Unusual Upgrade Offer

[Winchester Ranger]

So we are booked to sail on QM2 on 2nd June heading to Norway on cruise M415 and we just received our upgrade offers.  When I last cruised with Cunard on a TA I don’t recall being offered the option of bidding for stateroom upgrades but for me it’s an interesting new wrinkle to the booking process.  With that said they are offering various bids for upgrades including one to a Queens Grill (minimum bid £2,700 per couple max bid £6,300) and one into a Penthouse Suite (minimum bid £5,340 per couple max bid £12,460), so out of curiosity I looked at the website and Penthouse Suites show as sold out.  Just wondering if anyone has the logic behind this, I get the logic behind upgrades in general but offering discounted rates for staterooms that are not available for full price reservations seems odd.  Any thoughts on the logic, and also any thoughts on upgrading?

[exlondoner]

I recently received an equally surprising email. Firstly, I booked through a TA, and I thought upgrades were booked directly. Secondly, it was an offer to bid for upgrade from a Q4 to a Q1 or Q2 on QA’s second voyage, where I thought the QG cabins had been booked out for ages.

 

So I am as mystified as you.

 

[tacticalbanjo]

It's quite possible that cheaper cabins are an easier sell. So if you get people to pay to upgrade to PG or QG and free up a Britannia cabin which can be easily sold for close then you are quids in. It's all about maximising revenue per room and not risking the most profitable rooms going unsold or selling for too little.

[exlondoner]

That doesn’t really answer the point about cabins being apparently sold out, and the QG cabins do tend to sell out early.

[BigMac1953]

You will probably be in reserve, as there's bound to be "no shows" through illness, urgent business, bereavements, transport problems, etc..

[exlondoner]

Just now, BigMac1953 said:

You will probably be in reserve, as there's bound to be "no shows" through illness, urgent business, bereavements, transport problems, etc..

Of course, but gambling on a no show from six specific cabins seems a bit extreme.

[BigMac1953]

37 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Of course, but gambling on a no show from six specific cabins seems a bit extreme.

 

What have they got to lose?

[Windsurfboy]

1 hour ago, BigMac1953 said:

 

What have they got to lose?

 

You're right Absoltely Nothing to lose , as it's automated cost them nothing.

 

Must work better than old wait list system which relied on people , which I've been on, but no one's ever rung me , even when QG cabin i wanted appeared online, shortly after final payment time.

[majortom10]

We received an e mail with offer to upgrade on our December Canaries cruise last year. We were in PG and we bid for QG even though the grade we bid for was showing as sold out. We then received an e mail some time later saying we had been successful with our bid and giving new suite number. Don't know how it works but should imagine they send out upgrade e mails just in case they have any late cancellations.

[Winchester Ranger]

So the thinking is that it’s a bid against a cabin that is already booked by someone else, in the eventuality that they cancel - interesting.  My first ever cruise with Cunard was an eastbound TA from NYC (many years ago) and I do remember Cunard selling off unsold cabins at the last minute for heavily discounted prices, a balcony cabin could be had for just $500 and that was for single occupancy.  I recall that so clearly because I called Cunard customer service to moan about paying nearly 4 times that for my balcony cabin and noting that I had the option to cancel and then rebook for $500 and a supervisor promptly plonked $500 into my OBC account which made the call worthwhile.  The bid system sounds like a much better idea.

[tacticalbanjo]

5 hours ago, exlondoner said:

That doesn’t really answer the point about cabins being apparently sold out, and the QG cabins do tend to sell out early.

Penthouses might be sold out but the grades above are not. I'm sure Cunard know how many of those cabins are opted into free upgrades and thus how many penthouses they can offer as a paid upgrade. They may also have offered paid upgrades to those penthouse occupiers in the hopes that they will pay a little more to get Q1, 2 or 3. 

[exlondoner]

8 minutes ago, tacticalbanjo said:

Penthouses might be sold out but the grades above are not. I'm sure Cunard know how many of those cabins are opted into free upgrades and thus how many penthouses they can offer as a paid upgrade. They may also have offered paid upgrades to those penthouse occupiers in the hopes that they will pay a little more to get Q1, 2 or 3. 

You are probably right, but whenever I’ve looked for my cruise the grades above have been declared sold out, but obviously I wouldn’t know. I do know that on QA the Q3s are classified as penthouses.

[tacticalbanjo]

7 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

You are probably right, but whenever I’ve looked for my cruise the grades above have been declared sold out, but obviously I wouldn’t know. I do know that on QA the Q3s are classified as penthouses.

Every time I look different categories are showing as sold out!

 

I'm actually on this 2nd June QM2 sailing too and I was offered to upgrade to a sheltered balcony from my obstructed view. All the balconies including club are showing as sold out. I guess they are relying on just shuffling as many people up the chain as they can. I think each upgrade very much depends on what upgrades have happened in the grades above you.

[3rdGenCunarder]

21 minutes ago, tacticalbanjo said:

Every time I look different categories are showing as sold out!

 

I'm actually on this 2nd June QM2 sailing too and I was offered to upgrade to a sheltered balcony from my obstructed view. All the balconies including club are showing as sold out. I guess they are relying on just shuffling as many people up the chain as they can. I think each upgrade very much depends on what upgrades have happened in the grades above you.

 

I bid on an upgrade to PG on my cruise last fall. Like you, I saw different categories sold out each time I checked. I also checked QG, although I had not been invited to bid on that, thinking if one of them opened up and someone in PG got that, then maybe...  My bid was not accepted, but I was happy with my original cabin. 

[BEAV]

The “sold out” category question with regard to bid upgrade programs is a source of confusion across all cruise lines that offer this opportunity.

 

It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with current inventory, but more about possible cancellations later on down the road. 
 

Example: We had a top level suite booked that we unfortunately had to cancel two days prior to sailing. Our cancellation then set into motion a host of upgrades from our high category on down the chain.

Someone in a lower category “won” our suite, then someone else won their now-vacated suite. So on and so forth it goes…

 

This is an excellent (and efficient) program for the cruise lines as they already have a host of bids for all different categories, along with your credit card number and authorization from you to charge.

 

So don’t get caught up when you see solicitations to bid for sold-out categories. 

[exlondoner]

28 minutes ago, BEAV said:

The “sold out” category question with regard to bid upgrade programs is a source of confusion across all cruise lines that offer this opportunity.

 

It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with current inventory, but more about possible cancellations later on down the road. 
 

Example: We had a top level suite booked that we unfortunately had to cancel two days prior to sailing. Our cancellation then set into motion a host of upgrades from our high category on down the chain.

Someone in a lower category “won” our suite, then someone else won their now-vacated suite. So on and so forth it goes…

 

This is an excellent (and efficient) program for the cruise lines as they already have a host of bids for all different categories, along with your credit card number and authorization from you to charge.

 

So don’t get caught up when you see solicitations to bid for sold-out categories. 

It is always a bit depressing to think that one’s chances of an upgrade often depend on someone else having a horrid experience of some sort that makes them cancel.

[Lakesregion]

Every cruise line has gone into up-sell and a million other ways to relieve the guest of additional coin. Pretty soon it will be "up grade from our standard horse hair pillows to something better for only $2 a day and so on. Not a great look but as long as the sailing public plays into the game it will continue to get worse.

[LittleFish1976]

23 hours ago, Winchester Ranger said:

So we are booked to sail on QM2 on 2nd June heading to Norway on cruise M415 and we just received our upgrade offers.  When I last cruised with Cunard on a TA I don’t recall being offered the option of bidding for stateroom upgrades but for me it’s an interesting new wrinkle to the booking process.  With that said they are offering various bids for upgrades including one to a Queens Grill (minimum bid £2,700 per couple max bid £6,300) and one into a Penthouse Suite (minimum bid £5,340 per couple max bid £12,460), so out of curiosity I looked at the website and Penthouse Suites show as sold out.  Just wondering if anyone has the logic behind this, I get the logic behind upgrades in general but offering discounted rates for staterooms that are not available for full price reservations seems odd.  Any thoughts on the logic, and also any thoughts on upgrading?

My very recent experience would indicate that Cunard may block out as 'sold out' the higher grades of cabin on the website whilst they are shuffling the cabin allocations around during the bidding process. I recently bid on a Q3; all categories above Britannia balcony were showing as sold out and yet my bid was accepted. My logic tells me that they just need to start moving people up to any higher category to start freeing up other cabins for the acceptance of bids. It makes sense to me that they close them for sale temporarily on the website while they do their shuffling around. It's a much better arrangement for Cunard to achieve a guaranteed amount of money for the higher grades of cabin than to risk being left with them empty and unsaleable closer to departure (or even at departure). I'm sure people are willing to pay more for an upgrade several weeks prior to embarkation than they might be at the point of embarkation.

 

The prices achieved by this bidding system are higher in my experience than the pay-for upgrade Cunard used to offer prior to departure. And definitely more lucrative to Cunard than the free upgrade which I've been lucky enough to benefit from on one occasion.

 

 

[Victoria2]

11 hours ago, Lakesregion said:

Every cruise line has gone into up-sell and a million other ways to relieve the guest of additional coin. Pretty soon it will be "up grade from our standard horse hair pillows to something better for only $2 a day and so on. Not a great look but as long as the sailing public plays into the game it will continue to get worse.

If it pours cash into coffers affected by the world lockdown and helps to keep 'my' cruise line afloat, then it's OK by me

[ivanidea]

It's worth noting that some travel agencies will have rooms reserved for them, which are shown as not available on the web site, only to be returned to availability if they are not sold by a certain date.