Princess upgrade bid - what if???

[mum and son]

Hi all,

 

What happens if you bid for an upgrade and, when processed, you don't have the available funds on the credit card you used? I'm specifically referring to Princess but happy to know about other lines as well. If you're bidding for a suite the bid amount may be in the thousands, and you have no idea when/if you'll be successful, so what happens if the transaction fails?

 

 

[arxcards]

7 minutes ago, mum and son said:

Hi all,

 

What happens if you bid for an upgrade and, when processed, you don't have the available funds on the credit card you used? I'm specifically referring to Princess but happy to know about other lines as well. If you're bidding for a suite the bid amount may be in the thousands, and you have no idea when/if you'll be successful, so what happens if the transaction fails?

 

 

You don't get the upgrade if they can't get a hold on your funds.

Odds are that suite bids are 99.9% unsuccessful anyway.

[mum and son]

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

You don't get the upgrade if they can't get a hold on your funds.

Odds are that suite bids are 99.9% unsuccessful anyway.

I thought that was the case. I'm not bidding for a suite, just a mini, but there are still a number of aft suites available for my cruise in 6 weeks. I tend to stalk cabins, and the inventory available on this cruise is very interesting. There are a huge number of deluxe balconies remaining so maybe a lot of lower category guarantees will get a nice little upgrade. I've seen other categories come and go overnight so I assume they're shuffling and working their magic in the background but the remaining number of deluxe balconies is very surprising to me, considering inside, balconies, obstructed and minis are showing as sold out. I hate not knowing what's going on behind the scenes!!

Edited February 14 by mum and son

[arxcards]

7 hours ago, mum and son said:

I thought that was the case. I'm not bidding for a suite, just a mini, but there are still a number of aft suites available for my cruise in 6 weeks. I tend to stalk cabins, and the inventory available on this cruise is very interesting. There are a huge number of deluxe balconies remaining so maybe a lot of lower category guarantees will get a nice little upgrade. I've seen other categories come and go overnight so I assume they're shuffling and working their magic in the background but the remaining number of deluxe balconies is very surprising to me, considering inside, balconies, obstructed and minis are showing as sold out. I hate not knowing what's going on behind the scenes!!

There is still the unknown of how many of the "available" cabins are being covered by yet to be assigned guarantees.

[mum and son]

So I stayed diligent and ensured that I had the available funds on my credit card every day - and was successful with my mini-suite upgrade bid. I was surprised as mini-suites had been showing as sold out for 6 weeks or so. I think I was possibly one of the few lucky ones. I did bid more than I usually would for an upgrade but, when added to the super low price I paid for the cruise, it was still an excellent deal for an MC category.

Edited March 3 by mum and son

[OzKiwiJJ]

5 minutes ago, mum and son said:

So I stayed diligent and ensured that I had the available funds on my credit card every day - and was successful with my mini-suite upgrade bid. I was surprised as mini-suites had been showing as sold out for 6 weeks or so. I think I was possibly one of the view lucky ones. I did bid more than I usually would for an upgrade but, when added to the super low price I paid for the cruise, it was still an excellent deal for an MC category.

Congratulations. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I put in a bid for an upgrade to a mini-suite for our upcoming world cruise. 🤞

[mum and son]

7 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Congratulations. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I put in a bid for an upgrade to a mini-suite for our upcoming world cruise. 🤞

🤞

[cruiser3775]

On 2/14/2024 at 10:32 PM, mum and son said:

I tend to stalk cabins, and the inventory available on this cruise is very interesting.

I would love to know how you do this.  I'm booked on a cruise that says "sold out" when I look for most categories with the TA I booked with, and only Guarantee for some others. I'm happy enough with my current cabin choice, but the location could be improved. 

Where do you look when you are "stalking"?

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, cruiser3775 said:

I would love to know how you do this.  I'm booked on a cruise that says "sold out" when I look for most categories with the TA I booked with, and only Guarantee for some others. I'm happy enough with my current cabin choice, but the location could be improved. 

Where do you look when you are "stalking"?

I just look at the cruise on the Princess website. By starting a dummy booking you can easily see what is sold out, what is guarantee and, if you're lucky, some cabins that are available to select.

[mum and son]

On 3/4/2024 at 9:21 AM, cruiser3775 said:

I would love to know how you do this.  I'm booked on a cruise that says "sold out" when I look for most categories with the TA I booked with, and only Guarantee for some others. I'm happy enough with my current cabin choice, but the location could be improved. 

Where do you look when you are "stalking"?

The Princess website is quite good for this stalking. Not all cruiseline websites are good for this though. After watching for a while you can pick up on patterns and changes and differences between availability or the cruiseline website vs agency sites. Overnight you may see 100 cabins disappear so that's when you know something is happening in the background. I think it is initially allocation of guarantee categories then some cabins reappear, then they all disappear again and, if my upgrade bid is successful, that's about the time I would expect to hear. 

 

I also ask on the group social media page for my upcoming cruise if others have had allocations yet, or upgrades to see what's happening with them.

 

 

 

[arxcards]

5 hours ago, mum and son said:

The Princess website is quite good for this stalking. Not all cruiseline websites are good for this though. After watching for a while you can pick up on patterns and changes and differences between availability or the cruiseline website vs agency sites. Overnight you may see 100 cabins disappear so that's when you know something is happening in the background. I think it is initially allocation of guarantee categories then some cabins reappear, then they all disappear again and, if my upgrade bid is successful, that's about the time I would expect to hear. 

 

I also ask on the group social media page for my upcoming cruise if others have had allocations yet, or upgrades to see what's happening with them.

 

 

 

I agree that the Princess site is as good as any. This pattern does happen often, and it is when the cruise is close to sold out. Rather than have a handful of cabins for sale, they could have 200 to choose from, but 195 could be for unallocated guarantee bookings. At times, it shows as pretty much sold out, but it only takes a couple of cancellations for all 200 cabins to show as available again. 

[cruiser3775]

Does this usually happen close to sailing date, or around the time when final payments are mostly due?

[OzKiwiJJ]

16 minutes ago, cruiser3775 said:

Does this usually happen close to sailing date, or around the time when final payments are mostly due?

If you look at the upgrade option on the Princess website it tells you in what timeframe upgrade bids open. I think it's around 75 days. We got an email 8th Jan for a 30th April cruise. 

 

I don't expect to hear whether our bid is successful until very close to embarkation day.