FYI: My first World Points Upgrade Experience

[alwalaska]

Hello all.  I thought that since I had so many questions that people helped me with in the Credit Card Sticky thread, I would write this mini-review of my upgrade process. I know I "pulled the trigger" too soon and upgraded our 2025 Spirit cruise since we won't be able to get price adjustments now, but, I wanted a particular cabin (only 2 like it on the whole ship) and for being almost 2 years out, the available cabins seem to be dropping fairly quickly. This was my first time doing anything other than shopping with the NCL/Bank of America World Points card.  Overall, the process was quite painless.

 

I first logged into both mine and my husband’s accounts on the BoA website to double-check our points.   Between us, we had the required 60,000 points for a double-meta upgrade. While checking, I noticed a box on the rewards tab to transfer points between friends and family.  I clicked there on my husband’s account and put in the credit card number for my account, read the notice, and clicked OK and that was it.  As soon as I logged into my account the points were there and ready to use. It was almost too easy. Just one more reason to protect your credit card number and login information.

 

I then clicked on the Learn More button on what looked like an NCL ad on the rewards page.  Finding out where to click was probably the hardest part of the whole process.  I read the fine print on the meta and double meta upgrade options and decided to call because I wanted to pick a specific cabin. After posting on Cruise Critic and with what I saw on the website, it seemed clear that you get an assigned cabin if you do it online.

 

I called the 866 number on the page with the upgrade options on the BofA WP site.  The answering system welcome said something to the effect of thank you for calling the World Points NCL line or something similar.  They then asked for people who booked through a partner travel agency to push 1 and everyone to push 2.  I booked through a TA, so I pushed one.  After a short wait (less than 10 minutes, probably less than 5, not long enough that I started a timer), a gentleman picked up and thanked me for calling NCL.  I explained that I wanted to do a double-meta upgrade with NCL points and he put me on a very short hold while he logged into the BofA website.  He came back, verified what I wanted to do, and again put me on a very brief hold while he entered everything into the system.  He came back and said that my originally booked cabin level (cabin 9051, which is an IA according to my confirmation and the deck maps on NCL) mapped to a cabin on deck 10 (BB) and he gave me a number of the “best available” cabin according to the software’s algorithm.  He mentioned that he could also check another cabin for me if I would like.  I asked for my pick and it was available.  He booked it, thanked me, and that was that.  When I checked online about 2 hours later, my new cabin was reported on my reservation information.

 

Luckily, I really wanted a cabin on Deck 10 (BB level) because I thought that the IA would map to a BA, but it didn’t.  I guess the I3 or I4 is required to map to a BA.  I guess, there are 5 levels of interior cabins (IX, IF, IB, IA, I3, and I4) and Balconies also have 5 (BX, BF, BC, BB, and BA), but the I3 and I4 have special names with “Family” in the name and also, I was able to go from an IA to a BB, so it isn’t straight across, so I’m still not sure what cabin you would have to book to get a BA cabin if that is what you really want.

 

I hope this helps someone else.  Although no one knows what will happen in the future with prices, I am comfortable with what we paid for this trip and at this point in time, the points saved us over $4,000. 

[The Traveling Man]

On 3/7/2023 at 10:59 AM, alwalaska said:

Hello all.  I thought that since I had so many questions that people helped me with in the Credit Card Sticky thread, I would write this mini-review of my upgrade process. I know I "pulled the trigger" too soon and upgraded our 2025 Spirit cruise since we won't be able to get price adjustments now, but, I wanted a particular cabin (only 2 like it on the whole ship) and for being almost 2 years out, the available cabins seem to be dropping fairly quickly. This was my first time doing anything other than shopping with the NCL/Bank of America World Points card.  Overall, the process was quite painless.

 

I first logged into both mine and my husband’s accounts on the BoA website to double-check our points.   Between us, we had the required 60,000 points for a double-meta upgrade. While checking, I noticed a box on the rewards tab to transfer points between friends and family.  I clicked there on my husband’s account and put in the credit card number for my account, read the notice, and clicked OK and that was it.  As soon as I logged into my account the points were there and ready to use. It was almost too easy. Just one more reason to protect your credit card number and login information.

 

I then clicked on the Learn More button on what looked like an NCL ad on the rewards page.  Finding out where to click was probably the hardest part of the whole process.  I read the fine print on the meta and double meta upgrade options and decided to call because I wanted to pick a specific cabin. After posting on Cruise Critic and with what I saw on the website, it seemed clear that you get an assigned cabin if you do it online.

 

I called the 866 number on the page with the upgrade options on the BofA WP site.  The answering system welcome said something to the effect of thank you for calling the World Points NCL line or something similar.  They then asked for people who booked through a partner travel agency to push 1 and everyone to push 2.  I booked through a TA, so I pushed one.  After a short wait (less than 10 minutes, probably less than 5, not long enough that I started a timer), a gentleman picked up and thanked me for calling NCL.  I explained that I wanted to do a double-meta upgrade with NCL points and he put me on a very short hold while he logged into the BofA website.  He came back, verified what I wanted to do, and again put me on a very brief hold while he entered everything into the system.  He came back and said that my originally booked cabin level (cabin 9051, which is an IA according to my confirmation and the deck maps on NCL) mapped to a cabin on deck 10 (BB) and he gave me a number of the “best available” cabin according to the software’s algorithm.  He mentioned that he could also check another cabin for me if I would like.  I asked for my pick and it was available.  He booked it, thanked me, and that was that.  When I checked online about 2 hours later, my new cabin was reported on my reservation information.

 

Luckily, I really wanted a cabin on Deck 10 (BB level) because I thought that the IA would map to a BA, but it didn’t.  I guess the I3 or I4 is required to map to a BA.  I guess, there are 5 levels of interior cabins (IX, IF, IB, IA, I3, and I4) and Balconies also have 5 (BX, BF, BC, BB, and BA), but the I3 and I4 have special names with “Family” in the name and also, I was able to go from an IA to a BB, so it isn’t straight across, so I’m still not sure what cabin you would have to book to get a BA cabin if that is what you really want.

 

I hope this helps someone else.  Although no one knows what will happen in the future with prices, I am comfortable with what we paid for this trip and at this point in time, the points saved us over $4,000. 

Your experience is similar to ours.  We have used points for an Ocean View to Balcony upgrade seven times and double points once for an Inside to Balcony.  Each time we were able to specify the Balcony stateroom we wanted.  On most occasions the best Balcony subcategory we were eligible to receive was one or two notches down from the OV or Inside that we had booked.   An OA was upgraded to a BB, for example.  Getting a savings of $4000 for 60,000 points works out to almost seven cents per point for you.  That's far better than cashing in 10,000 points for $100.00 in OBC.  That would only get you a penny a point!  We usually save our points and use them for upgrades on longer cruises where the price differential between OV and Balcony staterooms can be thousands of dollars per person.  IIRC the best deal we ever got was about 13 cents per point, or roughly $4000 for 30,000 points.  Since those points were earned at a rate of three points per dollar spent with NCL, that works out to a return of about 40%.  Beats the heck out the "what's in your wallet" card's two or three percent cash back.

[Tdellinger]

I am new at the Meta but I went from an O4 ocean view and they put me in a BF (priva sun) enclosed balcony on floor 8 in front. They said there were only 4 rooms available and we don’t cruise until Jan 2024. I find that hard to believe and don’t understand what would have been compatible to O4. I would like to see a list of meta. We used 30k points to upgrade. 

[alwalaska]

13 hours ago, Tdellinger said:

I am new at the Meta but I went from an O4 ocean view and they put me in a BF (priva sun) enclosed balcony on floor 8 in front. They said there were only 4 rooms available and we don’t cruise until Jan 2024. I find that hard to believe and don’t understand what would have been compatible to O4. I would like to see a list of meta. We used 30k points to upgrade. 

I would call again and see if a different person can get you into another cabin.  What I did was search on NCL's site and found an available balcony in 2 different categories that I would like that were still available and when I called, I asked if I could have that specific balcony.  I would think an O4 would get you a BA, but you never know.