First time cruiser royal up question.

[theycallmedp]

Hello all, taking our first cruise with the family in April on the oasis. I have a grand panoramic suite booked and I have a couple questions on how the royal up works. I got an email to bid on the only two rooms left that are bigger than the one that we have from what I can tell. I see everybody else posting about Royal up saying they find out about a week or so prior to when bids are not accepted. Is it always because you got outbid or is it just sometimes royal Caribbean doesn't feel like accepting that amount of money for that room? If anyone has any experience with this, any insight would be great thank you all for the help

[SilkySal]

Welcome to CC! I would guess it would be that the cruiser probably gets out bid; however, I do not know for sure. Maybe someone else has better insight for this question. Cheers!

[TheInnocentAge]

38 minutes ago, theycallmedp said:

Hello all, taking our first cruise with the family in April on the oasis. I have a grand panoramic suite booked and I have a couple questions on how the royal up works. I got an email to bid on the only two rooms left that are bigger than the one that we have from what I can tell. I see everybody else posting about Royal up saying they find out about a week or so prior to when bids are not accepted. Is it always because you got outbid or is it just sometimes royal Caribbean doesn't feel like accepting that amount of money for that room? If anyone has any experience with this, any insight would be great thank you all for the help

Welcome! On the occasions when my bid did not get accepted, Royal emailed me the day of the cruise, and it was after the ship had already set sail. So basically I found out at check in, then received the email several hours later. Others have reported getting their 'denial' notification sooner, but just remember that it doesn't always happen that way.

 

Also, if your bid is not accepted, it doesn't always mean that you weren't the highest bidder. Royal will include some suites in the offering that may already be booked, but they do that in case there are cancellations.

 

For example, we have a sailing coming up where our fellow travelers (in other cabins) have received their Royal Up options, and the Royal Suite is one of those options. There is only one Royal Suite on our ship, and we have it booked with no intention to cancel, but it is among the cabins that have been included in the Royal Up letters.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Happy sailing, the Oasis is a great ship! 

Edited March 11 by TheInnocentAge

[theycallmedp]

This is exactly what I’m looking for, the royal loft is the largest room on oasis, that’s what I bid on and was wondering how that went.  Thanks for the info 

[Biker19]

1 hour ago, theycallmedp said:

This is exactly what I’m looking for, the royal loft is the largest room on oasis, that’s what I bid on and was wondering how that went.  

The vast majority of cruisers get their denial emails the day before the sailing for lack of inventory.

[taglovestocruise]

FYI.  Royal is out of the loop when it comes to Royal UP. Royal Up is done by a third party company and it seems as there is no rhyme or reason as to how they pick winners.  Low bids win as often as high bids. 

[SG65CB]

6 hours ago, theycallmedp said:

Is it always because you got outbid

 

It is more complicated than that. There can be a whole cascading string of cabins involved in bidding. While you are bidding to move up to a bigger suite someone else is bidding to move up to your panoramic suite. So while your bid for the bigger suite could be the highest bid, it's possible that the bids for your panoramic suite are really low and they can make more money by accepting a lower bid from someone else whose cabin is attracting higher bids.

 

This is one reason why you can bid on cabins even though it appears there aren't any cabins of that type available - because if someone moves up their cabin becomes available for someone else. 

 

 

[theycallmedp]

Ah ha. All super informative, much appreciated for the info. We have a great room booked so I suppose if we get this one it’s just a bonus. Who knew so much went into it.. thanks again all. 

[Jetdriver787]

The mistake here is thinking there is a “prize” or a “winner!” It’s something we are all guilty of, but truth be told it is simply an invitation to enter into a conditional binding contract that becomes binding if and when the vendor accepts it. 
 

It is a system run by a company  acting as an agent for a large number of “hospitality” organisations such as airlines, hotels and cruise lines. The purpose is to balance and fill perishable inventory before the opportunity expires.

 

it is important to understand that there doesn’t (and very often isn’t) have to be any inventory available at the point the apparent “offer” is made. The “offer” is usually a conditional offer to bid on something that might or not actually exist at that point, and at any other unspecified point in time right up until the ship sails, the hotel date expires, or the aircraft doors close for departure.

 

All of these hospitality venues have inventory that from time to time becomes available and needs filling when it might otherwise be difficult to sell through their normal commercial outlets. 
 

Similarly, it can sometimes happen that a sales profile is distorted beyond what might normally be expected for a particular point in the year.

 

An airline with a two thirds empty business cabin but a full economy cabin will often use this form of rebalancing to take bid upgrades, and free high demand (and usually profitable) economy seats, that it can more easily sell.

 

likewise cruise ships with a wider range of inventory category will often accept bid upgrades into a slower selling category in order to free up cheaper and easier sales inventory.

 

Suites are usually very popular and often the first categories to sell out, but  sometimes they don’t, and as with any category, there will always be a percentage of “no-shows” and late cancellations for a variety of reasons. These programmes are a very efficient way of filling any such inventory, particularly as one cabin may result in a “domino” or “cascade” revenue opportunity further down the food chain.