Successful upgrade bids

[creef1014]

Has anyone had a successful upgrade bid? And wish to share how much, and from what category to what category? 

 

Strangely on my last cruise I had bid on a bunch of upgrades and got none but then I heard people on board saying they got upgraded for less than I bid. I was in a Sea Terrace XL and bid $1k to move up to a suite, but heard at least 2 people say they got their upgrades for around $800. 

[Eric&Pam]

33 minutes ago, creef1014 said:

I was in a Sea Terrace XL and bid $1k to move up to a suite, but heard at least 2 people say they got their upgrades for around $800. 

 

They may have paid more for their original cabin initially, so even though they bid less than you did, they paid more overall.

 

We successfully bid on a Mega Rock Star Suite from a standard Sea Terrace, but I had the advantage of knowing how many suites in that category were available compared to other categories. I believe it's considerably easier to get suites on the more common 4 and 5 day Caribbean sailings than the unique or less common itineraries.

 

I won't specify the amount of our bid, but it was only considered poor or fair by the bidding meter.

[Toscana3]

We sail in 13 days and our “poor” bid from a basic sea terrace to a central sea terrace was accepted last night.  Unfortunately, our bids for suites have not been accepted. 

[Jetdriver787]

Yes. Booked twice and upgraded on both occasions.

 

First time 7 nights from Sea Terrace “points only booking” to Brilliant suite. $1800 total. 
 

second time ( last week) 5 night from Lock it in Sea Terrace to Sea Terrace XL (with Hammock) for $110 total.

 

Both bids were fractionally above floor level. 

[Maisyboo]

Question about upgrade bidding from newbie to VV . When you are given a chance to bid does the offer/ system show you exactly what cabin room  number the bid is for ?. 

[jon81uk]

2 minutes ago, Maisyboo said:

Question about upgrade bidding from newbie to VV . When you are given a chance to bid does the offer/ system show you exactly what cabin room  number the bid is for ?. 

No you just bid on a type/category of room and can be allocated any room within that category if the bid is successful.

 

also to answer the original question, we went from limited view terrace to central terrace for around £100.

[cantgetin]

21 minutes ago, Maisyboo said:

Question about upgrade bidding from newbie to VV . When you are given a chance to bid does the offer/ system show you exactly what cabin room  number the bid is for ?. 

NO, so do not bid unless you would be OK with any cabin in the new category.  However, at least on some cruises, they do sell upgrades at the terminal.  In that case, you do know exactly which cabin you are purchasing.  You will not bid at this time; they have a table where they will look up the price based on what category you currently have and what you are considering moving to.  THey quote you a price and you take it or leave it.

 

There can be a huge range of how much it takes to win a bid.  People who bid amounts listed as "poor" bids have won upgrades while others with "good" have not.  It depends on how full the ship is, how many cabins are available for upgrade, how much you paid for your booking, etc. as well as your bid.

[Maisyboo]

2 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

NO, so do not bid unless you would be OK with any cabin in the new category.  However, at least on some cruises, they do sell upgrades at the terminal.  In that case, you do know exactly which cabin you are purchasing.  You will not bid at this time; they have a table where they will look up the price based on what category you currently have and what you are considering moving to.  THey quote you a price and you take it or leave it.

 

There can be a huge range of how much it takes to win a bid.  People who bid amounts listed as "poor" bids have won upgrades while others with "good" have not.  It depends on how full the ship is, how many cabins are available for upgrade, how much you paid for your booking, etc. as well as your bid.

Thank you very helpful information.

[Jetdriver787]

Sometimes people misunderstand the nature of this (and similar) programs. They are not run by the cruise company. They are run by a Canadian company called Plusgrade. They run similar ancillary revenue generation programs in partnership with 12 cruise lines and over 200 airlines, hotels, and other transport, hospitality and finance companies.

 

The basic premise with these schemes is to maximise ancillary revenue from unsold or returned inventory. The  bidding ranges are set based on the category or meta-category you are booked in. They then seek to produce the highest revenue from chains of this inventory. This produces the highest return for their customer. Bear in mind their customer isn’t you, it is the hospitality/ transport operator.

 

What you bid for a possible upgrade isn’t as important as it might first appear. Let’s say for simplicity on an otherwise full ship a “posh suite” becomes available a few days prior to the cruise. You bid $1000 but the person who won it probably did so for much less. Without even changing meta-category, If somebody bid a small amount from a “Georgeous suite”  on that room it starts a cascade chain which opens up a whole chain of rooms and not just within the lower meta-categories. As a result that otherwise unsold suite can generate revenues far beyond what it might ever have been offered for in the first place. The bids are really just competitive and blind offers for other people in your situation, freeing up a similar room to add to the cascade chain.

 

Apart from the category of room you are bidding from, it is really of no interest what you paid for that category as that is already “money in the bank.” They sell this to the shipping companies with statistics that include 18% of successful bidders will book  a similar cabin to the one they were upgraded to on a subsequent cruise and 4% will book an even higher grade.

Edited July 25 by Jetdriver787

[creef1014]

20 hours ago, Jetdriver787 said:

Sometimes people misunderstand the nature of this (and similar) programs. They are not run by the cruise company. They are run by a Canadian company called Plusgrade. They run similar ancillary revenue generation programs in partnership with 12 cruise lines and over 200 airlines, hotels, and other transport, hospitality and finance companies.

 

The basic premise with these schemes is to maximise ancillary revenue from unsold or returned inventory. The  bidding ranges are set based on the category or meta-category you are booked in. They then seek to produce the highest revenue from chains of this inventory. This produces the highest return for their customer. Bear in mind their customer isn’t you, it is the hospitality/ transport operator.

 

What you bid for a possible upgrade isn’t as important as it might first appear. Let’s say for simplicity on an otherwise full ship a “posh suite” becomes available a few days prior to the cruise. You bid $1000 but the person who won it probably did so for much less. Without even changing meta-category, If somebody bid a small amount from a “Georgeous suite”  on that room it starts a cascade chain which opens up a whole chain of rooms and not just within the lower meta-categories. As a result that otherwise unsold suite can generate revenues far beyond what it might ever have been offered for in the first place. The bids are really just competitive and blind offers for other people in your situation, freeing up a similar room to add to the cascade chain.

 

Apart from the category of room you are bidding from, it is really of no interest what you paid for that category as that is already “money in the bank.” They sell this to the shipping companies with statistics that include 18% of successful bidders will book  a similar cabin to the one they were upgraded to on a subsequent cruise and 4% will book an even higher grade.

 

Thanks for the insight on how the whole things works, it is very much appreciated

 

I was foolish enough to think there was a simple system of person who bids $1 always loses to person who bids $2. 

[Jetdriver787]

1 hour ago, creef1014 said:

 

Thanks for the insight on how the whole things works, it is very much appreciated

 

I was foolish enough to think there was a simple system of person who bids $1 always loses to person who bids $2. 

I suppose it does in a way. If there are 2 people bidding on an upgrade from the same category of room, then your $2 (if only! 🤣) would have the advantage.

[cantgetin]

Based simply on numbers, if you are in an inside cabin, there are a lot more cabins for you to potentially upgrade into than if you are in an XL  And the ultimate goal is to get as many people as possible to enjoy a cabin higher than what they initially bought because statistically most will not want to go back to their more basic initial purchase next time.  That's where the cascade of moving as many people up as possible comes in, as well as generating the most money for te line.

If you  are in an inside cabin, and there are oceanview (window) cabins open after all the computer bids were finished, you may well find yourself with a free upgrade--we have always booked a Sea Terrace, but I was surprised on our first VV sailing how many people received complimentary upgrades.  Same idea--book more costly room next time.

VV is a little different than some lines in that most  of their cabins are balconies of some description.  There are relatively few XLs, so the only likely way or that upgrade to happen is if the person in the XL was upgraded to a suite.  It costs a fair amount in advertising, etc. to get a first time customer; much less to get an existing customer to move up next time....and for the vast majority, there is a "next time."

[RosyWorld]

Thanks for this information! Another question: When do you find out about an upgrade? We are considered offering for a Mega Rockstar category. But we will want to purchase a bar tab if we don't get the offer. I know the bar tab has to be purchased at least 2 days before sailing. Will we already know if our offer was accepted/rejected by then?

[Eric&Pam]

42 minutes ago, RosyWorld said:

Thanks for this information! Another question: When do you find out about an upgrade? We are considered offering for a Mega Rockstar category. But we will want to purchase a bar tab if we don't get the offer. I know the bar tab has to be purchased at least 2 days before sailing. Will we already know if our offer was accepted/rejected by then?

 

We found out that we would be Mega 9 days before the cruise. 

I wouldn't worry about buying a bar tab, what would you be saving $50?

 

[Bluebury]

Where can I find out which cabins are still available please? Thanks

[cantgetin]

On 8/22/2024 at 7:00 AM, RosyWorld said:

Thanks for this information! Another question: When do you find out about an upgrade? We are considered offering for a Mega Rockstar category. But we will want to purchase a bar tab if we don't get the offer. I know the bar tab has to be purchased at least 2 days before sailing. Will we already know if our offer was accepted/rejected by then?

You can find out at any time up to embarkation.  MOST people seem to find out about a week in advance.  Your TA can see on their portal whether any Megas are showing up as available.

[Eric&Pam]

1 hour ago, Bluebury said:

Where can I find out which cabins are still available please? Thanks

If you have a travel agent, they can see current inventory, or there are at least two booking websites out there that show which cabins are available, but I don't believe we're allowed to post links to them.

If you ask this question on Reddit, you should be able to get the site links there.

Edited August 23 by Eric&Pam

[DCGuy64]

On 8/22/2024 at 10:45 AM, Eric&Pam said:

 

We found out that we would be Mega 9 days before the cruise. 

I wouldn't worry about buying a bar tab, what would you be saving $50?

 

On a related topic, what happens to any promos you have with your current booking? If you successfully upgrade by bidding, does that erase your Bar Tab promo?

[Eric&Pam]

Just now, DCGuy64 said:

On a related topic, what happens to any promos you have with your current booking? If you successfully upgrade by bidding, does that erase your Bar Tab promo?

 

When bidding, and not re-booking/re-faring, everything from the original booking stays in place.

[DCGuy64]

4 minutes ago, Eric&Pam said:

 

When bidding, and not re-booking/re-faring, everything from the original booking stays in place.

Thank you very much for that. We secured a nice bar tab due to a limited time promotion and I didn't want to lose that. Thanks for your help!

[Eric&Pam]

1 hour ago, DCGuy64 said:

Thank you very much for that. We secured a nice bar tab due to a limited time promotion and I didn't want to lose that. Thanks for your help!

 

We had a smaller bar tab than usual, but it basically became useless once we were upgraded to Mega, but I wasn't too concerned as our winning bid was considered "poor" by the system.

[DCGuy64]

19 minutes ago, Eric&Pam said:

 

We had a smaller bar tab than usual, but it basically became useless once we were upgraded to Mega, but I wasn't too concerned as our winning bid was considered "poor" by the system.

Ah, yeah. I can see that. VV was offering a $200 bar tab with our Sea Terrace, but they doubled it to $400 due to a promo for Delta Skymiles members. I imagine we'll get through that in a week. I put down a few bids today but I did the bare minimum, and it looks like the suites are unavailable, anyway. Worst case is we keep our Sea Terrace and that's fine by us.

[DCGuy64]

1 hour ago, Eric&Pam said:

 

We had a smaller bar tab than usual, but it basically became useless once we were upgraded to Mega, but I wasn't too concerned as our winning bid was considered "poor" by the system.

BTW can I just say, you are a wealth of information! I've learned a lot by reading your comments. As a VV newbie, I appreciate that!

[Eric&Pam]

11 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

BTW can I just say, you are a wealth of information! I've learned a lot by reading your comments. As a VV newbie, I appreciate that!

 

Wow...I really appreciate that, and I'm glad I could help!

[cantgetin]

If you win an upgrade bid, all perks follow you--Loot, Bar Tab, etc.  As Pam noted, some may be useless as they are duplicated by suite perks, but others are still worthwhile.  And if you become Mega, you can give or sell your bar tab to someone else.