Upgrade offer prices more than the cost of upgrading direct? What's the point of that.

[Sussexboy]

We are on Arvia in May. For the first and probably last time we are in an aft suite. Two days ago I received an email asking me to bid for an upgrade. I don’t think we can do much about that. I know it’s probably an automatic process that drives the email, but it seems such sloppy admin. As a former quality and business process manager it the sort of sad thing that annoys me. It could quite easily be managed out of the process.

[cheshire]

8 minutes ago, Sussexboy said:

We are on Arvia in May. For the first and probably last time we are in an aft suite. Two days ago I received an email asking me to bid for an upgrade. I don’t think we can do much about that. I know it’s probably an automatic process that drives the email, but it seems such sloppy admin. As a former quality and business process manager it the sort of sad thing that annoys me. It could quite easily be managed out of the process.

There are different grades?   We had an offer to upgrade our aft suite on Britannia.  Declined but got upgraded to mid suite anyway 

[Bertie84]

The bargain hunter in me was just wondering, has anyone had any success with calling a cruise line and offering below the minimum bid for a cabin upgrade?

 

If a cruise line is still offering upgrades for all room types close to the sailing date, surely a low ball offer will tempt them if even below the minimum bid? There's not really any extra work for them and £100 per person rather than say £170 min bid is better than nothing.

[tring]

8 minutes ago, Bertie84 said:

The bargain hunter in me was just wondering, has anyone had any success with calling a cruise line and offering below the minimum bid for a cabin upgrade?

 

If a cruise line is still offering upgrades for all room types close to the sailing date, surely a low ball offer will tempt them if even below the minimum bid? There's not really any extra work for them and £100 per person rather than say £170 min bid is better than nothing.

 

We have asked about upgrading on a couple of P&O cruises and they are resolute about charging whatever that higher grade would cost when we booked.  The idea is that they really want people to offer a higher price than the minimum bid.  There is a scale alongside your potential bid price which indicates the strength of your bid.  We have offered more than the minimum bid for a balcony cabin, from our outside booking and are still a fair bit less than half the price they would charge us to upgrade and choose the cabin.

 

We will likely not know the outcome until just after mid April.  The price they have balconies set at currently, is in fact more than we would be charged if we rang to upgrade, so way over the bid price.  Depends on your cruise and the ship.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14 by tring