Koningsdam 01/04/2019 giving up my cabin for an over sold cruise

[Cruisin4beaches]

Is anyone still waiting for an inside gty? Thinking of calling HAL to give up my spa inside. What kind of compensation could I ask for?

[bennybear]

Have not heard of HAL overselling.  How do you know it is oversold?  

[cruiserchuck]

I doubt they would give you anything.  It is way too late for you to cancel without a significant penalty, and since travel is generally slow after the holidays, I doubt they would need your cabin for someone else.

[Krazy Kruizers]

If the cruise is over sold, you can bet there is a waiting list.

 

HAL will decide who they will call and make offers to those people if the cruise is over sold.  And those people will get their money back and some compensation.

 

 

 

 

[wannagonow123]

Got my original cabin assignments 12/23 for this sailing. (2 cabins booked). Had a slight issue with them  (nothing I could not deal with). Called HAL and they assigned me 2 different rooms on a different floor. I don't think it's that overbooked, or they would not have changed that easily.

[MikeD4134]

Cruising for  almost 20 years, never heard of an overbooked cruise.  The industry does not have to overbook, because of the high penalty for not showing up, they already have the money, no need to protect themselves by over booking.

[kazu]

9 minutes ago, MikeD4134 said:

Cruising for  almost 20 years, never heard of an overbooked cruise.  The industry does not have to overbook, because of the high penalty for not showing up, they already have the money, no need to protect themselves by over booking.

 

Well guess what?  They can over book, people do get cancellation insurance and can cancel last minute or the cruise line can decide to raise the price and have enough people willing to pay it that they want to get your cabin.

 

I had a TA on Norwegian in 2000 and got three offers for different cruises if I would switch with all kinds of great benefits.  My TA said they were definitely overbooked and had a huge waiting list.

 

The alternate itineraries didn't appeal to us and we were working so our time off had been arranged.  And, the airfare had been paid so we refused the offer.  They sweetened it 3x.  It was getting pretty tempting 😉 

 

We still sailed on our TA 😉 

[catl331]

18 minutes ago, MikeD4134 said:

Cruising for  almost 20 years, never heard of an overbooked cruise. 

You haven't been reading Cruise Critic enough. It happens, and the deals to switch to another cruise can be extremely good. But the cruise line has to call you. If you try to initiate it, it's simply a cancellation as far as they are concerned.

Edited December 27, 2018 by catl331

[MikeD4134]

Kazu, Cancellation insurance reimburses you for the money the cruise line does give you when you cancel, no effect on the money the cruise has received from you.  Pretty sure what you folks are talking about is the occasional cruise that has very high demand and the cruise line can sell the cabins for a lot more than folks have paid.  They offer you other cruises that have vacant cabins and some perks, to open up the higher demand cabins, they are not oversold.  Also if they did have a policy to over sell, almost every cruise would have some folks not allowed on the ship, and compensated for their troubles.  It would be a huge public relations problem.

[richwmn]

23 minutes ago, MikeD4134 said:

Kazu, Cancellation insurance reimburses you for the money the cruise line does give you when you cancel, no effect on the money the cruise has received from you.  Pretty sure what you folks are talking about is the occasional cruise that has very high demand and the cruise line can sell the cabins for a lot more than folks have paid.  They offer you other cruises that have vacant cabins and some perks, to open up the higher demand cabins, they are not oversold.  Also if they did have a policy to over sell, almost every cruise would have some folks not allowed on the ship, and compensated for their troubles.  It would be a huge public relations problem.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but cruise lines do overbook. They use computer forecasting that base sales on historic cancellations to make sure the ship is full. Even if an empty cabin is paid for, the cruise line loses the onboard spending with is a big part of their income. Sometimes, not often, the estimated number of people don't cancel which results in overbooking. The cruise lines then give some pretty sweet offers to move to another cruise.

[MikeD4134]

Not bursting my bubble, I would have to care about what you write for that to happen.

[CHOPPERTESTER]

26 minutes ago, MikeD4134 said:

Not bursting my bubble, I would have to care about what you write for that to happen.

Hey Mike play nice. Hope your Alaska cruise with Nancy on Noordam in May goes well. Remember to take your passport.

[bennybear]

Princess seems to do this regularly, we were offered a free cruise and our money back if we would move over. Unfortunately we couldn’t as we were already in Europe.   

Just haven't heard of any on HAL.  Our spring cruise has been sold out for months and we still aren’t even at final payment.  

[RuthC]

2 hours ago, MikeD4134 said:

Cruising for  almost 20 years, never heard of an overbooked cruise. 

Then you haven't read posts on this very forum from people who arrived for their cruise, or were told a day or two before sailing, that they were not going to board as no cabin was available for them.
Now, they were not passengers paying a published fare, but rather were sailing on a deeply discounted transportation industry fare. But the availability HAL expected to be there for them just didn't materialize.
The cruise was overbooked.

[wdw1972]

Several years ago I got a call from HAL about a week or so before my cruise.  They offered a partial refund and would move me to another cruise of my choice (from a list), including a 14-day (I'd booked a 7-day) at no additional cost if I'd agree to be bumped.  Since I live in FL and drive to the port, and was able to change my vacation time, I agreed.  So, it does happen.  That's the only time it's happened to me, though.

 

Sue/WDW1972

[MikeD4134]

Flying from Canada to the U.S. after we leave the Noordam, so of course I will have my passport, actually never leave home without it, never know what will come up.  Thanks for the kind thought on my upcoming cruise.  As for Rich he started it.  Also the forecasting methods he describes, work great for airlines and hotels, not cruise ships.  Although they do sell guarantee cabins, most folks buy a specific cabin.  There are many cabin categories each with a limited number of cabins, especially the limited are the larger suites, therefore overselling any of these cabins would be a fools game.  On my upcoming cruise to over sell, they would need to sell people, my cabin and hope one of us don't show up.  With the limited number of guarantee cabins, again the sample size is so small that chances your oversold situation would correct itself with one of them canceling is really slim.  The way cruise lines fill the cabins from cancellations, is to sell them at the last minute to locals at extremely low prices, they have already been paid for the cabin, the small fare from the last minute customer is extra profit, and they have their on board spender.

[MikeD4134]

What Happens if Your Cruise Is Oversold?

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Erica Silverstein

Senior Editor

On This Page

1. Will a cruise line oversell my cruise?
2. Sweetheart Deals and Other Cruise Line Revenue Management Tactics

Updated November 3, 2017

 

Have you ever been on a flight that's oversold, and the airline representatives start offering vouchers for two, three, even five hundred dollars if you'll give up your seat? Likely you have. Airlines notoriously oversell flights as part of their inventory management because they know a certain percentage of ticketed travelers will cancel or not show up at the last minute. It's not surprising then that many cruise travelers wonder if their cruise line will do the same thing, and oversell their cruise, leading to more passengers than cabins.

If you're curious how cruise lines manage inventory and whether this could lead to you being bumped from your next sailing, here are the basics you need to know.

Will a cruise line oversell my cruise?

"Today it is very, very rare that a cruise line will oversell a cruise," says Scott Koepf, senior vice president of sales for Avoya Travel, an online travel network with more than 750 independent agencies. The practice was more common many years ago, simply because the cruise line computer systems were not as sophisticated and mistakes were made.

So why don't cruise lines use the same tactics as airlines to fill ships? The reason lies with final payment, Koepf says. Most travelers who will cancel their cruise will do so before final payment, roughly 75 days before departure. That means that with more than two months to go, cruise lines have a pretty good idea of how many cabins need to be filled and adjust their promotional tactics to sell out the ship. They don't have to guess like airlines do. In addition, cruisers who cancel after final payment will only get a percentage of their cruise fare back (and in some cases, forfeit all of it), so the lines don't need to worry as much about re-selling those cabins as they're still making money on them.

One way in which a ship might technically be considered oversold is due to overselling group space. "Group space is not considered real space," Koepf explains. "Travel agents will book group space a year in advance. They might think they need 20 rooms, but only book 15 or two. Group space attrition is huge and cabins often get recalled before final payment." This means that cruise lines assume that not all group space will sell and operate as if it won't. If it turns out that more group space sells than the line anticipated, it might need to move people out of those cabins and into another category (or, very rarely, another ship). The cruise line won't kick you off, though; instead, it will offer incentives for someone onboard to switch cabins or cruises.

Which means that most cruisers need not worry about getting a call two weeks prior to their sailing saying that, sorry, but the cruise is oversold and your cabin has been given to someone else.

And yet, it does happen occasionally; consider this post by Cruise Critic reader Rick-n-Lisa, "So we're on our way to Ft. Lauderdale to get on a 10-night cruise on Serenade tomorrow. Booked a guarantee balcony room. As of this morning room still not assigned. No worries, I heard that although it is rare, it does happen. Then I get a call from Royal Caribbean. 'I'm sorry ma'am but I have bad news. Your cruise was oversold. You can do a 7 night on Harmony and $400 onboard credit or we can give full refund.' WHAT???"

Koepf says that such occurrences are extremely unlikely and not something cruisers should spend time worrying about. "With thousands of passengers sailing weekly there are only a few instances where this occurs," he said. "The situation could have been a technical error or even a human error as that will occur. In the few cases that it does occur, it’s usually handled far in advance and the consumer is made an offer they can accept or deny. Last-minute situations are quite rare and even then it seems, handled well, as [we've heard] no stories of consumers standing at the pier unable to get onboard."

And after some back and forth with the cruise line, Rick-n-Lisa did indeed get a room on their booked 10-night cruise. While no one can plan for surprise errors like this one, if you want to do everything you can to avoid any possible bump from an oversold ship, Koepf recommends booking a cabin with an assigned room number rather than a guarantee.

Sweetheart Deals and Other Cruise Line Revenue Management Tactics

Perhaps you've encountered a situation like this one, as told by Cruise Critic member WpgCruise in a thread about the topic:

"We had booked a Veranda (B2) on Riviera [departing] January 13, 2017. Oceania asked us to move over to the Marina January 22, 2017 cruise, offered a PH 1 [penthouse suite] same price as the Veranda, keeping the original perks (free internet and $800 O.B.C.). We took the offer."
Here, a cruise line is asking a booked traveler to switch ships, in exchange for an alluring deal (a penthouse for the price of a balcony cabin). Is this not because the line has oversold the ship and needs to bump travelers?

Not exactly. "When you get a sweetheart deal to move [cabins], it's probably because the cruise line has more demand in that cabin category and needs to move people up," says Koepf.

Take the case of the Oceania Riviera cruise mentioned above. Likely, balcony cabins were selling well on Marina; the available rooms were selling out but Oceania knew it could sell more if it had the space. At the same time, some higher-category cabins were still available, perhaps because a smaller percentage of travelers can afford the higher prices or maybe because there was a cancellation. Either way, the revenue management team at Oceania decides that it makes sense to take the more guaranteed bookings (the balcony cabins) and opens up more of these rooms by finding people willing to upgrade. The line might take a bit of a financial hit offering an upgrade deal than selling the suite at list price, but it's much preferable to turning away the interested balcony bookers and running the risk of never selling the penthouse suite.
Similar tactics are in play with guarantee cabins and waitlists. The cruise lines aren't using these as a way to oversell ships, but as ways to create flexibility in filling ships without slashing prices.

When a traveler books a guarantee cabin, they are guaranteed a room within the category booked (inside, outside, balcony), but they don't know where or in which sub-category. That lets the cruise line sell whichever cabins it can sell, and fill in the gaps with the guarantees. "If a ship has lots of balcony space but it can sell insides quickly, it's better off moving people up and taking a hit [on the balcony cabin fare]," says Koepf -- rather than marking the inside cabins as sold out and risking that the remaining balconies don't sell out. In addition, the cruise lines like this strategy because they can achieve maximum revenue from a sailing without having to publicly discount upper-category fares.

The lure for travelers is you definitely get a cabin, and you might end up in a more expensive cabin than the one you paid for. "The adage that you have a good chance of an upgrade when booking a guarantee still somewhat holds true, but you don't get upgraded as often as you used to," adds Koepf.

Waitlists serve a similar function. If a ship has a limited number of a certain type of cabin and sells them out early, it can start a waitlist, for which would-be cruisers put down a deposit in the hope that someone will cancel. This strategy also lets the cruise line manage inventory to fill the most cabins. With a known list of interested passengers, the line can either make offers to booked passengers to move them up and fill their former room with someone from the waitlist, or see if a sweet deal might not convince a waitlister to get on the cruise by taking a lower-category cabin.
So, the next time the upgrade fairy calls with an alluring offer to switch cruises, it's less likely that your cruise is oversold and more likely that the cruise line wants to make sure that as many interested cruisers as possible get to sail with them that year.

[MikeD4134]

They do not oversell cruises.  Read the article, please.

[Copper10-8]

20 hours ago, Cruisin4beaches said:

Is anyone still waiting for an inside gty? Thinking of calling HAL to give up my spa inside. What kind of compensation could I ask for?

 

 

It's a good thought, but the cruise industry does not handle it the same way the airline industry does, i.e. you don't get meal vouchers, transportation to, and a night at, the local Motel 8 with Tom Bodett leaving the light on for ya, plus the next cruise outtahere  Better to stay put/keep my reservation, take that K-dam cruise and have a good time........

[richwmn]

13 minutes ago, MikeD4134 said:

They do not oversell cruises.  Read the article, please.

From the article

15 minutes ago, MikeD4134 said:

Will a cruise line oversell my cruise?

"Today it is very, very rare that a cruise line will oversell a cruise," says Scott Koepf, senior vice president of sales for Avoya Travel, an online travel network with more than 750 independent agencies. The practice was more common many years ago, simply because the cruise line computer systems were not as sophisticated and mistakes were made.

The statement is that it is rare, not that it doesn't happen.

Also from your quoted article

16 minutes ago, MikeD4134 said:

In addition, cruisers who cancel after final payment will only get a percentage of their cruise fare back (and in some cases, forfeit all of it), so the lines don't need to worry as much about re-selling those cabins as they're still making money on them.

Many articles on the cruise industry state that the cabin fare has little to no profit involved. The cruise line profit comes from auxiliary sales on the ship. If a ship leaves with an empty cabin, there is no revenue from the bars, the shops, or the specialty restaurants.

If you search on the Princess forum you will find more instances of people being asked to move over.

Also from your quoted article

20 minutes ago, MikeD4134 said:

Which means that most cruisers need not worry about getting a call two weeks prior to their sailing saying that, sorry, but the cruise is oversold and your cabin has been given to someone else.

And yet, it does happen occasionally; consider this post by Cruise Critic reader Rick-n-Lisa, "So we're on our way to Ft. Lauderdale to get on a 10-night cruise on Serenade tomorrow. Booked a guarantee balcony room. As of this morning room still not assigned. No worries, I heard that although it is rare, it does happen. Then I get a call from Royal Caribbean. 'I'm sorry ma'am but I have bad news. Your cruise was oversold. You can do a 7 night on Harmony and $400 onboard credit or we can give full refund.' WHAT???"

Koepf says that such occurrences are extremely unlikely and not something cruisers should spend time worrying about. "With thousands of passengers sailing weekly there are only a few instances where this occurs," he said.

 

2 hours ago, richwmn said:

 

3 hours ago, MikeD4134 said:

Pretty sure what you folks are talking about is the occasional cruise that has very high demand and the cruise line can sell the cabins for a lot more than folks have paid.  They offer you other cruises that have vacant cabins and some perks, to open up the higher demand cabins, they are not oversold.

I would like to see a reference to this practice somewhere. While it might happen, I somehow don't think that it does.

[CHOPPERTESTER]

21 minutes ago, richwmn said:

From the article

The statement is that it is rare, not that it doesn't happen.

Also from your quoted article

Many articles on the cruise industry state that the cabin fare has little to no profit involved. The cruise line profit comes from auxiliary sales on the ship. If a ship leaves with an empty cabin, there is no revenue from the bars, the shops, or the specialty restaurants.

If you search on the Princess forum you will find more instances of people being asked to move over.

Also from your quoted article

 

 

I would like to see a reference to this practice somewhere. While it might happen, I somehow don't think that it does.

It happens Rich, Twice to us. Once on an Alaska cruise where there were no verandahs available on line. We had paid a casino rate so they started with the least revenue cabins first to maximize their return. We didn't take it as the options did not fit into our schedules. They have also tried to get us to move out of our cabin for another higher category cabin on the same cruise with a little OBC. We had one of the double balcony cabins on Noordam and lucked out getting it a great rate pre-final. Just appeared one day and we booked. We declined again but it does show you that they have many ways to try and increase revenue cross fleet.

[richwmn]

24 minutes ago, CHOPPERTESTER said:

It happens Rich, Twice to us. Once on an Alaska cruise where there were no verandahs available on line. We had paid a casino rate so they started with the least revenue cabins first to maximize their return. We didn't take it as the options did not fit into our schedules. They have also tried to get us to move out of our cabin for another higher category cabin on the same cruise with a little OBC. We had one of the double balcony cabins on Noordam and lucked out getting it a great rate pre-final. Just appeared one day and we booked. We declined again but it does show you that they have many ways to try and increase revenue cross fleet.

You examples, if I read you correctly, are about moving people around the ship on the same cruise, not moving people from a popular, well selling cruise to a less popular cruise.

[CHOPPERTESTER]

2 minutes ago, richwmn said:

You examples, if I read you correctly, are about moving people around the ship on the same cruise, not moving people from a popular, well selling cruise to a less popular cruise.

Nope. 1st example was to move us off the ship to open a verandah for sale as they are very popular on Alaska cruises. Second was move within the ship to open the cabin for someone else. Both cases would have resulted in extra revenue for the cruise line.

[richwmn]

2 minutes ago, CHOPPERTESTER said:

Nope. 1st example was to move us off the ship to open a verandah for sale as they are very popular on Alaska cruises.

Was this cruise already oversold, or were you asked while cabins were still open?

4 minutes ago, CHOPPERTESTER said:

Second was move within the ship to open the cabin for someone else. Both cases would have resulted in extra revenue for the cruise line.

I agree that moving within the ship happens regularly, and in general it is to increase revenue. Moving an existing reservation to a "better" cabin frees the lesser cabin to be resold.

[CHOPPERTESTER]

14 minutes ago, richwmn said:

Was this cruise already oversold, or were you asked while cabins were still open?

I agree that moving within the ship happens regularly, and in general it is to increase revenue. Moving an existing reservation to a "better" cabin frees the lesser cabin to be resold.

 

There were no verandah cabins (suites or otherwise) available. Only a few interior cabins left. No way to know if verandah cabins were oversold. Just we were asked if we wanted to move to another cruise.