Bidding on upgrades

[jonthomas]

we got an offer to bid on the top 4 cabins, owners suite etc.

 

anyone have any experience with this and can advise how to proceed?

[orville99]

56 minutes ago, jonthomas said:

we got an offer to bid on the top 4 cabins, owners suite etc.

 

anyone have any experience with this and can advise how to proceed?

Everyone's experience differs. Some people bid the max and lose, and others bid the minimum and win. There is no logic to how the winners are selected. 

 

We have won upgrades 6 times so far, and only bid slightly above the minimum. We only bid an amount that makes sense to us. Since we always book the stateroom category we want, any upgrade has a lot less significance to us. 

 

One bit of math that we use to determine our cap price: we do a mock booking of each of the categories in the offer, subtract what we already paid for our existing cabin, and then divide the answer by 3. That's our absolute cap bid.

 

If one of the categories in the offer shows as sold out, we only bid the minimum.

Edited October 25, 2023 by orville99

[jonthomas]

Thank you for this.

[orville99]

4 minutes ago, jonthomas said:

Thank you for this.

One thing I neglected to explain was the significance of dividing by 3. All of the cruises on our booking list between February 2024 and April 2025 have all more than doubled in price (some have tripled), so dividing by 3 gets us close to what that category would have cost us if we booked it initially.

[island lady]

I don't bid if I am on a B2B (or more) cruise.   Since I don't want to change cabins...but the rare time we will do a single cruise...I will give it a shot.   So far...no go on those.  😞 

[LobsterStalker]

12 minutes ago, orville99 said:

One thing I neglected to explain was the significance of dividing by 3. All of the cruises on our booking list between February 2024 and April 2025 have all more than doubled in price (some have tripled), so dividing by 3 gets us close to what that category would have cost us if we booked it initially.

That's not the significance I was assuming , but now that I understand what you are saying I  have to ask , Just curious

If you are willing to pay that amount when it's time to bid for upgrade , why would you not just pay that amount at booking ? Or maybe I'm misinterpreting . 

 

Cheers

[orville99]

13 minutes ago, LobsterStalker said:

That's not the significance I was assuming , but now that I understand what you are saying I  have to ask , Just curious

If you are willing to pay that amount when it's time to bid for upgrade , why would you not just pay that amount at booking ? Or maybe I'm misinterpreting . 

 

Cheers

DW loves the size and layout of grand suites, so we always book those. We have sailed in Owners Suites, Crown Loft Suites, two bedroom suites, etc. and she always comments on them being too large for just the two of us. So that makes my options quite simple - bid at or below what that suite would have cost us if I was able to convince DW to book up a category or two when we were doing our bookings.

[LobsterStalker]

2 minutes ago, orville99 said:

DW loves the size and layout of grand suites, so we always book those. We have sailed in Owners Suites, Crown Loft Suites, two bedroom suites, etc. and she always comments on them being too large for just the two of us. So that makes my options quite simple - bid at or below what that suite would have cost us if I was able to convince DW to book up a category or two when we were doing our bookings.

Gotcha. I only bid on my last couple that I returned from last week . Don't spend enough time in cabin to care much , but if I was lucky enough to fall into something cheaply , figured I'd go for it . 

 

Cheers

[Starry Eyes]

Remember that most ships are sailing very full, so there generally are few upgrades available ( the occasional unsold cabin plus the occasional cancellation). Also remember there many people on your sailing offered the chance to bid for upgrades.  Combining those two facts, on many cruises your odds of an upgrade, even with a decent bid, are not especially high.  Don’t get your hopes up, particularly if you see few upgrade cabins available when you do a mock booking on your sailing.

 

Also remember you can be assigned any cabin in that category.  Once you win, you cannot decline the upgraded cabin you are assigned (and often there any not others left to trade into); you cannot go back to your old cabin.  So, before you bid, look at the deck plans and be sure you will be happy in any cabin in the category before you bid.  Do not just look at available cabins: someone might cancel or change categories vacating a currently occupied cabin.  
 

Personally, I initially try to ignore Royal’s bidding ranges and suggestions.  Instead I try to decide how much the upgrade would be worth to me and mine: how much is the pleasure of that upgrade worth to us on that particular cruise.  Sometimes the value I conjure is lower than the minimum bid; I do not bid on that category.  If my personal value is higher, that’s what I bid, and theoretically I’d go to the max bid.

[island lady]

1 hour ago, orville99 said:

DW loves the size and layout of grand suites, so we always book those. We have sailed in Owners Suites, Crown Loft Suites, two bedroom suites, etc. and she always comments on them being too large for just the two of us. So that makes my options quite simple - bid at or below what that suite would have cost us if I was able to convince DW to book up a category or two when we were doing our bookings.

 

Exactly the same thing with us.  Crown Loft (don't like the separation), Owners Suite (too big, though I do like the "extra" toilet 😉 ).     The GS cabins are just right for the two of us as well.  Our "go to" cabin of choice.  Same cabin again on Wonder this Sunday as we had on the Med B2B and TA as we had when we ushered her into PC for the first time last November.  🙂 

[little britain]

Can you bid on an Up if you are in a still unassigned gty.??  I know we will get a balcony somewhere but would like something better for DHs birthday ( and the price to upgrade is far too much !!) 

[Starry Eyes]

28 minutes ago, little britain said:

Can you bid on an Up if you are in a still unassigned gty.??  I know we will get a balcony somewhere but would like something better for DHs birthday ( and the price to upgrade is far too much !!) 

Yes, you can bid when your gty cabin has not been assigned.

Fair warning: Sometimes when your cabin is assigned, your bids will be cancelled, even if you were not assigned an upgraded cabin.  If this happens, you can bid again.  There is a chance the bidding ranges may have changed (up or down) since you originally bid.  Sometimes your re-bids are cancelled again until the system settles.  If your bids are cancelled, sometimes you receive more bidding options when your cabin is assigned.

[Ashland]

We got an UpBid on Liberty to a OS for the Oct 5th Canada N/E itinerary...My bid was very low but the original price point was was over 15k (and all were still available 2 weeks before sail date) we were all in at just a bit over 4k.

[Engineroom Snipe]

I have made many previous postings about bidding for an upgrade. Every posting here is valuable.

 

First, get the cabin that is going to make your cruise satisfying.

 

NEVER hope or depend upon an upgrade to make your cabin what your want.

 

Carefully consider that you could get the worst location of your upgraded cabin category.

 

"Winning" an upgrade at a higher price in a location that you do not want could be a disaster cruise experience.

 

There are thousands of responses in 'Cruise Critic' regarding upgrading your cabin for a fee.

 

Read them all for there is a treasure trove of opinions and experience in each and every one of them.

[George C]

7 hours ago, jonthomas said:

we got an offer to bid on the top 4 cabins, owners suite etc.

 

anyone have any experience with this and can advise how to proceed?

We are in a grand suite and we have bids on 3 bigger suites including owners suite , first time we did a bid was on celebrity a few years ago and went from a small sky suite to penthouse which was unbelievable, good luck.

[KBRADFORD79]

I’ve made several bids, high and low as a Diamond Plus member and still haven’t met the Upgrade Fairy. 😅

[Ashland]

1 hour ago, KBRADFORD79 said:

I’ve made several bids, high and low as a Diamond Plus member and still haven’t met the Upgrade Fairy. 😅

Your C&A level has nothing to do with it when it comes to bidding.

The Upgrade Fairy left a long time ago.

[island lady]

9 hours ago, KBRADFORD79 said:

I’ve made several bids, high and low as a Diamond Plus member and still haven’t met the Upgrade Fairy. 😅

 

Your C&A level does not come into play on the bidding.  The program is handled by a third party outside of RCI, who don't have access to your C&A membership.  

[island lady]

7 hours ago, Ashland said:

Your C&A level has nothing to do with it when it comes to bidding.

The Upgrade Fairy left a long time ago.

 

Yup, the sweet upgrade fairy (who I was lucky enough to meet several times 🥰 in the past, was murdered by her evil twin sister the $$ up charge fairy.  😢

[orville99]

15 hours ago, Engineroom Snipe said:

Carefully consider that you could get the worst location of your upgraded cabin category.

 

The worst RoyalUP bid that we won was the first one that we bid on - upgrade from a JS to our first GS. The problem wasn't that the cabin was in a bad location (it was actually in a great location), but that DW fell in love with GS.😱

It has been the suite life ever since😇

 

[ShillyShally]

19 hours ago, Ashland said:

We got an UpBid on Liberty to a OS for the Oct 5th Canada N/E itinerary...My bid was very low but the original price point was was over 15k (and all were still available 2 weeks before sail date) we were all in at just a bit over 4k.

This is my hope for next fall - we have a suite gty but expect of course to land a JS, so hoping we can Royal Up to GS or higher since right now even picking our own cabin is $4k higher and a GS $7.5k higher, heck even the suite gty is $2.4k higher than when we booked!

[ShillyShally]

2 hours ago, orville99 said:

The worst RoyalUP bid that we won was the first one that we bid on - upgrade from a JS to our first GS. The problem wasn't that the cabin was in a bad location (it was actually in a great location), but that DW fell in love with GS.😱

It has been the suite life ever since😇

 

HAHAHAHA, can totally relate - this was us last cruise, and now I'm suite (GS or higher) or bust!

[Engineroom Snipe]

2 hours ago, orville99 said:

The worst RoyalUP bid that we won was the first one that we bid on - upgrade from a JS to our first GS. The problem wasn't that the cabin was in a bad location (it was actually in a great location), but that DW fell in love with GS.😱

It has been the suite life ever since😇

 

Yes, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!

 

😁

[teddie]

Rather than create a new post on bidding for upgrades, I’ll ask my question here on the same topic.

 

We are in a regular balcony and we bid on JS, JS w large balcony, and GS. Why is it when I follow the link on my cruise details to the Bidding page, only the GS shows up top with the option to modify or cancel the bid? The two JS bids are listed below and do not offer those options.  When I do a mock booking, there are still cabins (albeit not so many) in all three categories showing as available. Any ideas?
 

thanks,

teddie

Edited October 26, 2023 by teddie

[Biker19]

6 minutes ago, teddie said:

Any ideas?

Follow the original offer email link to get the page that should allow modification of all bids.