Pearl has been added to Upgrade Advantage

[mamasylvia]

Just got an email this morning, to my disappointment - I was going to start calling the upsell number in 2 days when we hit the 30-days-to-sailing mark. Now I have to decide whether I want to bid or not - from mini suite to lowest-class suite a minimum bid of $500 pp is required.

[hladygirl]

I liked the old system better. Rather know right away if able to afford upgrade than wait until two days prior to sailing. Oh well! It is what it is!

[RD29P5]

It is what it is, unless your TA won't participate in the program. It would be nice to have the option to upgrade, but I did book a cabin that we will be happy with in the first place.

[mamasylvia]

I booked a mini-suite we will be content with. But the extra room of a suite sure would have been nice, but not at the minimum bid they are requiring on top of what we have already spent (and a minimum bid wouldn't be likely to get us the suite). Oh well, our kids won't be in the room much anyway.

[hoopics]

I find how they set the bid ranges for our sailing in June interesting. I received the e-mail yesterday, even though we're still may weeks out. We're booked into a mini-suite, on a sailing where mini-suites are sold out. The upgrade site is offering:

 

--SE / SF: 500-2000 pp [minimum / max bid]. These classes are currently sold out. My recollection is that when they were bookable, they were about $4,500 more than our cabin. So a max bid would save us only about $500 against what we could have booked for, and a min bid [setting aside likelihood of success] would save us $3,500.

 

--SC: 750-2500. This class can still be booked. The current rack rate is about $6k more than what we've paid. A max bid would save us about $2,000, and a min bid would save us $4,500.

 

--H4: 1000-2750. This class is sold out. My recollection is the rack rate was about $7500 more than what we paid. A max bid would save us $2,000, and a min bid would save us $5,500.

 

--H3: 1500-3000. This class can still be booked. It's a bit over $9k more than what we paid. A max bid saves $3k, and a min bid saves $6k.

 

--H2: 1500-3000. This class is sold out. Don't recall the original pricing. Sorry.

 

--H1: 2000-5000. This class can still be booked. It is almost $32k more than we paid. So a max bid saves us $22k, and a min bid saves us $28k.

 

The only one that seems hilariously out of whack is H1. All the others, I can see the rationale for the starting bids. They jump in 250 or 500 increments, which other than H1 seems to be about 1/3 of the rack rate difference between the classes on this sailing. The upper boundaries make less sense to me. They don't seem to track the revenue loss to NCL in as linear a fashion. I'm certain people smarter than me have come up with the calculations, though.

 

I put in bids for the classes I wanted, and didn't for the others. I'm very happy with the cabin I have, so I won't be heartbroken if I don't get an upgrade, but if I do I think I'll feel the value was there for the extra space / configuration over a minisuite at the points I bid.

[Até]

I find how they set the bid ranges for our sailing in June interesting.

 

It's good to see people following pricing and the bidding system. One thing to remember is over the last year or so suite prices have drastically changed. Seeing you say the GV asking price was $32K over what you paid is unbelievable to me. It just reconfirms my feeling that all NCL suite pricing is now pure fiction.

[gingersvp]

We're in an H4 and the H1 was about $30k more than we paid. Obviously we passed at time of booking. Went ahead and bit on the upgrade email that came just today! Bid at minimum because we're already quite happy with our canin cabin, but for the minimum bid I'd happily upgrade. It would still be tens of thousands cheaper than if we'd just booked the 3 bedroom for our family of 5 to start.

[Até]

... for the minimum bid I'd happily upgrade. It would still be tens of thousands cheaper than if we'd just booked the 3 bedroom for our family of 5 to start.

 

Did you understand what I was saying? It was perhaps two years ago the Jewel class GV were hitting the $10K total price for a seven day and it was shocking to me. A year ago it was about $15K, astounding. Now all suites are totally fictionally priced to make the bidding frenzied.