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rockraiders

By rockraiders,
in Cunard Line

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rockraiders

rockraiders

Posted
Posted

We are booked on westbound TA in an OV. Our first cruise with Cunard. We sail in June. Should we be hopeful about an upgrade or not even bother because it won’t happen? Final payment is in 10 days. I tried to count cabins but it was a bit difficult on their website. 

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PORT ROYAL

PORT ROYAL

Posted
Posted
22 minutes ago, rockraiders said:

We are booked on westbound TA in an OV. Our first cruise with Cunard. We sail in June. Should we be hopeful about an upgrade or not even bother because it won’t happen? Final payment is in 10 days. I tried to count cabins but it was a bit difficult on their website. 

Work on not happening, but be totally surprised if it does.  Upgrades, if any, occur after final payment date.

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exlondoner

exlondoner

Posted
Posted
35 minutes ago, rockraiders said:

We are booked on westbound TA in an OV. Our first cruise with Cunard. We sail in June. Should we be hopeful about an upgrade or not even bother because it won’t happen? Final payment is in 10 days. I tried to count cabins but it was a bit difficult on their website. 

 

No-one really knows, but it is arguably a good approach to upgrade someone on their first voyage, thereby giving them an enhanced experience and getting them hooked on more expensive cabins.

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BellaAnna

BellaAnna

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, exlondoner said:

 

No-one really knows, but it is arguably a good approach to upgrade someone on their first voyage, thereby giving them an enhanced experience and getting them hooked on more expensive cabins.

Yes! Cunard is smart! They upgraded us to Queens Grill on our first Voyage 11 years ago. We’ve been in the Grills ever since!

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david,Mississauga

david,Mississauga

Posted
Posted

We had many voyages on the QE2 with no upgrades, but on our first QM2 crossing we were upgraded to Princess Grill. So the next year we booked Princess and were upgraded to Queens Grill. The same thing happened the next year. Since then we have booked PG a few times, Britannia a few times and Britannia Club twice, but have had no upgrades.

 

I'm not complaining; we did well. Cunard's strategy in getting us spoiled worked up to a point, but the Grills are not always in our budget.

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babs135 Great Review Rare

babs135

Posted
Posted

Interesting topic.  DH and myself had a couple of voyages, both in inside cabins, with no upgrades until our daughter joined us for her first time on Cunard.  We still booked an inside cabin as she was young and fit enough to climb into the pulldown bed (!) but on arrival at check in we discovered we'd been upgraded to a balcony.   So whether the upgrade fairy decided to smile on us because there were 3 of us or we just happened to be in the right place at the right time I guess we'll never know.

Super surprise though!!!

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Summergee

Summergee

Posted
Posted

Going back to QM2s first refit, my sons booked the cheapest cabin for the first trip after the refit. It was 3 or 4 nights. The ship came out of refit early, they got another 2 nights at no extra cost and were upgraded to a glass fronted balcony. At the time it was a 16 cabin upgrade. 

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ExArkie

ExArkie

Posted
Posted

I find the “never got an upgrade” comments interesting. My wife and I have done 8 transatlantic voyages on Cunard (Platinum level in CWC) and have been upgraded on all but two of them. In four we went from a P2 to a P1, which were instigated by Cunard. One trip on QV we were moved from a Q6 to a Q4, again by Cunard’s action.
 

The remaining upgrade came at our instigation. Having booked P2 and seen a price drop, we called and were moved to P1. Later (we had booked early, as we knew we wanted to sail QM2 home after I finished teaching a class in the UK), there was some special promotion fare where the price for a P1 was less than we paid. We called and were moved into a Q5.

 

The two trips that were not upgraded were (1) an eastbound on QE (only eastbound we’ve done) that was the end of a World Cruise. We booked only the last leg (Fort Lauderdale to Southampton) in P2 - one should be noticing a preferred category in our bookings at this point - and it appeared that all higher categories were sold out, and (2) our 25th anniversary trip in which we actually booked a Q5 as a celebration, which is the cabin we were left in. The QG price was at that time only a couple of hundred dollars per person higher than PG, so it wasn’t a completely extravagant gesture.

 

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P2l

P2l

Posted
Posted

If that wasn't enough to doom me, my wife has just looked at the à la carte menu.

 

She is more into "fancy" food*, whereas I have a plainer palette but am salivating with anticipation of grandeur, ambience and service. And a meal in the Golden Lion 😉

 

For me, the big advantage of the upgrade is that the flexible timing should allow us chance to digest afternoon tea before the next Feeding.

 

(*I must never show her the Grills menus, or my wallet may require CPR)

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Windsurfboy Great Review Rare

Windsurfboy

Posted
Posted
On 2/26/2022 at 1:24 PM, ExArkie said:

I find the “never got an upgrade” comments interesting. My wife and I have done 8 transatlantic voyages on Cunard (Platinum level in CWC) and have been upgraded on all but two of them. In four we went from a P2 to a P1, which were instigated by Cunard. One trip on QV we were moved from a Q6 to a Q4, again by Cunard’s action.
 

The remaining upgrade came at our instigation. Having booked P2 and seen a price drop, we called and were moved to P1. Later (we had booked early, as we knew we wanted to sail QM2 home after I finished teaching a class in the UK), there was some special promotion fare where the price for a P1 was less than we paid. We called and were moved into a Q5.

 

The two trips that were not upgraded were (1) an eastbound on QE (only eastbound we’ve done) that was the end of a World Cruise. We booked only the last leg (Fort Lauderdale to Southampton) in P2 - one should be noticing a preferred category in our bookings at this point - and it appeared that all higher categories were sold out, and (2) our 25th anniversary trip in which we actually booked a Q5 as a celebration, which is the cabin we were left in. The QG price was at that time only a couple of hundred dollars per person higher than PG, so it wasn’t a completely extravagant gesture.

 

 

Shows the advantage of US, refundable deposit.  UK are stuck with prices we pay.

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