Does paying for a GTY cabin early help for category upgrades?

[twodudes]

Hi All

 

We are sailing on CB on 6/17, and we have just sent payment to our TA for finals today. They were not due until 3/24. Does anyone know if paying Princess early on a GTY cabin will help towards a category upgrade? I.e., we are not expecting a balcony to mini-suite upgrade, but what would be the chances of a BC to BA for example?

 

Thanks for any enlightenment on this.

 

Cheers

Ash

[Coral]

Only the upgrade fairy really knows......but my guess would be it doesn't make a difference.

 

I booked an October cruise in August. Final payment was due and I was still trying to clear the time off from work so I kept calling Princess and holding the cruise for another 24 hours (hadn't booked, just held a cabin). I did this 4 times and final payment had already passed several days earlier. From the time I first held the cabin to the time I booked, I moved from an AD or AE guaranttee to an AA cabin. And here I paid later then everyone else on the cruise. The times I have been upgrade from a minisuite to a suite - they were both last minute bookings.

 

The upgrade fairy seems pretty unpredictable. If anyone ever catches her - hopefully they will find out the whole story.

 

Good luck!

[Pam in CA]

Booking a GTY is a gamble and all you're really booking is a cabin guaranteed in the category you booked, or better. Most of the time, it's in the same category or if there's an upgrade, it's the same category range but a different location on the ship. I don't know if there's a rhyme or reason.

[DeltaOne]

Does anyone know if paying Princess early on a GTY cabin will help towards a category upgrade?

Recently someone said booking early improves one's chance of getting an upgrade. It seems like being a repeat customer would help too, but I don't know for sure.

[fnewman]

Yes, but is almost always a 'good' gamble IF the original category booked is one you will be happy with if no upgrade occurs.

[coiran]

Recently someone said booking early improves one's chance of getting an upgrade. It seems like being a repeat customer would help too, but I don't know for sure.

 

Repeat customer means nothing or less than nothing - 18 Princess cruises and never a complimentary upgrade.

Ron

[Ethel5]

Repeat customer means nothing or less than nothing - 18 Princess cruises and never a complimentary upgrade.

Ron

 

I have to agree. After 13 Princess cruises, the most I ever got was from an obstructed to a non-obstructed. Lateyu we booked gty cabins and were assigned to less desirable cabins without a price break. So, the last 2 cruises I booked , I chose a cabin number.

[LEtue]

I haven't had any upgrades either in 3 cruises so I don't think past passenger means anything...and my experience has been the same on other cruise lines too.

 

Is the price of the BA that much higher? Normally there isn't a lot of difference and an upgrade may get you a less desirable cabin (by location) even when it is actually a higher category.

 

My advice is - book the minimum category you would be happy with and make sure you study the deck plan of the ship.

[shirlmac]

We agree with the others, cruised Princess 7 times not one single upgrade

so they could care less about loyalty. We leave on the Grand in the morning and purchased 2 cabins and still nothing....This will be our very last cruise

with this line!

[Dreamer333]

We agree with the others, cruised Princess 7 times not one single upgrade so they could care less about loyalty. We leave on the Grand in the morning and purchased 2 cabins and still nothing....This will be our very last cruise

with this line!

 

You may get flamed for the above comments, so before you do... I'd like to clarify (without flaming you)...

Are you saying that you are not cruising with Princess anymore because they've never given you free upgrades?

[spongerob]

Shirlmac - no flames here, either. Do you cruise with children, i.e. need to have one or two extra berths? There are lots of misconceptions about upgrades out there, so I hope you aren't upset over what could be a misunderstanding.

[coiran]

We agree with the others, cruised Princess 7 times not one single upgrade

so they could care less about loyalty. We leave on the Grand in the morning and purchased 2 cabins and still nothing....This will be our very last cruise

with this line!

 

Not cruising with Princess again because you have never been upgraded?? My advice is - book a cabin you will be happy in - if an upgrade comes, it's like another sunny day.

Ron

[jlp20]

Has anyone taken the time to think out WHY upgrades are done?

 

We must assume there is a sailing that is not sold out and there are attempts to book passengers all the way to the last minute. You now have thousands of passengers who have booked with all kinds of preferences. They have booked a certain cabin, category or by guarantee. Do you think there is some guy looking at a diagram of the ship with names pasted to each cabin? With the names and information like how much was charged for the room, number of past cruises and how far in advance it was booked. He then starts moving names around and then has to wait for the OK to continue by a T/A or passenger. Then multiply this by the 15 ships in the fleet. I doubt it too.

 

Instead, how about a simple computer program that moves everyone up from the lower categories, so that entire sections would be vacant. Our last cruise, we booked guarantee in the lowest category on the ship, we were "upgraded" four categories. The program would pick people at random to offer upgrades to passengers who have booked by cabin or category or automatically assign upgrades to those booking guaranteed. If there are enough people booking by guarantee, the program could upgrade the entire ship in a second or two. This is not to say that someone could be upgraded by hand before the program took over. I have seen many posts claiming their T/A has some pull at Princess headquarters, who knows.

 

In any event, the entire process would be overwhelming if done by hand.

[CanuckCFAN]

Well, our final payment is due next week and we have already been upgraded....

 

We booked a BF gty and were upgraded to a BC cabin in a very desirable location (at least for me), low, port and midship :D !

 

I was so excited about our location I actually had our TA ensure that we don't get another upgrade before our trip...

 

Our agent told us, that most people who book a GTY with Princess will get bumped at least 2 categories, although the higher up the gty the less likely...

 

For example.. BF, BE, BD and BC gty's are more likely to get an upgrade then a BB or BA (something to do with cabin qty's)...

 

There is only a few BF or BE cabins so when those cabins get sold out they need to move the gtys up the chain. As the gtys get moved into new cabins others move up the ladder as well...

 

Believe it or not, a lot of time the highest category rooms are the hardest to sell. People are quite willing to pay the additional $100 or so to go from the highest category type room to the lowest in the next category room... Example BA vrs AF gty (or balcony cabin to mini-suite)!

 

Many times the "higher" category rooms that have not been sold are assigned to people in a gty position (or the Upgrade fairy will come and bless the luck few)....

 

I don't think anybody knows exactly why and how people get upgraded...

 

My TA has booked hundreds of Princess cruises for her clients, and she assured us the best way to get an upgrade is to book the lowest category you would be comfortable in. For instance we just wanted a balcony room didn't really care where (okay I didn't want a Lido cabin or an Aft location).

 

We chose a qty in the lowest possible category and we were lucky! However, we did make sure that even if we did end up with in a BF category stateroom we still would have been happy!

 

Cheers (And good luck)!

CCFan

[Ethel5]

Not cruising with Princess again because you have never been upgraded?? My advice is - book a cabin you will be happy in - if an upgrade comes, it's like another sunny day.

Ron

 

I have to agree with this. Not cruising again with Princess just because you didn't gwet an upgrade is inane. NO cruiseline is goiing to guarantee upgrades-so then are you not going to cruise anymore?

[Toto2Kansas]

We agree with the others, cruised Princess 7 times not one single upgrade

so they could care less about loyalty. We leave on the Grand in the morning and purchased 2 cabins and still nothing....This will be our very last cruise

with this line!

 

Best of luck on other lines. Sorry, but this has to be the silliest reason for not cruising on a cruise line that I have ever heard in my entire life. I have seen passengers that have cruised 20+ times on the same line and never received an upgrade. (calling the fire department to put out the flames from me now). ARGH!

[bdjam]

While I can’t explain it, my upgrade history with Princess has been different. When booking a specific cabin, I have not been upgraded. When booking a guarantee - which I do most of the time because I don't really care WHERE my category is, I'm only concerned that I get the minimum I'll be satisfied with, I have been upgraded nine categories once (from an outside to a balcony) when sailing with someone else. When sailing solo, I have been upgraded from balconies to mini-suites twice.

And I agree – deciding that a cruise line shows no loyalty to their passengers and refusing to continue to sail with them based on a lack of upgrade history is a little extreme. Princess isn’t in business because it gives away its product.

[Shelby Cruiser]

We booked a guaranteed cabin almost 1yr. in advance of our next cruise while onboard ship. We had paid in full by early Aug. & final payment was not due until mid Dec. We thought by paying off earlier we would get a cabin assignment sooner. Our cruise is drawing closer, 4wks. & 1 day away, & still have no cabin assignment & our ship was supposedly sold old weeks & weeks ago. Don't know how the upgrade fairy works, but sure would be nice to know where will be at in the ship prior to departing from home. If ship is sold out, why not make all the assignments, unless ship is overbooked & trying to figure out who will cancel & reschedule. This will be our 13th cruise but only our 3rd. with Princess. We have never been upgraded on any line.

[twodudes]

Thanks to everyone for sharing your experience and offering advice. We are happy with any balcony cabin - for us it is all about being able to open the door and get some fresh air, which you can't do in an ocean view! So at the end of the day, we will be happy with BE if that's what is allocated.

 

Cheers

Ash

[DEL67]

We booked the Grand Princess April 8th sailing on Tuesday. My sister and daughter booked an FF (obstructed view) expecting not to be assigned a cabin until close to sailing or even at embarkation. On Thursday they recieved their cabin assignment, a DD (unobstructed view.)

[Casshew]

We booked a guaranteed cabin almost 1yr. in advance of our next cruise while onboard ship. We had paid in full by early Aug. & final payment was not due until mid Dec. We thought by paying off earlier we would get a cabin assignment sooner. Our cruise is drawing closer, 4wks. & 1 day away, & still have no cabin assignment & our ship was supposedly sold old weeks & weeks ago. Don't know how the upgrade fairy works, but sure would be nice to know where will be at in the ship prior to departing from home. If ship is sold out, why not make all the assignments, unless ship is overbooked & trying to figure out who will cancel & reschedule. This will be our 13th cruise but only our 3rd. with Princess. We have never been upgraded on any line.

 

Hi Shelby, I hope you get an awesome cabin assignment. Please let us know what happens. (crossing my fingers for you) :)

[Lynda90]

I have been on 23 cruises with Princess and 2 more booked. Have only had a "true" upgrade once. Went from an AD mini to Penthouse Suite. All other upgrades have been location only. A couple sitting with us at dinner on the cruise where I got the true upgrade, also got the same upgrade from mini to PS. It was their first cruise with Princess. I agree with all who said it's just the luck of the draw. Not really a fair way of doing it, but such is life. I certainly would never even think about being angry for not receiving an upgrade. After all, we are only guaranteed what we paid for and really should not expect anything else.

[shirlmac]

Thank you all for your input and advice, we have cruised with every major line and are elite on all. Every single one of the other lines go over and above

for their frequent cruisers that is except Princess. And no, we do not book

a cruise to get upgraded - have never booked less than a balcony and yes

we book with the concept of this is the cabin we want.

 

I guess I have been disenchanted with Princess since I emailed their Customer Service Dept. a couple of weeks ago with a question regarding my handicapped granddaughter. They did not answer the question but did tell me to email another dept. and it went from dept. to dept. It was a simple question and to this day have not received an answer from Princess. They kept passing the buck until I gave up and we will take care of the problem ourselves.

She is 8 years old and lost her arm I was wondering about tendering, not a

hard question yet no one at Princess would take the time. I was and I guess

still am upset at their lack of consideration.

 

With over 40 cruises on different lines and experiencing all the others lines welcome of their elite passengers with so much fan fare - you just want to cruise them instead of a line that could care less if you spend your money on them or not!

 

Now flame away folks this is how I feel and it is my opinion.

[Princess Chatterer]

I talked with one older couple who got upgraded from an outside balcony to a suite without even asking at no extra cost. They said they were frequent Princess cruisers and it sounded like they were paying brochure rates.

 

I'm wondering if certain cruise agents can pull off upgrades for their customers better than others? Just wondering.

[bdjam]

With over 40 cruises on different lines and experiencing all the others lines welcome of their elite passengers with so much fan fare - you just want to cruise them instead of a line that could care less if you spend your money on them or not!

 

Now flame away folks this is how I feel and it is my opinion.

It’s disappointing to hear you haven’t received a satisfactory response from Princess – one of the first things to learn about customer service is to always respond, even if that response is negative or indicating that a full response is on the way subsequently. As for treating loyal passengers, my recent cruise on Dawn Princess was my first as an Elite passenger and I found that though the difference was subtle, I did feel that my loyalty was appreciated and I was treated as such – a bit differently than I had been in the past.