Celebrity Changed My Room Category

[bobndee]

Back in September I booked a repositioning cruise for March 2020.  I selected a specific midship obstructed view balcony cabin as I had been near there on a previous cruise and knew and liked the area.  Early this month I contacted my TA to ask about Celebrity's recent promotion giving perks on repo cruises.  She was able to get that promotion applied to my booking.  Everything seemed fine.

 

Monday I booked flights for the cruise through Celebrity.  When I got the flight confirmation email it showed that I was booked in a veranda guarantee with no cabin assigned.  No one, TA or Celebrity, had said anything to me about a category change.  I contacted my TA who contacted Celebrity.  When my TA got back to me she said that "upgraded" me to the guarantee category without notification.

 

I don't consider that an upgrade.  Yes, I MAY end up in a very nice (better) cabin than my original booking, but I could just as well end up in one of the undesirable cabins.  So my TA was able to get Celebrity to put me back in the cabin I had originally booked.

 

Is this a common practice by Celebrity?

 

[TeeRick]

I don't believe it is a common practice to secretly upgrade you.  They should have at least asked or told your TA.  Most of us would be happy with an upgrade but some have their reasons for wanting their original cabin selection. Poor communication by Celebrity here in this case.

[Jeremiah1212]

It sounds like the TA inadvertently changed your category when they adjusted your booking. 

 

RCL used to have some sort of 'auto' upgrade selection on their website within your booking, but to my knowledge Celebrity has never had such a thing.

[FlorenceItaly]

17 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

It sounds like the TA inadvertently changed your category when they adjusted your booking. 

This is my thinking also.

[mayleeman]

It is interesting how often these errors happen and TAs have no clue how or why. Final payment dates being missed (what? the TA never sent my check?), reservations in the wrong room (what? the TA never looked at the Guest Receipt or mailed it on?), fare reduction offers expiring without being taken advantage of (what? my TA was out of the office for 2 days after the weekend and never got my 5 messages?)...

 

Why some of us like to control our own, some extra OBC be damned. I know some TAs are superb, but too often the mistakes get attributed to the cruise company reservation dept, and customers seem to swallow the excuses hook, line, and sinker.

[Bo1953]

21 minutes ago, mayleeman said:

It is interesting how often these errors happen and TAs have no clue how or why. Final payment dates being missed (what? the TA never sent my check?), reservations in the wrong room (what? the TA never looked at the Guest Receipt or mailed it on?), fare reduction offers expiring without being taken advantage of (what? my TA was out of the office for 2 days after the weekend and never got my 5 messages?)...

 

Why some of us like to control our own, some extra OBC be damned. I know some TAs are superb, but too often the mistakes get attributed to the cruise company reservation dept, and customers seem to swallow the excuses hook, line, and sinker.

While I Am sure your citings are accurate, I Am also sure they are not as prevalent as it appears from your post.

 

Even moreso, I Am sure things, overwhelmingly, get taken care of quickly once found out.

 

Need they happen to begin with? Most likely not, yet they do.

 

While you definitely prefer direct control over your reservation, others of us do not require that degree of control. I Am also sure if something goes awry with your reservation, you are quite ready and able to take care of it, which I can appreciate.

 

Sometimes it is the TA's mess up and sometimes it is X's. X generally readily accepts responsibility and corrects immediately, if TA's, then it is a bit more difficult or time consuming and the TA is not quite transparent about it.

 

Personally, I do not mind letting someone who is getting paid to take care of things on my behalf take care of it for me as soon as I or they catch the issue.

 

I have read, here on CC, where there were issues which could not be fixed before sailing, but they were rare IMO... Unless you have more current info on this?

 

bon voyage

 

 

Edited May 1, 2019 by Bo1953

[Tourist1292]

When they put you on the new promotion, it is an upgrade and treated as a new booking. It is not actually applying the new promotion on your original booking. There must be an error in either end that choose the GTY verandah category by mistake. 

[wrk2cruise]

5 hours ago, Tourist1292 said:

When they put you on the new promotion, it is an upgrade and treated as a new booking. It is not actually applying the new promotion on your original booking. There must be an error in either end that choose the GTY verandah category by mistake. 

 

I believe this is what happened to you.  I bet the GTY rate was available at a rate similar to what your original booking was so they were able to switch to that rate with the perks.  If this was the case they certainly shouldn't have done it without your permission!  I don't think a X GTY balcony as an "upgrade" even from a 2D obstructed balcony assuming this is a "S" class ship.  While GTY could yield a better assignment typically it probably wouldn't especially if you are before final payment.

 

Whenever there is a change like this I require them to send me a new Celebrity Guest Invoice so that I can check all the details.  It helps catch this type of thing.  It's good you were able to get it all straightened out.  I'm a believer in using a TA to get additional perks but someone dropped the ball on this transaction and I would suspect the TA either didn't understand what was going on OR didn't communicate it to you properly.  I'd definitely have a conversation with them.  This could have had an unhappy ending.

[happy cruzer]

Whether or not you use a TA, you still can check the details.  The TA does add a communication level that can help and maybe hurt.  When the perks are there, do like using the TA but still check everything just like it was booked directly.

[Spender Nui]

I too agree you should have been given the option of choosing.  On the other hand it seems a pretty good upgrade.

[bobndee]

We were happy with the cabin we chose originally since it was mid-ship and had no noisy areas near by, above or below or from engines and propellers.  Also, by being on deck 6 we would expect to feel less motion if conditions got rough.  Getting a upgraded cabin may negate some of those pluses, so we chose to stay where we had first picked.  I guess you could say that for us, the possible negatives outweighed the possible gains.

 

[whitshel]

My guess is your travel agent put you in a group, that's why you were able to get the perks.  Usually group cabins are GTY's.  I did the same thing for a couple of my clients, we originally booked them on the Eclipse March 15th, 2020 Santiago to San Diego on a resident rate when perks weren't available.  I saw we had a group rate but my clients booked under a reduced deposit as well (to be in a group you have to pay the full deposit) so I never inquired about it assuming the group was without perks..I called the other day to add choice air for them and just asked while I was on the phone if the group rate was with perks, they said yes.  So long story short, I was able to upgrade them from a 1B to C2 for $15 more per person and adding 2 perks, the Bev Pkg and Tips.  We we're floored, especially since the beverage pkg alone is $1069 per person to buy it.  Of course they had to come up with the rest of their deposit, but at that point that was a no brainer.

 

Oh, and by the way Choice air was a really good deal too, $637 Lax to Santiago one way on American.  If you go on AA.com the same flight booking direct is $2700 plus with choice air you don't have to pay for fight until final payment of the cruise and you can change or cancel the flight up until final payment with no penalties.  Again, a no brainer!

 

 

[bobndee]

8 hours ago, whitshel said:

My guess is your travel agent put you in a group, that's why you were able to get the perks.  Usually group cabins are GTY's.  I did the same thing for a couple of my clients, we originally booked them on the Eclipse March 15th, 2020 Santiago to San Diego on a resident rate when perks weren't available.  I saw we had a group rate but my clients booked under a reduced deposit as well (to be in a group you have to pay the full deposit) so I never inquired about it assuming the group was without perks..I called the other day to add choice air for them and just asked while I was on the phone if the group rate was with perks, they said yes.  So long story short, I was able to upgrade them from a 1B to C2 for $15 more per person and adding 2 perks, the Bev Pkg and Tips.  We we're floored, especially since the beverage pkg alone is $1069 per person to buy it.  Of course they had to come up with the rest of their deposit, but at that point that was a no brainer.

 

Oh, and by the way Choice air was a really good deal too, $637 Lax to Santiago one way on American.  If you go on AA.com the same flight booking direct is $2700 plus with choice air you don't have to pay for fight until final payment of the cruise and you can change or cancel the flight up until final payment with no penalties.  Again, a no brainer!

 

 

 

That could well be the case.  If they did that, though, they should have told me - which they didn't.  But all's well that ends well.

 

Choice air was a good deal for us, too.  We booked American from Dulles to Santiago one way for $662 pp.  Also with no payment until final and free change/cancel.  The crazy thing was that if we booked the return from San Diego to Dulles at the same time the fare went to over $2000 pp.  So we'll do that later.