Cabin Availabilty - A curious situation.

[Zeg]

Interested in upgrading cabins so looked online and there were an assortment of different categories and options showing as available. However on phoning Cunard they tell me that all but a couple of cabins are sold out.
 

So it seems customers can book a variety of cabins and grades online, but not upgrade to one (that is showing as available online) direct with Cunard. Curious. 

Edited Monday at 04:20 PM by Zeg

[PORT ROYAL]

59 minutes ago, Zeg said:

Interested in upgrading cabins so looked online and there were an assortment of different categories and options showing as available. However on phoning Cunard they tell me that all but a couple of cabins are sold out.
 

So it seems customers can book a variety of cabins and grades online, but not upgrade to one (that is showing as available online) direct with Cunard. Curious. 

Try calling again… Explain one’s confusion… Ask for their help.

[Zeg]

55 minutes ago, PORT ROYAL said:

Try calling again… Explain one’s confusion… Ask for their help.

Yes. Good idea. That’s why I rang them a second time. Was told that’s all they have.  Clearly isn’t. Told me that’s all that comes up on their system. Puzzled.  

[exlondoner]

8 minutes ago, Zeg said:

Yes. Good idea. That’s why I rang them a second time. Was told that’s all they have.  Clearly isn’t. Told me that’s all that comes up on their system. Puzzled.  

I’m afraid that tells you all you need to know about Cunard’s IT.

[WantedOnVoyage]

At the considerable risk of bringing up the topic of using a travel agent, or indeed, talking to any vaguely real person vs. booking on the "website", this is why one might consider the former two options over the latter. 

 

I use the Cunard website (or try to) sometimes to get a vague idea what is available cabin grade wise but found it so often at odds with "real" availability that my agent or Cunard direct can actually confirm, to never once entertain the idea of booking on line.

 

Cunard "IT" has never been much good... even before the public had to navigate it. I remember when Cunard went from "berthing books" to computers in the 1970s and it was a mess for agents, passengers and staff alike.  One could book and pay for a First Class cabin and wind up in Tourist collecting tickets in London, and on embarkation be back in First and then in Tourist all in the space of one day aboard ship.  And I did, too. But at least they could say "oh, it was the computer don't you know."

 

 

[3rdGenCunarder]

4 hours ago, Zeg said:

Interested in upgrading cabins so looked online and there were an assortment of different categories and options showing as available. However on phoning Cunard they tell me that all but a couple of cabins are sold out.
 

So it seems customers can book a variety of cabins and grades online, but not upgrade to one (that is showing as available online) direct with Cunard. Curious. 

 

Did you try to do a booking? You can go through several steps without committing to purchase anything. Sometimes the first page you see shows a lot of categories and then when you continue on to make your selection, it will say "sold out." 

 

Or was the website offering only guarantees, in which case you can't investigate what's available.

[Zeg]

9 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Did you try to do a booking? You can go through several steps without committing to purchase anything. Sometimes the first page you see shows a lot of categories and then when you continue on to make your selection, it will say "sold out." 

 

Or was the website offering only guarantees, in which case you can't investigate what's available.

Yes I did all you suggested.  Loads of availability online. Restricted availability on the Cunard’s Agent’s systems!

[Zeg]

11 hours ago, WantedOnVoyage said:

At the considerable risk of bringing up the topic of using a travel agent, or indeed, talking to any vaguely real person vs. booking on the "website", this is why one might consider the former two options over the latter. 

 

I use the Cunard website (or try to) sometimes to get a vague idea what is available cabin grade wise but found it so often at odds with "real" availability that my agent or Cunard direct can actually confirm, to never once entertain the idea of booking on line.

 

Cunard "IT" has never been much good... even before the public had to navigate it. I remember when Cunard went from "berthing books" to computers in the 1970s and it was a mess for agents, passengers and staff alike.  One could book and pay for a First Class cabin and wind up in Tourist collecting tickets in London, and on embarkation be back in First and then in Tourist all in the space of one day aboard ship.  And I did, too. But at least they could say "oh, it was the computer don't you know."

 

 

 

[Zeg]

Very good points. So following your idea,  I actually looked on a Travel Agents website online that showed a similar selection of cabins available as per the Cunard website. I did a dummy booking on the TA site followed up by a phone call. Indeed the TA could offer me cabins that the Cunard direct telephone consultant wouldn’t/couldn’t. The plot thickens!

Edited Tuesday at 06:52 AM by Zeg

[Zeg]

13 hours ago, exlondoner said:

I’m afraid that tells you all you need to know about Cunard’s IT.

Not only IT but their disinclination to earn more money! 

[stephen@stoneyard.co.uk]

Perhaps they manage cabin inventory through an allocation system. Certain cabins and number of cabins could be allocated to different types of sale. For example travel agent, website, direct phone, upgrade and not yet for sale. They could move cabins between allocations to maximise the potential revenue. This can be particularly useful when parts of different voyages are combined to make a longer trip and better sale for Cunard. Who knows really?

[Planning to cruise]

I think the larger TA companies take block booking options.  Hence (in the UK) their ubiquitous advertising in the weekend press.  What is unsold sometimes comes on stream later.  

 

We once came across the "booked" scenario.  When trying to book our favourite / regular area of cabin for a long cruise we were constantly told that it was unavailable, a whole run of rooms.  We ended up elsewhere in what turned out for a number of reasons to be an unsatisfactory room.  Our preferred rooms changed occupancy weekly with groups.  

 

We have found that another situation with availability ambiguity is when trying to book an advertised itinerary it is reported as unavailable because of someone booking just one sector.  For example, a Med cruise may be Southampton to Southampton  but there may be advertised cruises within that changing over say at Rome,  Barcelona.  We gave up trying when booking opened for a round trip as the cabin class was taken for the odd shorter run.   

[Winifred 22]

I couldn’t get a cabin I wanted as they were blocked out to a T A . Nearer to sailing they were put back into Cunard’s inventory to sell and I booked with no further  issues. I suspect that has what has happened here.

[Zeg]

3 hours ago, Winifred 22 said:

I couldn’t get a cabin I wanted as they were blocked out to a T A . Nearer to sailing they were put back into Cunard’s inventory to sell and I booked with no further  issues. I suspect that has what has happened here.

Yes. Sounds like it. Except in this case Cunard blocked out it’s availability to itself!  

[Toffeegirl68]

19 hours ago, Zeg said:

Yes. Sounds like it. Except in this case Cunard blocked out it’s availability to itself!  

If a cabin is allocated to a TA then it wouldn't be available to Cunard itself until the time at which it is returned, unsold.

 

[MCC retired]

Travel Agents block category inventory not actual cabins until names and payments are assigned to a cabin #.

[Caipi]

I wanted to book 5048* for our upcoming QM2-cruise (next November), but it was only available if I looked at the cruise starting and ending in Southampton. In the variation starting in Southampton and ending in Hamburg you could not book it... 😞 Strange, isn't it? 

(*=We spent months preparing ourselves for our cruise in August in 5048, and were upgraded in the last few days before the cruise....)

[sucramdi]

I'm following a voyage I'm booked on, and Cunard shows the cabin type I booked as available, but on clicking in to a mock booking the website only allows guaranteed cabins even if you choose the full price Cunard Fare. If you try to change your cabin, then it says no staterooms are available. I'm curious what that means since my booking was a guaranteed cabin. 

 

I'd love to see how Cunard manages bookings because this all seems very convoluted.

[bluemarble]

2 hours ago, Caipi said:

I wanted to book 5048* for our upcoming QM2-cruise (next November), but it was only available if I looked at the cruise starting and ending in Southampton. In the variation starting in Southampton and ending in Hamburg you could not book it... 😞 Strange, isn't it? 

(*=We spent months preparing ourselves for our cruise in August in 5048, and were upgraded in the last few days before the cruise....)

 

It may seem strange but what you are seeing happens to be the way Cunard manages their cabin inventory. Any given cabin can only be assigned to one specific voyage within a set of overlapping voyages at any given time. The 10-night voyage from Southampton to Hamburg for 7 Nov-17 Nov 2025 is a component of this set of four overlapping voyages.

 

31 Oct-17 Nov 2025 = New York-Hamburg (M534B)

31 Oct-26 Nov 2025 = New York-New York (M534A)

7 Nov-17 Nov 2025 = Southampton-Hamburg (M535A)

7 Nov-19 Nov 2025 = Southampton-Southampton (M535)

 

It looks like you found cabin 5048 assigned to voyage M535 which means it cannot be assigned to any of the other of three of these voyages at the same time even though it logically means that it could also be assigned to voyage M535A. Unfortunately that's the way it works.

 

I often see many of the same cabins assigned to each of a pair of 7-night crossings between New York and Southampton. Those cabins cannot be booked on the corresponding 14-night roundtrip crossing. It is not uncommon to see a category of cabins listed as sold out on a roundtrip crossing when there are many cabins in that category that can be booked on both of the individual 7-night crossings (with some of the same cabins available for booking on both crossings). I've booked such a roundtrip crossing on occasion as two separate crossings in the same cabin for that reason.

[D&N]

16 minutes ago, bluemarble said:

I often see many of the same cabins assigned to each of a pair of 7-night crossings between New York and Southampton. Those cabins cannot be booked on the corresponding 14-night roundtrip crossing. It is not uncommon to see a category of cabins listed as sold out on a roundtrip crossing when there are many cabins in that category that can be booked on both of the individual 7-night crossings (with some of the same cabins available for booking on both crossings). I've booked such a roundtrip crossing on occasion as two separate crossings in the same cabin for that reason.

@Caipi

This has been the case on the two B2B crossings we have booked for 2025 and 2026.

For 2025 our agent managed to persuade "The Berthing Team" to release the cabin we wanted to our round trip itinerary. For 2026 the agent was experiencing more resistance to that. I sent an email to executive correspondence, which received a sympathetic but non committal response. Subsequently the person our agent was dealing with appeared to have been told to release the cabin, but didn't seem to be very pleased about having to doing so.

 

In both cases we paid the lower fare for the fourteen night sailing.

[bluemarble]

3 hours ago, sucramdi said:

I'm following a voyage I'm booked on, and Cunard shows the cabin type I booked as available, but on clicking in to a mock booking the website only allows guaranteed cabins even if you choose the full price Cunard Fare. If you try to change your cabin, then it says no staterooms are available. I'm curious what that means since my booking was a guaranteed cabin. 

 

I'd love to see how Cunard manages bookings because this all seems very convoluted.

 

In this case the category of cabin you have booked is indeed guarantee-only regardless of which fare you select. That's typically because there aren't currently any cabins available in that category, but there will be once Cunard upgrades some of those in that category either through the upgrade bidding process or through complimentary upgrades. You just might be the beneficiary of an upgrade to a higher category. Cabins in the category you have booked may also become available because of cancellations.

Edited 10 hours ago by bluemarble

[*Miss G*]

I don’t know if it works the same on Cunard, but on HAL you can call your PCC and ask them to release a cabin from inventory in order to book it. From all reports, most have been successful with their request. Not sure if it works when you are using a TA though. 

[Caipi]

10 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

It may seem strange but what you are seeing happens to be the way Cunard manages their cabin inventory. Any given cabin can only be assigned to one specific voyage within a set of overlapping voyages at any given time. The 10-night voyage from Southampton to Hamburg for 7 Nov-17 Nov 2025 is a component of this set of four overlapping voyages.

 

31 Oct-17 Nov 2025 = New York-Hamburg (M534B)

31 Oct-26 Nov 2025 = New York-New York (M534A)

7 Nov-17 Nov 2025 = Southampton-Hamburg (M535A)

7 Nov-19 Nov 2025 = Southampton-Southampton (M535)

 

It looks like you found cabin 5048 assigned to voyage M535 which means it cannot be assigned to any of the other of three of these voyages at the same time even though it logically means that it could also be assigned to voyage M535A. Unfortunately that's the way it works.

 

I often see many of the same cabins assigned to each of a pair of 7-night crossings between New York and Southampton. Those cabins cannot be booked on the corresponding 14-night roundtrip crossing. It is not uncommon to see a category of cabins listed as sold out on a roundtrip crossing when there are many cabins in that category that can be booked on both of the individual 7-night crossings (with some of the same cabins available for booking on both crossings). I've booked such a roundtrip crossing on occasion as two separate crossings in the same cabin for that reason.

I see, thank you for the explanation.

One would think that system could cause them some financial loss, I mean in the case you wrote someone sees the 2-way-crossing is sold out and does not check the separate legs. Unless they always sell out everything anyway. 🙂 But maybe sometimes they reassign as well.