How to get an upsell!

Hello, sorry if I have asked this before but I really need some help from you guys. We are due to leave for our cruise in 6 days and I have been unable to get an upsell even though the ship is not full.

I have asked my online agency many times to call and they said Holland said that they have to contact them if they decide to offer an upsell. I am not sure that is true because in the past I had another online agency call and ask for the upsell and we got it. What can I do? Time is running out and we are anxious to upgrade. The online agency said I would have to loose my benefits and pay the price they are asking at this time.

Any help will be appreciated.

Andrea

Hello, sorry if I have asked this before but I really need some help from you guys. We are due to leave for our cruise in 6 days and I have been unable to get an upsell even though the ship is not full.

I have asked my online agency many times to call and they said Holland said that they have to contact them if they decide to offer an upsell. I am not sure that is true because in the past I had another online agency call and ask for the upsell and we got it. What can I do? Time is running out and we are anxious to upgrade. The online agency said I would have to loose my benefits and pay the price they are asking at this time.

Any help will be appreciated.

Andrea

What class cabin and on what ship? And how do you know that the ship is not full? Although I have no recommendation as to how you "can get" an upsell, these offers occur right up to the time you board. My brother received a free upgrade to a NS on the NA, learning of it only when he checked in.

Our travel agent contacted us a few days ago with an upsell offer. We don't even leave until June 3rd.

May I suggest that if it's that important to you to get your cabin upgraded that you just call your TA and have them upgrade you at the going rate. You may wait literally forever to get an upsell email with a "deal". Very few people even get the call/email. We leave on Kdam in 6 days and we were not offered an upsell and we've sailed many HAL cruises.

Our travel agent contacted us a few days ago with an upsell offer. We don't even leave until June 3rd.

Is this supposed to help the OP?

Why does HAL even charge full fare for some passengers, when so many others now wait to game the system after the fact?

Maybe HAL senses an obligation not to fire sale these cabins and offend those who pre-booked at the original price. There must be a tipping point somewhere in all of this. And we have enjoyed many upsells ourselves, but always look at them as bonus, not something to almost demand upfront as a right or lose sleep over if we don't get one.

If you want that particular cabin level, pay for it.

Why does HAL even charge full fare for some passengers, when so many others now wait to game the system after the fact?

 

Maybe HAL senses an obligation not to fire sale these cabins and offend those who pre-booked at the original price. There must be a tipping point somewhere in all of this. And we have enjoyed many upsells ourselves, but always look at them as bonus, not something to almost demand upfront as a right or lose sleep over if we don't get one.

 

If you want that particular cabin level, pay for it.

Amen! I don't get the "anxious" to upsell.

Why does HAL even charge full fare for some passengers, when so many others now wait to game the system after the fact?

 

Maybe HAL senses an obligation not to fire sale these cabins and offend those who pre-booked at the original price. There must be a tipping point somewhere in all of this. And we have enjoyed many upsells ourselves, but always look at them as bonus, not something to almost demand upfront as a right or lose sleep over if we don't get one.

 

If you want that particular cabin level, pay for it.

Amen! I don't get the "anxious" to upsell.

Lots of people enjoy the suspense and anticipation of waiting for an upsell/upgrade. Very similar to booking a guarantee.

When we call the TA, we know the ship and the date. We know the class we want and the exact cabin number we want. Of course, we give up a lot of suspense and excitement.

Hello, sorry if I have asked this before but I really need some help from you guys. We are due to leave for our cruise in 6 days and I have been unable to get an upsell even though the ship is not full.

I have asked my online agency many times to call and they said Holland said that they have to contact them if they decide to offer an upsell. I am not sure that is true because in the past I had another online agency call and ask for the upsell and we got it. What can I do? Time is running out and we are anxious to upgrade. The online agency said I would have to loose my benefits and pay the price they are asking at this time.

Any help will be appreciated.

Andrea

Did you instruct your TA to tell HAL that you would accept an upgrade? If so, maybe you will receive a free upgrade. Actually, it is up to your TA to call HAL to see if paid upsells are being offered. Some online and big box TA's will not call you but you can call them to ask them to call HAL. If they won't call HAL for you....you need to find a different TA next time.

Hi, did you book a guarantee? We are sailing in 12 days, we booked a guarantee verandah and we were offered an upsell on April 7th, about a month before departure.

I just checked my upsell email and the phone number listed for the upsell department which is only open M-F 8-5 pacific time is 888-628-8107

Maybe you could call them tomorrow and ask about upsell offers. It's possible that all of the offers have already been taken. We had a very short window to respond to the upsell email. We didn't take the offer and we still don't have a stateroom assignment 12 days out.

By the way, I found my upsell email in my Spam folder...no idea why it ended up there but someone here on CC suggested we check our spam and sure enough that is where mine was.

Good luck!

TampaGirl: The OP mentioned "I have asked my online agency many times to call and they said Holland said that they have to contact them if they decide to offer an upsell. I am not sure that is true because in the past I had another online agency call and ask for the upsell and we got it." I have seen where others mentioned that the upsells don't start until closer to the cruise. I was very surprised that we got an offer 40 + days out and Holland America went through our travel agent with the offer.

Our experience has been that even if upsells are being offered, they may not be offered to everyone. One cruise our tablemates were offered an upsell from a cabin similar to ours. We didn't get an upsell offer. Another cruise, we got an upsell and our tablemates (different ones) didn't. Also similar cabins booked initially.

I've never asked for an upsell. They've always been passed on to me through my TA. I am happy with the cabin category I have booked, so I've never taken advantage of an upsell.

The upsell game is so hit or miss that we do not even think about it anymore. When we get upsell offers they come through our cruise agency (we use several) who immediately notify us (usually by e-mail...and sometimes by a phone call) as soon as they receive an upsell offer. We book the type cabin we want so are not fast to accept upsells unless they are a very good deal. On one long (62 day) Prinsendam cruise we had several upsell offers starting about a month before the cruise. We ignored the first two offers...then then 2 weeks before our cruise they gave us a very good offer to a Signature Suite...which we took, On another HAL cruise where we had paid about $20,000 for a heavily discounted outside cabin....they offered us a terrific upsell to a suite for ONLY $9,999. DW laughed so hard she hurt. We told our cruise agent to make a counter offer of $5000...which never happened. We actually didn't want the upgrade and probably would have been annoyed with ourselves if they had accepted our $5000 counter...because we would have felt obligated to pay the money and take the bigger cabin.

Hank

I firmly believe that you should book the stateroom you really want rather than rely on an upsell which, odds are, you will never get.......

I firmly believe that you should book the stateroom you really want rather than rely on an upsell which, odds are, you will never get.......

I agree with this concept - we always book a cabin and category we are happy with. Luckily (and perhaps due to the time of year we book) we most times get and accept an upsell offer.

I agree with this concept - we always book a cabin and category we are happy with. Luckily (and perhaps due to the time of year we book) we most times get and accept an upsell offer.

Guess what I meant is that when you want an upsell, you won't get one. When you don't "want" one, is when you will, lol.

Hello, sorry if I have asked this before but I really need some help from you guys. We are due to leave for our cruise in 6 days and I have been unable to get an upsell even though the ship is not full.

I have asked my online agency many times to call and they said Holland said that they have to contact them if they decide to offer an upsell. I am not sure that is true because in the past I had another online agency call and ask for the upsell and we got it. What can I do? Time is running out and we are anxious to upgrade. The online agency said I would have to loose my benefits and pay the price they are asking at this time.

Any help will be appreciated.

Andrea

If you want a higher category cab in than you have booked and there is one available, by all means have your TA tell HAL you want to book it and ask how much it will cost If the amount is agreeable to you, book it. buy itbut don't expec t to slide into it for silly low price. Wh ywould any one pay the lisged price of a caB in if HAL is willing tgo let anyoner who asks pay a very much lower price? They are a for profit company Who would book and pay the high prices when they originally book a cruise if anyb ody can simply call and ask for lowerpruce as sail date gets closer?

Ok, we booked a NS on the Koninsgdam for 6/25. When we realized that the cabin we picked was in the very front of the ship, we decided to change it to a aft facing NS. We called cruise.com, and they called HAL. We were offered the cabin we wanted along with a whole lot of other incentives. Actually only cost us around 400, when it should have been a lot more. We went from SA to SB. If your TA does not want to call HAL, perhaps you can call yourself?

Ok, we booked a NS on the Koninsgdam for 6/25. When we realized that the cabin we picked was in the very front of the ship, we decided to change it to a aft facing NS. We called cruise.com, and they called HAL. We were offered the cabin we wanted along with a whole lot of other incentives. Actually only cost us around 400, when it should have been a lot more. We went from SA to SB. If your TA does not want to call HAL, perhaps you can call yourself?

SA is generally higher priced than SB, so curious why it should cost more?

Ok, we booked a NS on the Koninsgdam for 6/25. When we realized that the cabin we picked was in the very front of the ship, we decided to change it to a aft facing NS. We called cruise.com, and they called HAL. We were offered the cabin we wanted along with a whole lot of other incentives. Actually only cost us around 400, when it should have been a lot more. We went from SA to SB. If your TA does not want to call HAL, perhaps you can call yourself?

The problem is if you booked with a third party vendor - TA, aggregator, etc, HAL won't talk with you. You have to go thru the TA

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I agree with this concept - we always book a cabin and category we are happy with. Luckily (and perhaps due to the time of year we book) we most times get and accept an upsell offer.

Agreed - of course I suspect that what OP was really talking about was getting a free, or very inexpensive, upgrade. Since location and type of accommodations are important, we book what we want at the outset, rather than something which makes us hope for an unlikely gift.

TampaGirl: The OP mentioned "I have asked my online agency many times to call and they said Holland said that they have to contact them if they decide to offer an upsell. I am not sure that is true because in the past I had another online agency call and ask for the upsell and we got it." I have seen where others mentioned that the upsells don't start until closer to the cruise. I was very surprised that we got an offer 40 + days out and Holland America went through our travel agent with the offer.

I guess the conclusion is: An upsell can come at any time. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for when or who gets and offer.

BTW: Where is the OP? There has been no response to either suggestions, comments, or questions - like what cruise and what ship they are on.

Hello and thank you for all of the replies. We just were on the Koningsdam for a transatlantic. We signed on 2 weeks before and all that was available was guarantee. We ended up with the most forward veranda cabin on the 10th deck. It was rocking and banging the first 3 nights. We asked and they moved us to a midship cabin lower category and we were very thankful. The rest of the cruise was smooth even with rougher seas.

So, when we got back we called our agent as we were leaving in 2 weeks to go to Alaska. We went last year in a signature suite ( upsold), and were very happy. On this cruise in less than one week we decided to go with the large square inside to see if we could be happy with an inside cabin. Unfortunately, unknowingly we booked a very forward cabin 1018 on the Eurodam. After our experience 2 weeks ago we are thinking that we better go with a midship veranda as that worked well for us. The agent said if we changed we would loose our explorer 4 and dining credit and that we should wait for an upsell. I think it is getting past the time for the upsell and am thinking of just changing to the cabin we want for just a few hundred dollars more. I just want to make sure we have exhausted all our options first. We actually have 4 cabins and to start over is a big expense and loss of credits. I did not expect a free or low cost upsell, just an upsell offer so we did not loose our benefits.

Andrea

Sorry, my mistake. We went from SC to SB.