Bidding for Haven/Upgrades

[Love.II.Cruise]

Just watching this thread and trying to learn. ;) Thanks for sharing your experiences! Edited October 6, 2016 by Love.II.Cruise

[Mrs. Squirrel]

I just booked Getaway for a last minute Thanksgiving cruise this week. I booked an OV Guarantee. I received the 'bid' offer e-mail titled 'Norweigan's Upgrade Advantage' less than 24 hours later.

 

For my sailing, the e-mail states that the minimum per person bid for a balcony is $50 and a mini-suite, $100. However, when you go to the link it is pre-set with dollar bids more than double the minimums in the e-mail and the meter at that point only indicates that the doubled amount a 'fair' bid, lol! :eek:

 

You can change the pre-set bid by moving a slide bar to the right or left to raise or lower your bid. If you lower the bar to the e-mail's suggested minimums, the meter falls to tell you your bid is 'poor'!

 

The meter reads left to right, 'poor', 'fair', 'good', 'strong' and 'excellent'. The problem is, by the time you bid high enough to get the meter to read 'good', you are already at or higher than the current market value of upgrading to that next category cabin yourself.

 

So. . .be careful. This system seems to be designed for cruisers who do not do their research. If you go by what the meter tells you is a 'strong' or 'excellent' bid, you will grossly overpay for this holiday sailing!

[rochelle_s]

I just booked Getaway for a last minute Thanksgiving cruise this week. I booked an OV Guarantee. I received the 'bid' offer e-mail titled 'Norweigan's Upgrade Advantage' less than 24 hours later.

 

For my sailing, the e-mail states that the minimum per person bid for a balcony is $50 and a mini-suite, $100. However, when you go to the link it is pre-set with dollar bids more than double the minimums in the e-mail and the meter at that point only indicates that the doubled amount a 'fair' bid, lol! :eek:

 

You can change the pre-set bid by moving a slide bar to the right or left to raise or lower your bid. If you lower the bar to the e-mail's suggested minimums, the meter falls to tell you your bid is 'poor'!

 

The meter reads left to right, 'poor', 'fair', 'good', 'strong' and 'excellent'. The problem is, by the time you bid high enough to get the meter to read 'good', you are already at or higher than the current market value of upgrading to that next category cabin yourself.

 

So. . .be careful. This system seems to be designed for cruisers who do not do their research. If you go by what the meter tells you is a 'strong' or 'excellent' bid, you will grossly overpay for this holiday sailing!

 

 

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with the bidding process. That is very good information to have. I have no plans for sailing on one of the ships with this program but will store the knowledge away for the future or if the program expands to ships I am booked to sail on.

 

Thanks again.

 

 

Rochelle

[sjnyc323]

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with the bidding process. That is very good information to have. I have no plans for sailing on one of the ships with this program but will store the knowledge away for the future or if the program expands to ships I am booked to sail on.

 

 

 

Thanks again.

 

 

 

 

 

Rochelle

 

 

 

Eventually this bidding process will be rolled out fleetwide

 

 

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[Love.II.Cruise]

I just booked Getaway for a last minute Thanksgiving cruise this week. I booked an OV Guarantee. I received the 'bid' offer e-mail titled 'Norweigan's Upgrade Advantage' less than 24 hours later.

 

For my sailing, the e-mail states that the minimum per person bid for a balcony is $50 and a mini-suite, $100. However, when you go to the link it is pre-set with dollar bids more than double the minimums in the e-mail and the meter at that point only indicates that the doubled amount a 'fair' bid, lol! :eek:

 

You can change the pre-set bid by moving a slide bar to the right or left to raise or lower your bid. If you lower the bar to the e-mail's suggested minimums, the meter falls to tell you your bid is 'poor'!

 

The meter reads left to right, 'poor', 'fair', 'good', 'strong' and 'excellent'. The problem is, by the time you bid high enough to get the meter to read 'good', you are already at or higher than the current market value of upgrading to that next category cabin yourself.

 

So. . .be careful. This system seems to be designed for cruisers who do not do their research. If you go by what the meter tells you is a 'strong' or 'excellent' bid, you will grossly overpay for this holiday sailing!

 

Great information... and I'm also not surprised by this. Thank you for posting.

[DebbieT11]

This is great info, Mrs. Squirrel... thanks much for sharing!!

 

I just booked Getaway for a last minute Thanksgiving cruise this week. I booked an OV Guarantee. I received the 'bid' offer e-mail titled 'Norweigan's Upgrade Advantage' less than 24 hours later.

 

For my sailing, the e-mail states that the minimum per person bid for a balcony is $50 and a mini-suite, $100. However, when you go to the link it is pre-set with dollar bids more than double the minimums in the e-mail and the meter at that point only indicates that the doubled amount a 'fair' bid, lol! :eek:

 

You can change the pre-set bid by moving a slide bar to the right or left to raise or lower your bid. If you lower the bar to the e-mail's suggested minimums, the meter falls to tell you your bid is 'poor'!

 

The meter reads left to right, 'poor', 'fair', 'good', 'strong' and 'excellent'. The problem is, by the time you bid high enough to get the meter to read 'good', you are already at or higher than the current market value of upgrading to that next category cabin yourself.

 

So. . .be careful. This system seems to be designed for cruisers who do not do their research. If you go by what the meter tells you is a 'strong' or 'excellent' bid, you will grossly overpay for this holiday sailing!

[xcell]

Anyone Canadian doing the bids?

 

Are the bids in USD only or based on the currency you paid for the cruise?

 

For instance, my friend and I both were upsold to Haven on our last cruise (before this bidding system started) -- he was offer $750 pp USD whereas I was offer $750 pp CDN

[sjnyc323]

Anyone Canadian doing the bids?

 

 

 

Are the bids in USD only or based on the currency you paid for the cruise?

 

 

 

For instance, my friend and I both were upsold to Haven on our last cruise (before this bidding system started) -- he was offer $750 pp USD whereas I was offer $750 pp CDN

 

 

 

I think it's based on the currency you paid for the cruise in but I am not 100% sure

 

 

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[jay2the3rd]

I booked my cruise on 9/15 for the Getaway sailing during Thanksgiving (Departing 11/20). I paid $699 pp for an inside (IF) which is just one level above a GTY. Ultimately, it ended up being a GTY because I wasn't able to pick my cabin, but I was fine with this as it included UBP and the $100 holiday on board credit.

 

About a week later I saw this post and looked to see if I received the upgrade email. It was sitting in my spam folder. I had the option of bidding on an ocean view or a balcony. I elected not to bid on the ocean view and just bid on a balcony. I place a bid at $100 pp and the "gauge" said it had a poor chance of being accepted. I let it sit there for about a week at that bid and then upped it to $150 pp. This was barely into the fair section on the "gauge".

 

I have been watching prices and prices had increased on GTY by $50 and everything else wasn't changing so In the middle of last week I started to think I would up it to $200, but decided to let the $150 sit for a bit longer and keep an eye on prices.

 

On Friday 9/14 at around 5:30pm I received a notification that my CC had been charged $300 by NCL and then a couple minutes later I received an email from NCL saying that my bid had been accepted. I was upgraded to a balcony cabin (BC).

 

I wanted to share because I see a few posts stating you wouldn't know if they accepted until a few days before sailing, but my sailing is just under 35 days away and my bid was accepted and cabin assigned already.

 

Good Luck to anyone bidding.

[Jane Don]

No must receive bid offer for upsell on Getaway and Escape

 

 

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This is not true. In other threads posters have said that they called the upsell department and an email sent them.

[TonyFred]

This is not true. In other threads posters have said that they called the upsell department and an email sent them.

 

I booked through an online agent. (very well known..they keep the PRICE in LINE. I did not receive an offer to bid for an upsell. I called the upsell # this morning to check on my 10/29 Escape cruise. All the agent would tell me is that some travel agents had opted out of the upsell program. She said she did not know which ones. That stinks. Too much red tape as usual.

[MikeBTN]

I booked through an online agent. (very well known..they keep the PRICE in LINE. I did not receive an offer to bid for an upsell. I called the upsell # this morning to check on my 10/29 Escape cruise. All the agent would tell me is that some travel agents had opted out of the upsell program. She said she did not know which ones. That stinks. Too much red tape as usual.

 

I've seen others mention this. I can't imagine this is the TAs decision - why would they NOT want their customers to be able to pay more money. That means more commission for them. My guess is they book the reservations as group bookings, which may be ineligible for the upsell program.

[SLRoth]

This is not true. In other threads posters have said that they called the upsell department and an email sent them.

 

 

This was true until about 4 weeks ago when NCL implemented the Bidding for a higher cabin category. If you were to call the Upsell department they are not offering upsells as they did prior to the start of this program. I've called 3 times as I was hoping to upsell to an AFT Balcony vs. Haven and its a no go. I've been advised I can only bid on the options provided to me in the email if I received one.

[jay2the3rd]

I booked my cruise on 9/15 for the Getaway sailing during Thanksgiving (Departing 11/20). I paid $699 pp for an inside (IF) which is just one level above a GTY. Ultimately, it ended up being a GTY because I wasn't able to pick my cabin, but I was fine with this as it included UBP and the $100 holiday on board credit.

 

About a week later I saw this post and looked to see if I received the upgrade email. It was sitting in my spam folder. I had the option of bidding on an ocean view or a balcony. I elected not to bid on the ocean view and just bid on a balcony. I place a bid at $100 pp and the "gauge" said it had a poor chance of being accepted. I let it sit there for about a week at that bid and then upped it to $150 pp. This was barely into the fair section on the "gauge".

 

I have been watching prices and prices had increased on GTY by $50 and everything else wasn't changing so In the middle of last week I started to think I would up it to $200, but decided to let the $150 sit for a bit longer and keep an eye on prices.

 

On Friday 9/14 at around 5:30pm I received a notification that my CC had been charged $300 by NCL and then a couple minutes later I received an email from NCL saying that my bid had been accepted. I was upgraded to a balcony cabin (BC).

 

I wanted to share because I see a few posts stating you wouldn't know if they accepted until a few days before sailing, but my sailing is just under 35 days away and my bid was accepted and cabin assigned already.

 

Good Luck to anyone bidding.

 

Just realized that I put the bid was accepted on 9/14. It was actually 10/14.

[Montanagirlalways]

Congrats. Balconys are so nice!

Edited October 17, 2016 by Montanagirlalways

[MikeBTN]

This was true until about 4 weeks ago when NCL implemented the Bidding for a higher cabin category. If you were to call the Upsell department they are not offering upsells as they did prior to the start of this program. I've called 3 times as I was hoping to upsell to an AFT Balcony vs. Haven and its a no go. I've been advised I can only bid on the options provided to me in the email if I received one.

 

I have seen other posts stating that they called Upsell and requested an email be sent, and it was sent. You are correct that they are no longer doing "direct" upsells anymore on Escape & Getaway, you must do the bidding process.

[CruiseQueenB]

This sounds very similar to the way a lot of airlines are doing upgrades now. If you're interested in seeing the process from an airline perspective, this is a great article:

 

http://thepointsguy.com/2016/08/bidding-on-upgrade-etihad-first-apartment/

 

Based on some of the pics I've seen in this thread NCL is probably using the same company as Etihad, seems to be the new trend.

Edited October 17, 2016 by CruiseQueenB

[prairiedawn1946]

I know someone who received one for December 18 Getaway cruise

 

 

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Emails for December 24th Escape cruise have gone out.

[prairiedawn1946]

Me too, as I sail on Escape Dec 31 :-)

 

Current Haven Inventory:

 

14 H4 @ $9,999 pp

AT LEAST 15 H5 @ $7,899 pp

3 H6 @ $6,899 pp

8 H9 @ $6,499 pp

 

We're 91 days out, so I imagine a few rooms will continue to shake loose. These prices are BANANAS!

 

How do you find out what the current inventory is? Thanks

[MikeBTN]

How do you find out what the current inventory is? Thanks

 

Just do a mock booking by category. I saw a post on your roll call and someone posted last week that they received an upsell email. I assume you received one? What were the minimum & maximum bids? I'm guessing they're higher since its a holiday sailing.

[Mr and Mrs C]

Got an email for Jan 8 sailing on getaway. Min bid for an h6 is $525 pp from a balcony room. My friend who is in an inside room got one and I believe her min bid for a balcony was $35 pp.

 

 

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[Mr and Mrs C]

I liked calling the upsell department better. You knew where you stood and were told where your room would be before you paid.

 

 

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[TeamPants]

Just called NCL CAS and was told CAS guests are not able to participate in this bid program. Seems odd. Any other CAS guests get an invite or able to bid?

 

 

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I booked through CAS and still received the offer. I bid the minimum $300/pp on a Haven upgrade. Doubt I will get it but figured it was worth a try.

[esp13]

I am on the 12/10 sailing on the Escape. Originally booked an H7 way back in like March of 2015. Got an email about the opportunity to bid in an upgrade about 2-3 weeks ago. Put in bid for the H3. Got the email notifying that we had "won" the upgrade a couple days ago.

 

I'm looking forward to the H3. It's kind of a "only live once" kind of thing. I can't say I got a great deal, although I don't think it's was bad either. But I like having the opportunity, partly because when you pay for the original room over 18 months, the upgrade cost doesn't seem quite so bad. :) Anyway, it does appear that you will be notified, at least in some cases, well before the three days before the cruise deadline they put in the email.

[Até]

I am on the 12/10 sailing on the Escape. Originally booked an H7 way back in like March of 2015. Got an email about the opportunity to bid in an upgrade about 2-3 weeks ago. Put in bid for the H3. Got the email notifying that we had "won" the upgrade a couple days ago.

 

I'm looking forward to the H3. It's kind of a "only live once" kind of thing. I can't say I got a great deal, although I don't think it's was bad either. But I like having the opportunity.

 

Dou you remember some of the price ranges for the higher suites? Do you mind telling us what bid amount they accepted?