Captain's Club Tiers "One Category Upgrade through Aqua Class". How does this perk get triggered?

[Ken the cruiser]

When we were using a Celebrity Vacation Planner, up until Dec 6, 2022 when we booked the below cruise using a Travel Agent, we would always get an A1 (Aqua) cabin at the A2 price, based on the CC Classic loyalty benefit. FWIW we are now Elite+. In fact, our CVP always told us it would automatically be applied by the computer once the cabin was booked. Has something changed within the past 6-12 months, as apparently "the computer" doesn't seem to have automatically applied it when we had our TA do the booking this time?? 🤔

 

More specifically, today when I checked our July 2024 Apex booking (which I realize is too late to do anything about it), there doesn't seem to be any discount applied to our confirmation, other than our Military Savings, when I compared it to our daughter's confirmation with the same A1 category cabin right next to ours, but who has never cruised with Celebrity (see below).

 

1. Our Celebrity Confirmation for our Prime Aqua cabin:

 

 

2. Our Daughter's Celebrity confirmation (PA cabin next door to us)

 

 

 

 

[Dar & Bob]

I called my rep and she gave me 1A veranda for 1B price.  That may not be combinable with the military discount

Edited January 11, 2023 by Dar & Bob

[jelayne]

When booking with X have always had to ask for it. Our TA knew to price with the  1 category upgrade.

[Ken the cruiser]

8 minutes ago, Dar & Bob said:

I called my rep and she gave me 1A veranda for 1B price.  That may not be combinable with the military discount

Thanks, but it has always been combinable in the past when we booked them using our CVP.

[Ken the cruiser]

7 minutes ago, jelayne said:

When booking with X have always had to ask for it. Our TA knew to price with the  1 category upgrade.

Thanks, and that may be the issue. We had that CVP for over 8 years until he switched to a different cruise line; hence our change to a TA. I'm guessing that when we book an applicable A1 cabin in the future, we'll have to remind our TA to get us the reduced cabin rate at the A2 price since "the computer" was probably our CVP. 

[natshala]

I almost never get it. The upgraded cabin must be available and my TA said you need to ask. I often forget.  More and more I’m thinking my TA isn’t so good.

[cruizingOmi]

Hi, I always pick my cabin by#, so for instance, I book a B1 cabin I should get if for the B2 price? Or when the choose your Own option appears they already give me the better cabin to choose from for the lower price? Availability pending of course. 

 

Thanks 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

47 minutes ago, cruizingOmi said:

Hi, I always pick my cabin by#, so for instance, I book a B1 cabin I should get if for the B2 price? Or when the choose your Own option appears they already give me the better cabin to choose from for the lower price? Availability pending of course. 

 

Thanks 

I just did a test by doing an online mock booking of an A1 cabin on that July 2024 Apex cruise, first when I wasn't logged onto my Celebrity account and then when I was. In both cases, the A1 cabin was $5,724 while the A2 cabin was $5,674. In theory when I was logged onto my account and completed the booking process just prior to clicking on the "Lock It In" button, you would have thought the booking of the A1 cabin would have reflected the A2 category price IF my Loyalty status was included in the online booking process. But it wasn't. 

 

In this case since it's only a $50 difference, no big deal. But I will definitely be more focused the next time we book a Celebrity cruise in an A1 cabin, or any non-suite or C1 cabin for that matter. 😉

[Jeremiah1212]

Category upgrades have to be applied manually by Celebrity. There is no booking system out there that will do this automatically with your CC#. Prior to April 2023 there were also more exclusions. 

 

For sailings departing prior to April 12, 2023: Captain's Club one-category upgrade excludes categories: 12, FV, SV, C1 and Z, Y, X, XC, XA, W.

**On Celebrity Edge series categories 12, 9, 7, 6, IO, 1B, 1A, SV, ES, E1, C2, C1, A1 are also excluded.

 

For sailings departing on or after April 12, 2023: Captain's Club one-category upgrade excludes categories: IS, ES, SV, SC, PO, DO, DI, DV and Z, Y, X, XC, XA, W.

 

There are also some exclusions regarding rate types that qualify. 

[Ken the cruiser]

29 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

Category upgrades have to be applied manually by Celebrity. There is no booking system out there that will do this automatically with your CC#. Prior to April 2023 there were also more exclusions. 

 

For sailings departing prior to April 12, 2023: Captain's Club one-category upgrade excludes categories: 12, FV, SV, C1 and Z, Y, X, XC, XA, W.

**On Celebrity Edge series categories 12, 9, 7, 6, IO, 1B, 1A, SV, ES, E1, C2, C1, A1 are also excluded.

 

For sailings departing on or after April 12, 2023: Captain's Club one-category upgrade excludes categories: IS, ES, SV, SC, PO, DO, DI, DV and Z, Y, X, XC, XA, W.

 

There are also some exclusions regarding rate types that qualify. 

Thanks for sharing! Great information to know. Did you get it from some Celebrity website or is this information privy only to TAs? In any event it looks like our July 2024 A1 cabin should have received the perk, ever so small that it was, if our TA had known about it. Next time we'll make sure she does. 

 

BTW I'm not blaming our TA in any fashion. She books a lot of cruises for a lot of guests on many different cruise lines. There is no way she could ever keep up with the changing perks offered by all of them. That's my job since it's my $$$ to make sure we get the best deal we can. 😉

[TeaBag]

I just got it the other day for asking the TA from Celebrity.  Didn't think I was gong to book any more celebrity Cruises but this was a deal I couldn't pass up.  i think I saved about $130.

OP can you not ask the TA to apply the discount?

[Ken the cruiser]

18 minutes ago, TeaBag said:

I just got it the other day for asking the TA from Celebrity.  Didn't think I was gong to book any more celebrity Cruises but this was a deal I couldn't pass up.  i think I saved about $130.

OP can you not ask the TA to apply the discount?

Since it's only a $50 increase per person and the A1 as well as the A2 categories on our cruise have gone up over $1,160 pp since we booked it about 3 weeks ago, we're just going to chalk it up as a lesson learned.

 

Update: That cruise hasn't gone up that much since we booked it. It was our Mar 2025 Constellation cruise with 3 days in New Orleans that we just booked that went up. The July 2024 one has only gone up $120 pp.  Did I mention we have 21 cruises we have booked through early 2025. 😂

Edited January 11, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[natshala]

8 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Since it's only a $50 increase per person and the A1 as well as the A2 categories on our cruise have gone up over $1,160 pp since we booked it about 3 weeks ago, we're just going to chalk it up as a lesson learned.

I think if you’d call X and tell them your story, they’d extend a $50 OBC. Why not?

[TeaBag]

i, too, would call them and see if they would give you the discount off your original price.  

[Ken the cruiser]

24 minutes ago, natshala said:

I think if you’d call X and tell them your story, they’d extend a $50 OBC. Why not?

 

19 minutes ago, TeaBag said:

i, too, would call them and see if they would give you the discount off your original price.  

Good points. However, since we booked the cruise through a TA, I don't believe we are authorized to talk about cruise pricing directly with Celebrity. That said, unless we can save at least $200 on a booking "refare", of which we have 21 booked through Mar 2025 so far (what can I say we're cruiseaholics), I've got to be selective on the service requests we send to our TA and this one just doesn't reach the minimum. OTOH we have a Princess booking "refare" we have our TA working on that will save us $400. 🙂

 

Edited January 11, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[Dar & Bob]

2 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

I just did a test by doing an online mock booking of an A1 cabin on that July 2024 Apex cruise, first when I wasn't logged onto my Celebrity account and then when I was. In both cases, the A1 cabin was $5,724 while the A2 cabin was $5,674. In theory when I was logged onto my account and completed the booking process just prior to clicking on the "Lock It In" button, you would have thought the booking of the A1 cabin would have reflected the A2 category price IF my Loyalty status was included in the online booking process. But it wasn't. 

 

In this case since it's only a $50 difference, no big deal. But I will definitely be more focused the next time we book a Celebrity cruise in an A1 cabin, or any non-suite or C1 cabin for that matter. 😉

When we got it the difference for the one cat upgrade was not significant.   I originally forgot to ask about it but there was a big price drop, in fact I actually got the same cabin with the Elevate package for less money than my original booking. I asked for the one cat upgrade price at that point.  

[Ken the cruiser]

1 minute ago, Dar & Bob said:

When we got it the difference for the one cat upgrade was not significant.   I originally forgot to ask about it but there was a big price drop, in fact I actually got the same cabin with the Elevate package for less money than my original booking. I asked for the one cat upgrade price at that point.  

That's funny. My DW and I were just talking about that very same issue on our daily walk. Since our Apex cruise isn't until July 2024, we will probably bring up this issue to our TA if and when the cabin prices eventually go down enough to have them refared. 👍 

[mahdnc]

For the first time in years, we booked a cabin car that was eligible for the Captain's Club upgrade.  I had forgotten about it because for years we've booked FVs which aren't eligible. Fortunately our TA remembered for us when she booked the cabin. It was worth $100-200 to us. 

 

I thought I remembered from these boards that the upgrade had to be applied at the time of booking. Again I could be wrong about that because my experience in this is limited. 

 

I also wonder if the CC upgrade is retained when you take advantage of price drops. 

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

I guess now I have proof that my TA is awesome!! I emailed her a couple of days ago to upgrade my cabin from an OV to Aqua and gave her the number of the available Prime Aqua with a wake view as my preferred cabin. I didn't even think about the 1 category upgrade thing. But when I got my new invoice from her, the pricing matched the regular Aqua cabins - so she knew what to do to get that discount even when I didn't remember to ask her about it!!

[Ken the cruiser]

3 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

For the first time in years, we booked a cabin car that was eligible for the Captain's Club upgrade.  I had forgotten about it because for years we've booked FVs which aren't eligible. Fortunately our TA remembered for us when she booked the cabin. It was worth $100-200 to us. 

 

I thought I remembered from these boards that the upgrade had to be applied at the time of booking. Again I could be wrong about that because my experience in this is limited. 

 

I also wonder if the CC upgrade is retained when you take advantage of price drops. 

Good point! I guess we’ll find out if we ever have the opportunity to upgrade our July 2024 Apex A1 cabin booking. However, worst case is it’s a good lesson learned for us when we book our next A1 cabin. 😁

[mahdnc]

42 minutes ago, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

I guess now I have proof that my TA is awesome!! I emailed her a couple of days ago to upgrade my cabin from an OV to Aqua and gave her the number of the available Prime Aqua with a wake view as my preferred cabin. I didn't even think about the 1 category upgrade thing. But when I got my new invoice from her, the pricing matched the regular Aqua cabins - so she knew what to do to get that discount even when I didn't remember to ask her about it!!

 

I agree.  It is very rewarding to have a TA that is on the ball.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

1 minute ago, mahdnc said:

 

I agree.  It is very rewarding to have a TA that is on the ball.

Yes! I've always known she's amazing - when I've booked Disney World trips with her, 9 times out of 10 even before I see info about a discount on the socials, she's emailed me either saying "I changed you to the new promotion" or "You have a better deal" or even "Your room type isn't available, but if you want to change your room type I can get it". This just cemented it even more!!