Royal Up - Strategy

[Empehi]

A few of questions for the Royal-Up experts.

 

1. After you receive your Royal-Up offers by e-mail, will RCL ever lower the minimum bid necessary to win a new cabin?

2. Is it better to bid right away or bid closer to the sailing date?

3. Does RCL sometimes accept a bid weeks before sailing?

 

Thanks,

 

e

 

 

[George C]

You can bid anytime before you sail

[topnole]

12 minutes ago, Empehi said:

A few of questions for the Royal-Up experts.

 

1. After you receive your Royal-Up offers by e-mail, will RCL ever lower the minimum bid necessary to win a new cabin?

2. Is it better to bid right away or bid closer to the sailing date?

3. Does RCL sometimes accept a bid weeks before sailing?

 

Thanks,

 

e

 

 

No one is going to know these answers.  Folks would just be guessing off of an experience or two which isn’t going to explain their system.  You best chance

is to bid the highest. That is probably the one thing that highly correlates with winning the bid.  I doubt timing matters one bit. The computer program is going to analyze the bids based on the decision making criteria that was input.  No one hear knows those criteria. 

[molly361]

I have never heard of a bid getting accepted weeks out.

[lazydayz]

My one winning bid was accepted less than a week before the cruise.  My many losing bids (pre-pandemic) were communicated to me the day before sailing, or not at all.  

 

I go ahead and bid at the first opportunity.  Maybe because it gives me something fun to obsess over.  LOL 

[Biker19]

30 minutes ago, Empehi said:

1. After you receive your Royal-Up offers by e-mail, will RCL ever lower the minimum?

3. Can you sometimes win weeks before sailing?

Yes.

Not lately.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Biker19

[Traveling Mike]

Think logically about how you would write the computer program for Royal-Up.  You are going to set a minim bid based on how many cabins are left on the ship.  Then you will move the minimum based on how many people are placing a bid and how many cabins are left.  You will continue the bidding program until a couple of days before the cruise to get the most people bidding that you can.  Then you will start assigning rooms starting from the most expensive room and assigning the person with the highest bid.  Then you move to the next level filling all the rooms possible with bidders.  This is why you might not be able to book a room level (balcony) but you can get one on a bid because someone with a balcony won a bid on a better room.

[ZoeyVictoria]

I received the Royal Up email, then later received a second one with lower minimum bids.  I also received third, fourth, and fifth emails, but the amount did not change after the second one.

[RobInMN]

46 minutes ago, Traveling Mike said:

Think logically about how you would write the computer program for Royal-Up.  You are going to set a minim bid based on how many cabins are left on the ship.  Then you will move the minimum based on how many people are placing a bid and how many cabins are left.  You will continue the bidding program until a couple of days before the cruise to get the most people bidding that you can.  Then you will start assigning rooms starting from the most expensive room and assigning the person with the highest bid.  Then you move to the next level filling all the rooms possible with bidders.  This is why you might not be able to book a room level (balcony) but you can get one on a bid because someone with a balcony won a bid on a better room.

This is really close to what I would do, but as discussed in other threads, the theory is that it would not necessarily be the highest bid in the highest cabin and working down. It's what ever is going to net RC the most money. So for a very overly simplistic example, if there are 2 bids for a RS, and a GS bid $600 and a JS bid $500. But there was a balcony that bid $200 on a JS (but not a GS), then the JS would get the RS because RC would net $100 more. You also have to take into account bids on other rooms. so if 1 person only bid on RS and another on RS & GS, how does that factor in if there was a RS & GS available.

[HicksRA]

The only strategy I can perceive is to bid as high as you’re comfortable paying and let the chips fall where they may.  

[jstuartys]

2 hours ago, Empehi said:

A few of questions for the Royal-Up experts.

 

1. After you receive your Royal-Up offers by e-mail, will RCL ever lower the minimum bid necessary to win a new cabin?

2. Is it better to bid right away or bid closer to the sailing date?

3. Does RCL sometimes accept a bid weeks before sailing?

 

Thanks,

 

e

 

 

3.  We sail on Dec 28.  Our Royal Up was accepted on Dec 15.  thats about as far out as I have heard

 

 

[jwc1027]

Sailed on the 11th, bid was accepted the 9th. We bid halfway on their "meter scale" for whatever thats worth and went from a GS to a 2bdrm aqua suite.

[pretzlaff]

3 hours ago, RobInMN said:

This is really close to what I would do, but as discussed in other threads, the theory is that it would not necessarily be the highest bid in the highest cabin and working down. It's what ever is going to net RC the most money. So for a very overly simplistic example, if there are 2 bids for a RS, and a GS bid $600 and a JS bid $500. But there was a balcony that bid $200 on a JS (but not a GS), then the JS would get the RS because RC would net $100 more. You also have to take into account bids on other rooms. so if 1 person only bid on RS and another on RS & GS, how does that factor in if there was a RS & GS available.

This part is often forgotten.  It really is your "bid plus your trade in" cabin.  This all is more like buying a car than anything else, How much are you offering on top of your trade in?

 

If you want a GS and you have a JS, then bid the minimum plus a little.  If you want a GS and you have a balcony, bid more.

 

If you want out of an interior that has no trade in value, you probably have to bid quite a bit.

[HicksRA]

1 hour ago, pretzlaff said:

This part is often forgotten.  It really is your "bid plus your trade in" cabin.  This all is more like buying a car than anything else, How much are you offering on top of your trade in?

 

If you want a GS and you have a JS, then bid the minimum plus a little.  If you want a GS and you have a balcony, bid more.

 

If you want out of an interior that has no trade in value, you probably have to bid quite a bit.

We’ll said. 
 

I also noted that the value of your booked cabin affects the bid spreads for higher cabins. 
For example, I have a B2B on Harmony - 1 in a JS and 1 in a GS. The bid minimum/range for for the JS is much higher than the same cabins for the GS. 

Edited December 21, 2021 by HicksRA

[orville99]

20 hours ago, Empehi said:

A few of questions for the Royal-Up experts.

 

1. After you receive your Royal-Up offers by e-mail, will RCL ever lower the minimum bid necessary to win a new cabin?

2. Is it better to bid right away or bid closer to the sailing date?

3. Does RCL sometimes accept a bid weeks before sailing?

 

Thanks,

 

e

 

 

Every bid that we have had accepted was submitted very close to the sail date, and either at or very close to the minimum bid required.

 

Since there is no way to know in advance where an upgraded cabin may be, we only bid on upgrades where we know there aren't any bad cabin locations, and we always check the booking engine to see what may still be available before we bid.

 

[Cigar King]

Here's my strategy, and it works 100% of the time.  I purchase the cruise with the cabin I want and never pay any attention to Royal Up offers.

[mrkfla1]

Closer to cruise date seems to be the norm but it does seem to vary.

For our Aug 8th cruise our bid was accepted on Aug 5th.  Balcony - JS

For our upcoming Dec 26th cruise our bid was accepted on Dec 14th. Balcony to GS

 

The amount I bid varies on what I feel is worth the upgrade to the level(s) I want. I think you need to take into consideration the time of year as well as current capacity. During the busy times you may need to bid a little higher, especially during the holidays as people are willing to spend more money. During the slow season you might get an upgrade on a minimum bid.

 

I like the car analogy above.

[Cruise a holic]

For our Jan 9th cruise, all but one star class suite was expired.  The remaining suite, will not let me make any adjustments and states pending.  We are still pending on three star class suites on our Jan 2 cruise.  Who knows, we might have to change suites for each cruise!

 

Also if we do get our bids accepted, does the genie try to contact us a day or so before we board?  Anybody have experience with the royal up and genie contact?

Edited December 22, 2021 by Cruise a holic

[adidas5676]

7 minutes ago, Cruise a holic said:

For our Jan 9th cruise, all but one star class suite was expired.  The remaining suite, will not let me make any adjustments and states pending.  We are still pending on three star class suites on our Jan 2 cruise.  Who knows, we might have to change suites for each cruise!

Keep us updated on how those pan out!

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by adidas5676

[Cruise a holic]

4 hours ago, adidas5676 said:

Keep us updated on how those pan out!

 

Will do!

 

 

 

 

[soremekun]

I have an inside stateroom and here are my bids for an upcoming cruise.  Absolutely do not care if I win.

 

[topnole]

On 12/21/2021 at 4:48 PM, pretzlaff said:

This part is often forgotten.  It really is your "bid plus your trade in" cabin.  This all is more like buying a car than anything else, How much are you offering on top of your trade in?

 

If you want a GS and you have a JS, then bid the minimum plus a little.  If you want a GS and you have a balcony, bid more.

 

If you want out of an interior that has no trade in value, you probably have to bid quite a bit.

But do they set a range you can bid or is it unlimited high side and $1 on the low side?  Otherwise, they have basically already priced your range so it doesn’t really matter whether you realize your cabin (trade in car is worth a lot not) value.   I’d they set a range, a jr suite will always have a smaller range than a std balcony cabin if bidding on an owners suite, right?  So you can’t really forget and make a big mistake if the restrict you to a range which is a good thing for newbies bidding. If there is no range, then it might be easy to not realize the difference you mentioned.  

[Biker19]

28 minutes ago, topnole said:

But do they set a range you can bid or is it unlimited high side and $1 on the low side?  

The lowest min is usually $20 and the max is limited to maybe a few $K on a Star class suite. There are plenty of reports of folks self upgrading below the min and certainly below the max. 

[Ashland]

On 12/21/2021 at 8:28 AM, George C said:

You can bid anytime before you sail

I believe it closes 3 days prior to sail date....at least that's what mine have said.

[chaswelf]

18 hours ago, Biker19 said:

The lowest min is usually $20 and the max is limited to maybe a few $K on a Star class suite. There are plenty of reports of folks self upgrading below the min and certainly below the max. 

 

The minimum is set by the cabin your starting from.  for example if your in a balcony the minimum go to to a GS would be (made up number). 300/per person.  If your in a JR the minimum to go to a GS might me 100/per person.