Bid offers or room upgrades

[Heisler123]

Just wondering if Holland America does upgrades to rooms or bids for rooms like other cruise lines have started doing. When would be a good time to see about an upgrade if anytime is good. Maybe Holland does not do this. Just curious..TIA

[DaveOKC]

No bidding on upgrades on HAL.  They do send out "upsell" offers where you pay a fixed amount to move up a category or more.  This process usually starts about 4 weeks prior to your sailing date.  If you booked through HAL the offer will come directly to you via email.  If you booked through a travel agent, it will go through them  (although some agents are better than others in passing these offers along to their clients).

 

[RD64]

From my own personal experience….

 

Booked for a the upcoming cruise at the end of February.

 

I did not want to go with the HAL option of letting them pick my outside cabin. I did not want to be at the very bottom on deck one, especially not far forward on deck one (my own personal preference). I picked my own cabin on deck seven at a premium. At that time balcony cabins were about $1200 more (for single occupancy).

 

I did receive an email upgrade to a verandah grade cabin a few weeks later for an additional $798 in total. I declined.

 

Fast forward another week or two and I was checking for a better cabin location for the same cabin grade. I saw that verandah grade cabins were now going for $100 less (total) than what I originally paid. Just an fyi - far, far past final payment.

 

I was not expecting any form of refund.  Also, I am very sceptical of those people that claim to get a bazillion dollars back in OBC after final payment. I contacted my PVP and asked if it was possible to just slide me into one of the verandahs (on the same deck). Done in a flash. I wasn’t expecting this result, and would have been happy with my original price and cabin, but I do appreciate the change that was made. Moral of the story - it doesn’t hurt to ask.

 

one last thing - checked prices out of curiosity and prices for my original cabin grade, and the new verandah grade are far higher than what I paid.

[oakridger]

Congrats @RD64!  You're right about always at least asking!

 

~Nancy