Sold Out vs. Not Available

[Phaedrus78]

Because I'm a bit of a hyper-planner I've been watching the prices for a Norwegian cruise I've already booked, January 23 2019 on the Epic, to see if there are any price changes that I could possibly take advantage of.  I noticed today that several room categories, especially for the interior rooms, went from available to Not Available.  There are also several room categories throughout the ship that are listed as Sold Out.  

 

Does anyone know what the difference might be between these two statuses?  I'm curious if this might mean Norwegian is up to some shenanigans with their pricing and taking things offline to make some changes, or what the deal might be.  It seems like Sold Out should be pretty self-explanatory, but the Not Available thing confuses me.

[shof515]

Travel agents usually have a block of cabins that they reserve and these can show up as Not Available on the NCL website. When the travel agent releases them back to NCL, the general public can book these cabins 

[heelfan94]

I also monitor my sailing daily and have noticed this for the 11/25 cruise.  The unavailable notation seemed to come around the time several roll call members got their upgrade emails, so maybe it's related to that?  Ours has been all over the map.  One day cabins are available in every category except Haven, then half a day later everything shows sold out.  A bit later it will be back to showing availability and occasionally the unavailable part pops up.  I am fully aware that I spend too much time looking at this but it is fascinating to me.

[Phaedrus78]

5 minutes ago, shof515 said:

Travel agents usually have a block of cabins that they reserve and these can show up as Not Available on the NCL website. When the travel agent releases them back to NCL, the general public can book these cabins 

 

That's interesting, and makes sense.  

 

2 minutes ago, heelfan94 said:

I also monitor my sailing daily and have noticed this for the 11/25 cruise.  The unavailable notation seemed to come around the time several roll call members got their upgrade emails, so maybe it's related to that?  Ours has been all over the map.  One day cabins are available in every category except Haven, then half a day later everything shows sold out.  A bit later it will be back to showing availability and occasionally the unavailable part pops up.  I am fully aware that I spend too much time looking at this but it is fascinating to me.

 

I'm the same way.  I'm interested in the process... and I'm also trying to game out upgrading from our inside cabin to a balcony or mini-suite as effectively as possible.  We're working with a limited budget so every little bit counts.

 

I can't think it's related to the upgrade confirmation, at least not in our case.  We're still 76 days out and were just able to put in bids a couple of days ago.  I do notice that now some of the listing that were in as Not Available seem to be coming back up, but some of the pricing seems to have increased.  Also, I'm noticing when making my mock bookings to check room quantities that the number of available promotions for certain rooms seems to have changed.  It's lending itself to my guess that maybe they take the rooms offline for a time while making pricing changes.

[heelfan94]

We got our upgrade over a month out, I assume because there were still tons of cabins available during an off week.  We booked an inside gty and bid on oceanview and balcony, and we got the balcony.  Our bid was in the fair zone to the left of the middle.  I do think a lot of it depends on how everything is selling.  Good luck on the upgrade!

[Tinyturtle22]

“Not available” showing close to sailing usually means that there are unsold cabin in that category but the lifeboat capacity has been reached. If you search using 1 for the number of guests you will probably see some cabins available.  The NA may come and go as upgrades are done but at that point it’s going to be a lot of solos and couples getting the upgrades. 

[bonvoyagie]

Between all of the people on the computer and travel agents - not to mention the fake bookings we all do - the NCL cabin inventory system must be both fluid and dynamic in order to keep up with it all.

 

Not available could also mean that the cabins are locked up by someone elsewhere in the system doing a booking. Remember that once you start the booking process the cabins are held for a given time period. There are also instances where some cabins are made to hold 2-3 people and others 3-4 and more. If you are trying to book a cabin for 4 it could simply mean that all of the cabins for 4 in that category are sold - they may have other cabins in the category that will hold 2 people. I have seen this with both inside and balcony.

 

Sold Out I feel means just that - there are no more cabins in that category for sale - the rooms that TAs block out are considered sold as the TA has purchased them and has a given amount of time to resell them or give them back.

 

 

[newmexicoNita]

16 hours ago, Phaedrus78 said:

Because I'm a bit of a hyper-planner I've been watching the prices for a Norwegian cruise I've already booked, January 23 2019 on the Epic, to see if there are any price changes that I could possibly take advantage of.  I noticed today that several room categories, especially for the interior rooms, went from available to Not Available.  There are also several room categories throughout the ship that are listed as Sold Out.  

 

Does anyone know what the difference might be between these two statuses?  I'm curious if this might mean Norwegian is up to some shenanigans with their pricing and taking things offline to make some changes, or what the deal might be.  It seems like Sold Out should be pretty self-explanatory, but the Not Available thing confuses me.

I don't think NCL is up to anything. It is possible there are a block of cabins being held by a travel agency or a group that have not been released yet. It is unusual they would still being holding onto them ,but that is what it means when it says unavailable. 

[newmexicoNita]

15 hours ago, Tinyturtle22 said:

“Not available” showing close to sailing usually means that there are unsold cabin in that category but the lifeboat capacity has been reached. If you search using 1 for the number of guests you will probably see some cabins available.  The NA may come and go as upgrades are done but at that point it’s going to be a lot of solos and couples getting the upgrades. 

I never thought about that: you are right. As well as cabins being held. 

[BirdTravels]

16 hours ago, Phaedrus78 said:

 

I can't think it's related to the upgrade confirmation, at least not in our case.  We're still 76 days out and were just able to put in bids a couple of days ago.  I do notice that now some of the listing that were in as Not Available seem to be coming back up, but some of the pricing seems to have increased.  Also, I'm noticing when making my mock bookings to check room quantities that the number of available promotions for certain rooms seems to have changed.  It's lending itself to my guess that maybe they take the rooms offline for a time while making pricing changes.

You can’t win if you don’t play. 

 

Don’t try and game the system. Upgrades are done as early as 80 days out if they need more inventory of cheaper rooms. If you miss the shuffling of inventory, it becomes harder and more expensive to upgrade. 

[Phaedrus78]

3 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

You can’t win if you don’t play. 

 

Don’t try and game the system. Upgrades are done as early as 80 days out if they need more inventory of cheaper rooms. If you miss the shuffling of inventory, it becomes harder and more expensive to upgrade. 

 

Oh, I'm definitely playing.  I've got bid offers in for all available upgrades.  I'd love if they'd go ahead and process the bids, but the earliest I've heard of them doing so is about 50 days out.  

 

I was checking things again last night, and noted that for a bit all the Haven suites on my sailing went to Not Available.  They came back online and available a bit later.  /shrug  As of this morning nothing is Not Available, it's either Sold Out or it's not.

[don't-use-real-name]

14 hours ago, Phaedrus78 said:

 

Oh, I'm definitely playing.  I've got bid offers in for all available upgrades.  I'd love if they'd go ahead and process the bids, but the earliest I've heard of them doing so is about 50 days out.  

 

I was checking things again last night, and noted that for a bit all the Haven suites on my sailing went to Not Available.  They came back online and available a bit later.  /shrug  As of this morning nothing is Not Available, it's either Sold Out or it's not.

 

I was checking things again last night, and noted that for a bit all the Haven suites on my sailing went to Not Available.  They came back online and available a bit later.  /shrug  As of this morning nothing is Not Available, it's either Sold Out or it's not.

 

Keep checking - it appears that someone else (PCC TA or other guest) is also in the hunt and playing the game.

Staterooms can only be held so long before they must be returned to inventory - but once that happens someone

else can start the game anew by placing a hold.  

[Phaedrus78]

8 minutes ago, don't-use-real-name said:

Keep checking - it appears that someone else (PCC TA or other guest) is also in the hunt and playing the game.

Staterooms can only be held so long before they must be returned to inventory - but once that happens someone

else can start the game anew by placing a hold.  

 

Yeah, there’s some weird stuff happening. This morning, there were no inside rooms available at all, all listed as Sold Out. Tonight, there are over 40 Inside Family rooms for sale, and they’re selling other inside rooms (ID) as GTY, so impossible to know how many of those there are. 

 

I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason for it, but I’m super curious about the process. 

[don't-use-real-name]

13 minutes ago, Phaedrus78 said:

 

Yeah, there’s some weird stuff happening. This morning, there were no inside rooms available at all, all listed as Sold Out. Tonight, there are over 40 Inside Family rooms for sale, and they’re selling other inside rooms (ID) as GTY, so impossible to know how many of those there are. 

 

I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason for it, but I’m super curious about the process. 

It could very well be that NCL has started the musical cabin circus - upgrading and moving guests around to

better classes of staterooms - the Suites and Havens will perhaps be the last so that NCL can get maximum

yield from the upgrading/bidding. Strange that you note 40 cabins available normally when dummy booking

only 15 maximum are shown - this unless you are counting different classes of insides I1-A-B-C-D-E-F-X-Z.

[Phaedrus78]

6 hours ago, don't-use-real-name said:

It could very well be that NCL has started the musical cabin circus - upgrading and moving guests around to

better classes of staterooms - the Suites and Havens will perhaps be the last so that NCL can get maximum

yield from the upgrading/bidding. Strange that you note 40 cabins available normally when dummy booking

only 15 maximum are shown - this unless you are counting different classes of insides I1-A-B-C-D-E-F-X-Z.

 

There is at least one website out there, I won’t mention them by name because they’re a competitor to Cruise Critic and I don’t want to face any wrath, that seems to be able to display all of the available rooms in a given category rather than just 15 of them at a time. I found it vaguely referenced in another thread, and it seems to be accurate on total availability.