What was your upgrade offer and what did you bid

[teamflames]

Hi all, we just booked the ncl jade 29 sep London to Miami 16 nights. Immediately we have been offered the chance to bid for an upgrade (first time we have ever received this, I wonder if it is because we are trying a new ta). We also qualify for platinum by the end of the cruise - yay.

Anyway we are in an inside and can bid on ov and balcony. Minimum bid is 75 and 85 respectively. Any advice on knowing how much to bid?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[JamieLogical]

while i just booked my cruise a few days ago, today i got an email to bid to upgrade from Inside to oceanview, this is only my 2nd cruise, im not sure how all this works it says bid from 85-150 a person, not sure if i should do this or not

 

It's really up to you. One very important thing to note is that once your bid is accepted (if it is), your credit card will be charged immediately and your stateroom will be assigned immediately. You have no opportunity to reject the upgrade. You will have no opportunity to choose your room. If you bid up to ocean view, you can be assigned any ocean view on the ship. So take a look at the deck plans and make sure there aren't any ocean views in locations you would be terribly unhappy with.

 

As for how much to bid, again, it is up to you. I recommend bidding an amount where you will be happy, win or lose. If yo win, you can be happy to get the upgrade. If you lose, you can be happy to have that money back in your pocket to spend on board.

[JamieLogical]

Hi all, we just booked the ncl jade 29 sep London to Miami 16 nights. Immediately we have been offered the chance to bid for an upgrade (first time we have ever received this, I wonder if it is because we are trying a new ta). We also qualify for platinum by the end of the cruise - yay.

Anyway we are in an inside and can bid on ov and balcony. Minimum bid is 75 and 85 respectively. Any advice on knowing how much to bid?

 

 

There's really no way to know how much will win you the bid. You can try to deduce some info about current inventory by doing "mock bookings" on the NCL site to see how many staterooms are left in the categories you are interested in. Just note that when a category is down to low inventory, it generally switches to GTY, meaning you can't see the exact number of rooms left. Also, For categories with lots of inventory left, the online booking system will only show a maximum of 15 rooms to choose from. There is no way to know how many more than 15 there are left in that category. Could be 15.... could be 150. You can glean a little but by looking at the exact stateroom numbers that are available. Higher numbers are generally considered "better" and therefore show up on the list of 15 available rooms. So if it's 15 of the highest numbers in that category, then you know that there is likely a lot of inventory left. If it's 15 of the lowest numbers in that category, then there are likely not much more than those 15 rooms left.

 

Another thing you can do is keep your eye on prices for the categories you are interested in. If the prices begin to drop close to sailing, then they likely are still trying to fill a lot of inventory, so you might have a better chance with a lower bid.

[kclschroeder]

We're sailing in 4 days on the Norwegian Pearl out of Seattle. We received an upgrade offer from our Inside Stateroom (5573) for either an Ocean View or Balcony. Minimum bid for the Ocean View is $50 per person, Minimum bid for Balcony is $75 per person. We bid $150 per person for the Balcony upgrade as we were not interested in an Ocean View, but haven't heard anything back with only 4 days left to go. We'll keep you posted if we hear anything!

[JamieLogical]

We're sailing in 4 days on the Norwegian Pearl out of Seattle. We received an upgrade offer from our Inside Stateroom (5573) for either an Ocean View or Balcony. Minimum bid for the Ocean View is $50 per person, Minimum bid for Balcony is $75 per person. We bid $150 per person for the Balcony upgrade as we were not interested in an Ocean View, but haven't heard anything back with only 4 days left to go. We'll keep you posted if we hear anything!

 

I didn't hear about my upgrade from an inside room to a balcony on the Gem until about noon the Thursday before our Saturday sailing, so don't give up hope!

[cruiseblues2013]

We're sailing in 4 days on the Norwegian Pearl out of Seattle. We received an upgrade offer from our Inside Stateroom (5573) for either an Ocean View or Balcony. Minimum bid for the Ocean View is $50 per person, Minimum bid for Balcony is $75 per person. We bid $150 per person for the Balcony upgrade as we were not interested in an Ocean View, but haven't heard anything back with only 4 days left to go. We'll keep you posted if we hear anything!

 

Please update when you find out. We sail the week after you:cool:

[DKane]

I think that, with that little info, it's pretty hard to know if "loyalty" had anything to do with your bid being accepted. You said yourself that you didn't even try bidding on the first two cruises. Many people have posted here and in the previous thread about their bids being accepted on their first cruise with NCL. I had a bid accepted on my second cruise with NCL (didn't bid on the first cruise), but it was a really high bid. I bet the fact my bid was really high had more to do with the acceptance than the fact that it was my second cruise with them in four months.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if loyalty and past on board spending factored into their algorithm to some degree, but it is certainly not the only factor or even one of the primary factors.

Well since this is all I have to go on, loyalty comes up the winner. No big onboard spending to factor in.

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Forums mobile app

[JenT412]

We're sailing in 4 days on the Norwegian Pearl out of Seattle. We received an upgrade offer from our Inside Stateroom (5573) for either an Ocean View or Balcony. Minimum bid for the Ocean View is $50 per person, Minimum bid for Balcony is $75 per person. We bid $150 per person for the Balcony upgrade as we were not interested in an Ocean View, but haven't heard anything back with only 4 days left to go. We'll keep you posted if we hear anything!

 

 

We leave on Sunday too (Getaway) and haven’t heard yet either.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[sakura3]

We leave on Sunday too (Getaway) and haven’t heard yet either.

 

Also on that sailing and anxiously waiting to hear- guessing it won't be until Friday though. We just did min bids on the haven courtyard, spa, and forward suites. We originally had much higher bids but then upgraded to a mini suite with large balcony on the 8th floor so I'll actually be pretty happy with that if we lose, so didn't want to potentially spend an extra few thousand dollars for the upgrade at this point. The sailing disappeared earlier this week so no way to see what is left. A waiting game!

[WyomingGuys]

Bid accepted. Bliss - Alaska 9/15-22nd

 

Inside to Balcony, deck 14 mid ship. $210 per person. Notified today, 52 days out.

[Scrivine41]

I leave Sunday on the Star and no word, ugh! Hopefully soon!

[JamieLogical]

Bid accepted. Bliss - Alaska 9/15-22nd

 

Inside to Balcony, deck 14 mid ship. $210 per person. Notified today, 52 days out.

 

Wow that is REALLY early. Can you do us a favor and check the current pricing for your sailing and tell us if it looks like it has gone down at all? I have noticed a pattern of early acceptance of bids preceding price drops.

[NEW 2 CRUISIN]

Wow that is REALLY early.

 

 

Folks on our October cruise have reported that their Inside and Oceanview bids were being accepted for Balcony cabins as early as 75 days out!

 

[emoji50]

[JamieLogical]

Folks on our October cruise have reported that their Inside and Oceanview bids were being accepted for Balcony cabins as early as 75 days out!

 

[emoji50]

 

I'll ask you the same question then. Once bids started being accepted, was there a drop in prices for your sailing?

[NEW 2 CRUISIN]

I'll ask you the same question then. Once bids started being accepted, was there a drop in prices for your sailing?

 

 

Nothing noticeable.

It’s the Breakaway Transatlantic, if you want to check.

 

Our original balcony is marked “sold out”, but the others look to be about the same price. [emoji848]

 

I bet the newly-available Insides will be going for a great “last minute” price, though!

 

My point was.....they were already awarding bids at 75 Days!

[erdoran]

Jamie, yvrbass got her Bliss upgrade 60 days out, cyph to 2br-cyph. When she was upgraded 3 of the 2brs were left on the website; immediately after there were zero left and it remains at zero. It is almost like NCL was closing out haven bookings for our Sept 1 sailing.

[JamieLogical]

80 days out from my sailing on the Escape. No email yet, but I logged into My NCL and had the "Let's Get You Upgraded" ad on the main page. Put in bids for Havens. Now we wait!

[WyomingGuys]

Wow that is REALLY early. Can you do us a favor and check the current pricing for your sailing and tell us if it looks like it has gone down at all? I have noticed a pattern of early acceptance of bids preceding price drops.

 

 

Jamie- Yes, it did. The price for our inside room is just down $70pp, but the ocean views and balconies are down by $300+pp.

[NEW 2 CRUISIN]

80 days out from my sailing on the Escape. No email yet, but I logged into My NCL and had the "Let's Get You Upgraded" ad on the main page. Put in bids for Havens. Now we wait!

 

 

As info, we never got an email from NCL either, so I just went through the banner offer on MyNCL when it finally appeared....which was a few days after others saw it first.

 

Surprising how a company can be so “unintentionally random” about certain stuff! HAHA!

[JamieLogical]

Jamie- Yes, it did. The price for our inside room is just down $70pp, but the ocean views and balconies are down by $300+pp.

 

Great info! That definitely supports the theory that they process a lot of bids immediately before a price drop, which makes sense. They want to "lock in" those higher bids, because people might not be willing to bid as much once prices drop and might be inclined to go in and lower their bids.

[kclschroeder]

I didn't hear about my upgrade from an inside room to a balcony on the Gem until about noon the Thursday before our Saturday sailing, so don't give up hope!

 

Thanks that makes me feel a little better! We should hear by tomorrow at they latest but I am still not too hopeful. We upped our bid to $175 pp so we’ll see! What was your bid when you got upgraded?

[kclschroeder]

Please update when you find out. We sail the week after you:cool:

 

Still nothing yet and starting to lose hope. Upped our bid to $175pp so we’ll see!

I’ll keep you updated!

[JamieLogical]

Thanks that makes me feel a little better! We should hear by tomorrow at they latest but I am still not too hopeful. We upped our bid to $175 pp so we’ll see! What was your bid when you got upgraded?

 

We ended up upping our bid to an insane $350 per person in the last week or so, because I had been tracking inventory to the best of my ability through the NCL site and they were down to only something like 10 balconies left on my sailing. With 412 inside rooms and 243 ocean view rooms on the Gem, we were potentially competing with nearly 600 other bidders for one of those 10 balconies. Even paying that high amount and having to pay outright for our 3-night specialty dining package, we still came out a little ahead of having booked a balcony directly.

[cruisegal415]

We are sailing in 9 days. Even though we went ahead and booked the Haven directly I've been watching how many are available because I kept seeing how people upgraded through bidding from balcony to courtyard Haven for 850-1000 and the direct upgrade was more than that. Last week, there were still 10 or more Haven courtyard rooms available. Today it's down to 2 and everything other than four forward Havens are sold out. The price did drop a few hundred when we switched but then it went up again. I'm wondering whether the fact that there are only a few rooms left means that the upgrades were awarded. Since we cancelled our bids after upgrading directly, I have no way of knowing. But if they have not been, now I'm glad we just went ahead and re-booked because it doesn't look like we would've gotten the upgrade through bidding since there are so few left.

[mdcrim]

I wanted to come back and update. I’m the one who booked the very last available room on the Pride of America about two weeks ago for this Saturday (7/28/18). Got an inside guarantee (Sail Away) because I literally had no other options. Everything was sold out. My upgrade email came in a few days after I booked and I bid $120 on a balcony and $55 on an oceanview (I initially didn’t bid on the oceanview but added my bid once my room assignment came in). My room assignment came in earlier this week and I was assigned an inside room on deck 4 smack dab beneath the theater stage. Beggars can’t be choosers, right, and I knew when I booked the guarantee that anything was possible. I just wanted to get on the ship!

 

I got my upgrade confirmation this morning, two day’s before we sail. I was moved from inside on deck 4 to oceanview on deck 7. It appears from the deck plans that I will have a view of the life rafts but I’m happy to pay the extra $55 per person not to be under the theater stage. So I feel very, very lucky!

Edited July 27, 2018 by mdcrim