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Can you upgrade a sail away rate?


mfars
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My TA, who is awful by the way, has been arguing with me over this. I’ve done it in the past so I don’t know if it’s new policy or if he’s just lazy/incompetent. I booked a balcony sail away rate and prices dropped $100 and the mini suite sail away is now the price we paid. I got my room assignment pretty quickly and was assigned a BA room, which is a huge upgrade from a basic balcony I know. When  I called him to tell him of the price drop he told me he’s look into it. He called me back and told me we were already upgraded and they couldn’t give us the mini suite or the OBC difference. I told him we weren’t upgrade but were ASSIGNED since we didn’t have a room prior to this. (The room was assigned before the price dropped as well) We are past final payment but like I said I’ve done this before. Has anyone ever upgraded to a mini suite or received the OBC successfully? Thanks!

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We booked a SailAway/GTY Inside cabin years ago & the price dropped like a rock two weeks later.  Our PCC got us an upgrade to a Balcony with no additional charge.  He was a GREAT PCC, btw, for this and many other reasons.  We miss him a lot!

 

We also had gotten our cabin assigned right away & it was the top inside cabin category.  He explained to us that the cabin category that we got assigned to had to also drop to the GTY/SailAway rate before we could get either OBC or any other compensation.  He called his supervisor &, as mentioned above, we got bumped up to a balcony.

 

So based on our experience & the explanation provided by our PCC is once you're assigned a cabin the rate for that cabin is now considered your "baseline"  for compensation purposes, even though you PAID the GTY/SailAway rate.  So if the SailAway/GTY rate drops further  the only way you can get OBC or a trade up is if your assigned GTY/SailAway cabin also drops to the same rate.  This happened a number of years ago so NCL's policy may have changed since then.  But this is what happened to us.

 

Good luck!  However it sounds like you need a new TA...😟

Edited by tomk3212
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I booked a sailaway rate for ocean view and two weeks later was offered the opportunity to bid on an upgrade.  I didn't take the offer so I don't know how well it would work.

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I have on several occations in the past purchased an upgrade when prices have dropped after final payment (I am not talking about the "upgrade bidding program" but purchasing a regular upgrade to a higher cabin category and pay the current online difference between that and what I have originally paid).  But I have then always upgraded to a "normal" cabin price, not a sailaway price. For our last cruise (May 2019) I tried to purchase an upgrade to a sailaway priced balcony cabin from a regular inside cabin (not sailaway), and was told by my PCC at NCL that I could not upgrade to a sailaway rate after final payment. I did however put in a bid in the upgrade bidding program at a later time, and ended up with a balcony cabin at a price I was happy with, so in the end it turned out good for me. But back to OP's question - based on my experience it may seem like an upgrade to a sailaway category  is not considered as an upgrade if it is after final payment.....?

Edited by TrumpyNor
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Last year I booked a sail away inside on the Dawn from Quebec to Boston. It was a late, spur of the moment booking, and I got a perfectly good inside on deck 5. Then I got an upgrade letter and for the heck of it bid $100 pp and was upgraded to a balcony on deck 10. I did not get any perks, but I knew you carry whatever perks you had, or in my case, didn't have, to the new room. The Sailaway rate for a balcony was advertised as more expensive than what I paid!

Two years ago, there was a rate after final payment on my inside on the Jade for our cruise around Great Britain, and my TA got us upgraded to a balcony, and also got an upgrade for my sister to the balcony next door. No change to the perks. 

As far as I know, if you get upgraded, you do not get any new perks, you get what you originally booked, just a better room. To get better perks youhave to cancel and rebook, of course you can't do after final payment. I don't know if you could be upgraded again after being upgraded to a better category of your original booking. That might have been the problem, or maybe there really weren't that many minis to assign. 

So short answer, from my experience, you can upgrade from a Sailaway  to a higher category of room if you bid, or if there is a price drop, but I think it also depends on availability for that particular cruise. Any good TA knows it, and should be working to get you the best deal possible.

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Yes. After you're assigned a room, you'll be eligible to make an upgrade bid.

 

That is unless you book an Inside Guarantee and they stick you in a Studio - a nasty practice they'd better stop doing (they tried to pull it on me). Studios are the only category ineligible for upgrades. 

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1 hour ago, PortFees45 said:

Yes. After you're assigned a room, you'll be eligible to make an upgrade bid.

 

That is unless you book an Inside Guarantee and they stick you in a Studio - a nasty practice they'd better stop doing (they tried to pull it on me). Studios are the only category ineligible for upgrades. 

 

Were you a single traveler who paid double occupancy?

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1 hour ago, rtkenmore said:

 

Were you a single traveler who paid double occupancy?

Doesn't matter if I am or not. If you book an Inside Guarantee (IX) you get the lowest category Inside OR HIGHER. 

 

A Studio is a lower category than an Inside. 

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I’m not referring to the bidding process. I paid $899 for BX. The rate dropped to $799 and then the MX dropped to $899. My question is- can we be moved to a mini suite guarantee since that is the price we paid? (Or since we’re past final payment I know they do 25% of the difference in OBC) I also know this is a one time deal they can change. My TA is telling me they already upgraded me to a BA but he doesn’t understand that was just our original room assignment. And we were assigned way before the price dropped. 

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5 hours ago, TrumpyNor said:

I have on several occations in the past purchased an upgrade when prices have dropped after final payment (I am not talking about the "upgrade bidding program" but purchasing a regular upgrade to a higher cabin category and pay the current online difference between that and what I have originally paid).  But I have then always upgraded to a "normal" cabin price, not a sailaway price. For our last cruise (May 2019) I tried to purchase an upgrade to a sailaway priced balcony cabin from a regular inside cabin (not sailaway), and was told by my PCC at NCL that I could not upgrade to a sailaway rate after final payment. I did however put in a bid in the upgrade bidding program at a later time, and ended up with a balcony cabin at a price I was happy with, so in the end it turned out good for me. But back to OP's question - based on my experience it may seem like an upgrade to a sailaway category  is not considered as an upgrade if it is after final payment.....?

If you were trying to upgrade from a regular room that came with perks to a sailaway room - that was the problem. If it was perk to perk or sailaway to sailaway it should have worked. 

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We purchased inside sail-away rate on Breakaway.  Our upgrade bid to ocean view was accepted and we received front facing ocean view.  I can't go into what happens with perks, we didn't have any.

 

Enjoy your cruise

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  • 2 months later...
On 7/7/2019 at 2:02 PM, mfars said:

I’m not referring to the bidding process. I paid $899 for BX. The rate dropped to $799 and then the MX dropped to $899. My question is- can we be moved to a mini suite guarantee since that is the price we paid? (Or since we’re past final payment I know they do 25% of the difference in OBC) I also know this is a one time deal they can change. My TA is telling me they already upgraded me to a BA but he doesn’t understand that was just our original room assignment. And we were assigned way before the price dropped. 

Did you ever get the upgrade?

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