directly with NCL and got the upgrade email at 80 days out. They paid slightly more for their rooms than I did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shidah Posted January 6, 2019 #1899 Share Posted January 6, 2019 Maybe your TA is not being 100% honest about participating? Never heard of anyone not getting the offer, however NCL does say it is limited, giving them the right not to offer it to everyone. Still very odd. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParrotheadG Posted January 6, 2019 #1900 Share Posted January 6, 2019 We are sailing on the Getaway jan. 27, and we received 4 upgrades to bid on around the 80 day mark. Interesting thing is that this will be the 8th time we have cruised with NCL, are Latitudes members, and this is the first time we've ever received an offer to bid!! Sounds like for many of you this is a fairly regular occurrence. We have used varied TA's, so unless none of them participated it doesn't seem it would be that. We put bids in on all options, and we'll see what happens! They are currently all showing as "pending"...we have 21 days before we sail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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