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1 hour ago, NewPennCruiser said:

We are on the May 25th Quest itinerary in Alaska.  Bid was made on March 13th and it was classified as weak.  (Would love to know how they determine that unless they all say that trying to get us to bid more) and we are Explorer tier in LCV.

Thanks very much.

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1 hour ago, NewPennCruiser said:

We are on the May 25th Quest itinerary in Alaska.  Bid was made on March 13th and it was classified as weak.  (Would love to know how they determine that unless they all say that trying to get us to bid more) and we are Explorer tier in LCV.

But was the bid successful or not? Can't work it out from  your posts.  Sorry if I have missed something here.  

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DOUBLE WOW, just got a congratulations email on a winning bid for second half of a B2B, having already won on the first half, I placed my initial bid back on March 20 at $500 and after winning the first half a 9 night, I decided to bump up my bid to $610 on April 9. I have looking at availability and when I looked 2 nights ago, they still showed two Club Continental Suites. They were showing 43 open Veranda V2’s open, so I figured competition might be less than most cruises and decided to tweak my bid again just to see it drew anymore attention.  I increased the bid a total of $30 to $640 which still was ‘Weak’.  One point I missed on reviewing availability was accessible suites, which I don’t think show when testing online. We were assigned an accessible Continental Suite 7082.  We have sailed in accessible suites on other cruise lines when taking our adult son with mobility challenges and know it will be fine and no noise from above. 

 

Bid Date: 20 March 2019 (first bid) Final Bid, 23 April 2016

Sail Date: 23 May 2019

Cruise length: 5

Level: Adventurer

Cabin booked: Verandah

Cabin Won: Club Continent

Min. Bid: $400

Bid: $640

Bid Strength: Weak

Received confirmation at 28 days prior to sailing

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We have been offered a bid upgrade from Oceanview to Balcony on 23 May (Pursuit) at a “weak” minimum rate of £160pp, when we could have bought a specified Balcony anyway at that amount extra. Doesn’t seem very honest?

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16 minutes ago, gaspari said:

We have been offered a bid upgrade from Oceanview to Balcony on 23 May (Pursuit) at a “weak” minimum rate of £160pp, when we could have bought a specified Balcony anyway at that amount extra. Doesn’t seem very honest?

We are the same sailing and had booked a Balcony and bid on Club Continent Suite and won (See post 105). I had been tracking available cabins and I am not surprised by your offer, earlier this week there were 43 open V2 balcony cabins available with none or very few Interior or Oceanview.  They may want to shift passengers to areas where the room attendants have more capacity. 

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5 minutes ago, kayakcove said:

We are the same sailing and had booked a Balcony and bid on Club Continent Suite and won (See post 105). I had been tracking available cabins and I am not surprised by your offer, earlier this week there were 43 open V2 balcony cabins available with none or very few Interior or Oceanview.  They may want to shift passengers to areas where the room attendants have more capacity. 

How do you track available cabins? I've done that in other lines, but can't figure it out on Azamara.

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21 minutes ago, Mickie said:

How do you track available cabins? I've done that in other lines, but can't figure it out on Azamara.

The only way I know is through the online booking process. You do not have to enter any personal data to get the availability.  I use a different browser for doing those.  Azamara site recognizes me in Chrome and takes me to booked cruise page, so I use Microsoft Edge for my test searches.

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14 minutes ago, kayakcove said:

The only way I know is through the online booking process. You do not have to enter any personal data to get the availability.  I use a different browser for doing those.  Azamara site recognizes me in Chrome and takes me to booked cruise page, so I use Microsoft Edge for my test searches.

Hmmmm....I'll try that. TU.

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4 hours ago, kayakcove said:

 I use a different browser for doing those.  Azamara site recognizes me in Chrome and takes me to booked cruise page, so I use Microsoft Edge for my test searches.

I've found it helpful to use the Opera browser for such searches. Opera includes a built-in VPN client, so one can change virtual location to US, Europe, Asia, etc, and thus check on prices and offers in different regions.

 

You can also open a Private Window (Firefox and Safari) or Incognito Window (Chrome). That will 'forget' the fact that you had previously logged in or booked. Websites will think you're a newcomer.

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I was upgraded from obstructed OV cabin 4/26/19. I am a solo cruiser and bid minimum $200 for Veranda. Bid was automaticaly doubled to $400 as premium for solo travellers. I had originaly paid 11/2 for the OV cabin. Bid was classified as "weak". I am on May 28 cruise from Barcelona to Greenwich. Bid was made End of March, not sure of exact date.

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33 minutes ago, highhandicapper said:

I was upgraded from obstructed OV cabin 4/26/19. I am a solo cruiser and bid minimum $200 for Veranda. Bid was automaticaly doubled to $400 as premium for solo travellers. I had originaly paid 11/2 for the OV cabin. Bid was classified as "weak". I am on May 28 cruise from Barcelona to Greenwich. Bid was made End of March, not sure of exact date.

Thanks very much, I will add this to the spreadsheet. Can you tell me what LCV level you are?

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27 minutes ago, Werangels said:

Could you please tell me whether you received a confirmation email after submitting your upgrade bid?  

 

Clearly, I haven’t!

 

Thanks.

Yes, received one within a few hours. It said they had received the request, quoted what we’d bid and had a button giving us the opportunity to bid more if we wanted to. If you haven’t had one, maybe you need to contact LCV. 

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44 minutes ago, Werangels said:

Could you please tell me whether you received a confirmation email after submitting your upgrade bid?

Check your spam or junk mail folder, the confirmation email comes from 'AzamaraUpgrade@Azamara.com, different from other Azamara communications. 

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23 minutes ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

Yes, received one within a few hours. It said they had received the request, quoted what we’d bid and had a button giving us the opportunity to bid more if we wanted to. If you haven’t had one, maybe you need to contact LCV. 

 

Thank you.  Oh dear.....  I hadn’t received an email to upgrade but am receiving emails about booking excursions, etc.  Interestingly, I had tried to upgrade several times and it told me I wasn’t eligible but last night took me straight to the page.  I have gone back to the u-grade page and my bid is still showing.  I had better read the LCV thread to locate the contact email.  

6 minutes ago, kayakcove said:

Check your spam or junk mail folder, the confirmation email comes from 'AzamaraUpgrade@Azamara.com, different from other Azamara communications. 

 

Thank you.  Already done.

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So having read through the whole thread for this and LCV, I checked my email preferences are ticked for all brands.  I am receiving all the marketing emails but didn’t receive an upgrade one.  One comment mentioned that confirmations could go to your TA whom I contacted.  She hasn’t received anything and has telephoned AZ who said they don’t send confirmations of receiving bids (even though the confirmation states that a confirmation email is on it’s way).  

 

As a newbie, it doesn’t exactly inspire you with confidence in the brand......

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1 hour ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

Unfortunately Azamara’s shoreside is nowhere near as good as the crew onboard.

 

 

Thanks Host Grandma and I do get that from everything I have read in the last few weeks!  I do have to say though that as a newbie when your confidence in a product has been ‘chipped’, the brain does have a tendency to jump and question other things. So, if shoreside administration is poor, what else is poor?  Do ‘shoreside’ organise maintenance and upkeep of vessels and equipment for instance?  Sorry, I am purely highlighting how poor organisation and administration can have a knock-on effect on consumer confidence.

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Well, apparently the bean counters have won. Used to be USD398 for an upgrade and you won or lost depending on LCV status and date of original booking. People are now bidding USD700-1,000 and winning. Good luck to those prepared to pay so much - they obviously think it’s worth it. I wonder how many of the winning bids are from guests who previously would have initially booked the higher cost cabins and are now getting them for a considerably lower price - only the bean counters know. Either way, upgrades are gone for USD398. 

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