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Celebrity Move Up?


CRUISER2B
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Hi all, I'll be sailing on Celebrity for the first time next month on the Infinity for 5 days.  I currently have an inside cabin booked.  I just got an email to bid for an upgrade.  Is this worth it?  Has anyone ever done it?  Thanks everyone.  

Edited by CRUISER2B
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I’m on Equinox on November 5. I got move up email 2 weeks ago. Submitted offer and haven’t heard anything except the received my offer. It states they let you know 2 days before at latest. I’m not holding my breath on a move up- fun trying though! 

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This was somethng that NCL started a long time ago and Celebrity has now following with. An inside to an outside may be important to you and worthwhile to take a shot at. The bidding rpocess is really a drive you crazy thing that is not to benefit you as a guest primarily. You may win a bid at the end of a long hard and winding road, but it will take its toll on you as part of the process. 

 

If you want an outside cabin then just book it. Of course you may decide in the end that the real torture would be the what ifs that you allow to play mind games over in case you might have actually won the upgrade bid but decided to upgrade at the published cost.

 

My advice, stay away, stay very far way from this mental anguish, and don't look back. You may have a bunch of friends here on CC that are in the same bidding boat with you sharing the hopes and dreams of a bid win, and commiseration, but IMHO it does take its toll on you long term. 

Edited by MizDemeanor
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If you are happy with your Inside but might like a cheap upgrade, I think this new procedure is a great deal.  You can put in for the minimum bid – you will have less chance of getting it, but if you do it's a terrific value.  Or if you get psyched for a better cabin you could put in a higher bid [if you are an experienced eBay bidder you will have some idea of what I'm talking about].  The main thing is to remain happy with your Inside, in case that's where you end up.  And to be happy with the amount you have bid, in case it gets accepted.  Then: no stress, two possible good outcomes.  No worries!

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We submitted a bid on our August cruise.  No stress, we bid an amount we were comfortable with and ,knowing the odds of our bid being accepted weren’t great, didn’t worry about it. Our bid was rejected and we had a great cruise in the cabin we picked.

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  • 1 month later...

I got my first upgrade bid offer this morning for upcoming cruise Dec 9 on Silhouette. We have an AQ cabin and are traveling with family and friends. Offer was for an upgrade to a Royal suite with a start bid of $1000/ pp. Unfortunately  other people in our group did not receive an offer, so we all will stay in AQ and will have a good time. But, sure was tempting to bid. Maybe another time.

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It is completely up to you! I think the MoveUp option is a great thing to be offered. I think set your expectations as "I will put in an offer that I am comfortable with, if I get it, I get it, if I don't get it, I am still on the cruise I purchased and in the room I originally booked!"

 

That is what I did, put in an offer for an AQ cabin with the amount I was comfortable with (which was a minimum) and did not think anything about it. To my surprise a few days letter it was accepted! 

 

Now if you really want a balcony room, look at the current cost of a balcony on your cruise and compare to what you paid for your room. Celebrity usually allows you to pay the difference in fare. I did that going from balcony to Concierge!

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On 10/25/2018 at 11:59 PM, Host Jazzbeau said:

If you are happy with your Inside but might like a cheap upgrade, I think this new procedure is a great deal.  You can put in for the minimum bid – you will have less chance of getting it, but if you do it's a terrific value. 

 

We had an early Santa present on two bids last week for our upcoming Reflection cruises.

We were either very lucky or someone was being kind.

(no suite ambitions but sweet results)

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46 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

The bidding process was a slide and it was not possible to bid below the minimum.  You will see when you get one.

Thanks.  I haven't actually tried to bid.   But I keep getting the offer for my cruise next week. I'm a solo, so might be willing to pay for one person, not 2.

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The cruise lines are getting smart.  If you can create an "auction" atmosphere, people tend to bid up the price on almost anything.  By offering multiple people the "opportunity" to bid on an upgrade, they can work the psychology that says, "if I was willing to pay THAT, I should be willing to pay just a little more...and, maybe, I should pay just a little more than that to make sure I don't just barely lose out to someone else".

 

Even I might fall for that...to a point.  You see, I recently put up a bid on a "move up" offer on my Asia cruise coming up in three weeks.  Now, when I originally booked this cruise, a long time ago, I booked a window cabin.  It being early, I was able to snag #3112 on Millennium...It's an oddball cabin slightly bigger than all the other window cabins...And it's got a much larger window than most window cabins.  It is in the area that was once part of the Conference Center--hence the larger windows.  And, it is the end cabin closest to midship, capping off the hallway...so it is the width of the hallway longer than the other window cabins.  When I booked it, I saved about $1000 over booking my usual balcony...figuring there was a lot I could do with that $1000--like help pay for my back-to-back Europe cruises on Reflection about 6 months later.

 

The "offer" came a week or so ago...minimum bid of $150 pp for the chance to move to a balcony.  So, I placed a bid at $155pp.  I don't figure it will be accepted.  But I am okay with that.  I booked a cabin I will be happy in...at a price I am happy with.  Had I wished to pay $500 pp more, I could have booked it that way originally.  Had the price for the balcony originally been $155 greater than the window, I probably would have booked that then...and with a wide choice of available balcony cabins.  If my $155 is accepted, I might get "the worst balcony on the ship"--all the way forward or all the way aft and with an obstructed view.

 

So, to abandon my chosen cabin for that?  For an extra $310?  Sure...I'll take a risk...But, I am going no higher than that. I am NOT "bidding against myself".  I am NOT driving my own price up close to what I could have paid months ago anyway.  If I wasn't willing to pay more then, why would I now? 

 

If my bid magically gets accepted?  Great, I'll take the balcony knowing it cost me a little over $22 per cruise day.  Otherwise, I am happy where I am.  But, I really expect that there will be enough people who just lose track of what they could have booked originally and why they booked it...and treat it like a competition, thinking, "If I just bid a little more than everyone else..."  Of course, under this system, no one really knows what everyone else bid.  So, likely, someone wins by putting in an absurdly high bid...bidding against him/herself.

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We got an email to bid a few weeks ago on our upcoming January cruise.  We only bid up for suites on NCL and since there are none available on our Celebrity cruise, we won't be bidding. 
I get emails for airlines too for bidding.  Hotels do the same.  I've decided for 2019 that I am ignoring it all and just vacationing the way I used to.  Book what we like and stick with it.

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We are sailing tomorrow, a month ago I put in a move up bid from Aqua to a Sky Suite. Minimum bid was $500 and I bid $600, yesterday I got "Unfortunately, your offer to upgrade to a Sky Suite wasn't accepted. We're sure you'll have an unforgettable vacation in the stateroom you originally booked."

So, yes we will enjoy our Aqua cabin.

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I just went to the website , never got an email, and bid on our x-mas Reflection cruise. About a week later we were upgraded to a Sky Suite, we saved around 1.5 K over what they were asking when you consider they were asking 5.2K for the suite with 0 benefits. So it worked for us, we get Michaels/Luminae and we saved some $$, when we 1st booked the prices for sky suites were crazy probably because it is over X-Mas.

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On 10/25/2018 at 4:55 PM, CRUISER2B said:

Hi all, I'll be sailing on Celebrity for the first time next month on the Infinity for 5 days.  I currently have an inside cabin booked.  I just got an email to bid for an upgrade.  Is this worth it?  Has anyone ever done it?  Thanks everyone.  

Our first cruise was in 2010 and we booked a ocean view (on NCL).  It was fine, but the next cruise was so cheap to upgrade to a balcony (only$200 pp more for 14 days) we upgraded.  Now, we don't even think of anything less than a balcony.

 

We upgraded to a Skysuite once and AQ on another.   While we liked the special restaurants for each, we would never book a suite or AQ and pay more.  We like socializing with our CC friends at Happy Hour then going to dine together.

 

If you are happy with an inside, it does save lots of bucks.   It is whatever makes you happy, but I warn you that moving up to a balcony, you many never go back.

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Just back from a last-minute Thanksgiving cruise on Silhouette.  Booked a week before the ship sailed.  Got an inside (allegedly the only class available) at a very good price.  Within days got the upgrade bid e-mail.  Decided to throw a few hundred at a balcony and see what happened.  Landed the balcony.  So, very pleased with the process.

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We very rarely get move-up offers, and the couple we have gotten were way overpriced for what you got IMHO.   This may not be a popular opinion, but I think it would be nice if as a part of their Captains Club program they would offer decent move-up rates to their higher level passengers.  Then, go ahead and let everyone else bid with whatever cabins remain.  Would be a nice way to reward loyalty, which seems to mean less and less to Celebrity these days.

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16 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

We very rarely get move-up offers, and the couple we have gotten were way overpriced for what you got IMHO.   This may not be a popular opinion, but I think it would be nice if as a part of their Captains Club program they would offer decent move-up rates to their higher level passengers.  Then, go ahead and let everyone else bid with whatever cabins remain.  Would be a nice way to reward loyalty, which seems to mean less and less to Celebrity these days.

I wish....

Here is the offer for Jan 4 cruise.  We have an angled balcony on the hump and have no interest in moving..

 

Upgrade options Jan 4 2019.png

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We got our "MoveUp" email yesterday.  We're already in a Sky Suite, so the options are a Celebrity Suite or Royal Suite.  However, both of those categories show as sold out.  How is it possible to upgrade if no cabins are available?

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1 hour ago, cricketts said:

We got our "MoveUp" email yesterday.  We're already in a Sky Suite, so the options are a Celebrity Suite or Royal Suite.  However, both of those categories show as sold out.  How is it possible to upgrade if no cabins are available?

Some of us are convinced that Celebrity solicits bids even if no cabin in the category are available, just in case someone cancels.

59 minutes ago, 4774Papa said:

If you get the auction upgrade to you get the extra points for that higher category?

In 2015 when we upgraded to a Skysuite (X called us with the offer) we didn't get the extra points.

No the terms are clear.  You get the BBB bundle and points associated with your original booking.  However you do receive all the benefits associated with the new  cabin category.

 

Edited by jagoffee
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