What are room bid prices based on? Is everyone on the cruise offered the same bid prices?

[Floridagal2213]

This will be our first MSC cruise and have booked Fantastica Balcony.  We recently received upgrade bid options.  Does anyone know what the prices are based upon?  Does everyone get the same offers (on the same sailing)?  We would have loved to try YC but the bid is $1400 PP (x2).  Does this seem normal for a balcony YC upgrade?  Any info or suggestions for first timers would be amazing.  Thanks so much!

[tscoffey]

Like the price of an original booking, I would assume it is completely market driven.

If a category of higher end cabins are having flatter sales than anticipated for that ship, itinerary, and month, then they would be priced lower. The same cabin type on a different ship that is nearer to capacity for the cabin type would likely be more.

 

[carlmm]

According to same reports here, the price differs depending on the price one originally paid.

[JamieLogical]

49 minutes ago, carlmm said:

According to same reports here, the price differs depending on the price one originally paid.

 

That would be silly. MSC already has the money you already paid. Why wouldn't they offer the same upgrade min/max to everyone in a given category in the hopes of getting the most possible money?

[Essiesmom]

54 minutes ago, carlmm said:

According to same reports here, the price differs depending on the price one originally paid.

I think this may be true.  I booked a fantastica inside gty.  I got an upgrade offer even before I had a cabin assigned.  I placed minimum bids on OV, Aurea balcony, and YIN.  The same day I got a cabin assigned, I had another bid offer.  My cabin assignment was a Fantastica balcony.  I placed low bids on Aurea balcony and YIN.  All bid options were substantially lower than the first offer.  A week or so later I received notice that my bid for Aurea was accepted.  A few days ago I tried a mock booking on the same cruise.  It’s 3 days on Seaside as a solo.  I think since there seems to be a lot of availability that I could get my inside gty for a bit lower, but booking that Aurea balcony solo would have been $580 more than I am paying with the upgrade.  
 I’m a,so on the previous 4 day cruise, my solo Fantastica inside gty was again upgraded to a balcony, but I haven’t heard anything from my upgrade bids.  But I think that cruise is sold out.  EM

[Até]

Minimum bids from an inside are definitely going to be higher than from a balcony.  But I agree that the price paid for a particular cabin category doesn't factor into the bidding algorithm.

 

However, a letter from MSC was posted here earlier that stated they do factor in purchase of drink and internet packages, such as with the inclusive package rate, versus the sail only rate.  Specifically regarding bids to inclusive cabins, i.e. Yacht Club.

[Shippy]

I do NOT believe the bid price is based on what you originally paid.

     We have had very reasonable bid offers & won...when we originally booked through the casino & paid very little !

 

[mscdivina2016]

6 hours ago, Floridagal2213 said:

This will be our first MSC cruise and have booked Fantastica Balcony.  We recently received upgrade bid options.  Does anyone know what the prices are based upon?  Does everyone get the same offers (on the same sailing)?  We would have loved to try YC but the bid is $1400 PP (x2).  Does this seem normal for a balcony YC upgrade?  Any info or suggestions for first timers would be amazing.  Thanks so much!

The minimum is $1400pp?   What is the max?

 Two years ago our minimum was $580pp and Max was $1105pp. For Balcony to YCDS 7 night.

 

Bid max and won. Actually b2b and won second cruise for max bid as well.

 

 

 

As f

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, mscdivina2016 said:

The minimum is $1400pp?   What is the max?

 Two years ago our minimum was $580pp and Max was $1105pp. For Balcony to YCDS 7 night.

 

Bid max and won. Actually b2b and won second cruise for max bid as well.

 

 

 

As f

 

We are in a Fantastica Deluxe Balcony with drinks and wifi included and it is a minimum bid of $1515 per person for a YC Deluxe Suite with a max of $1818. This is for a 10 day on the Meraviglia out of NYC in September.

 

 

[gizfish]

Who knows what they are thinking with regards to bid minimums.  For our cruise the minimum bid from balcony to YC keeps going up and the number of cabins available in that category also keeps going up.  Do they think we are stupid enough to not notice availability is increasing and just think....oh my the minimum is going up...I better bid now. Lol.

[perakcruiser]

Don't forget, MSC is not doing this upgrade stuff, it is an external company. The one that also does the flight upgrade offers for many airlines. The offers are completely different as I know from family cruises with more cabins. Actually my three year old daughter got very attractive offers to upgrade from Oceanview to balcony or YIN, maybe because she was expected to consume much less alcohol compared to the other YC guests.