Upgrade from PLUS to PREMIER on existing booking

[Wishing on a star]

I thought it might be simpler to start a new thread, instead of piggyback on the other recent one.

 

We were not able to do this upgrade either online or thru the APP.

It just keeps saying:  You have PRINCESS PLUS.   No obvious way to upgrade.

I called our TA, who is finally back in the office, and she had passed this on, as she is now in Management.

They responded that there is NO way to do this, without increasing our FARE,  a LOT.   Like a reface or something????

What!!!!

Went on Priincess Chat, and the agent immediately offered to do the upgrade.  

I confirmed that the amount would be $20. per day, added to our balance due.

The agent said they would make a note on the booking.   

All seems good.

 

But, I am now wondering how long this will take to show up.

So far, our booking still says Princess PLUS.

 

Princess can be so frustrating!

[wallyj]

@Wishing on a star, sometimes when they upgrade, you only see it in the travel summary with the amenities of the Premier package listed there showing upgrade to Premier beverage pkg, etc.

 

I believe you are familiar with how to ‘see’ your travel summary?

 

If the balance due shows the added amount, then the amenities SHOULD appear in your travel summary.

 

Please report back if this is true?

[JamieLogical]

Was your initial booking a casino fare? That seems to completely break the ability to upgrade from Plus to Premier through the app or website if you initially book with Plus. I have had this happen to me on two sailings now. For the first one, I was able to call in, upgrade to Premier, and pay over the phone with my credit card (already past final payment). The second time I attempted to upgrade via chat and it blew up my entire booking. I was told it would be the normal extra $20/day, so for this 14-day sailing, it should have cost $560 total for the two of us. Once the upgrade was applied, my amount owed (this was also after final payment) showed we owed $1408!

 

I pointed this out to the chat agent and he dug into it and said because this was a casino booking, that is how much it would cost. I asked him to remove the upgrade and just put us back to Plus because we clearly weren't going to pay that much to upgrade to Premier. He did so and after we were back to Plus, our billing page said we owed $1512! So now we owed $1512 just to have our booking back to what it was before!

 

THREE hours on chat and on the phone with 4 different people and my booking was finally back to a $0 balance and Plus. I am just going to wait until we are on board to upgrade. All of this was because the original chat agent had forgotten to copy/paste some code when he did the initial upgrade. 

[PescadoAmarillo]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

I am just going to wait until we are on board to upgrade. 

When is your cruise?  Will you let us know if this is possible?  I had intended to use OBC on board to purchase the plus package, but with the lure of double days, added it at final payment. Still, I wouldn’t mind upgrading to premium on board. 

[JamieLogical]

3 minutes ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

When is your cruise?  Will you let us know if this is possible?  I had intended to use OBC on board to purchase the plus package, but with the lure of double days, added it at final payment. Still, I wouldn’t mind upgrading to premium on board. 

 

You definitely can. I have been informed by lots of people here on CC that there is usually a table set up to the side of where you come onto the ship at embarkation where you can do it right away without having to go to Guest Services.

[Wishing on a star]

Thanks Wally!

Just double checked the Travel Summary. (where it says 'print travel summary').

Still just shows PLUS.

I will def. have to look more into this today!

 

Adding PLUS should not be a problem at all.  But, about upgrading to Premier when onboard.

Of course, they seem to hold a number of reservations at the Specialty Restaurants until boarding.   But, has anyone heard of Princess limiting new PREMIER upgrades, possibly because the Specialties are booked up?

Edited July 12 by Wishing on a star

[Miss Picante]

I upgraded from Plus to Premier after booking.

 

I did this through my Princess rep, who sent me an email confirmation of the upgrade to Premier.

 

But the Princess website and app for my cruise showed only Plus all the way to embarkation day. Another Princess  IT glitch.  Sigh.

 

I printed out the Premier confirmation and took it to Guest Services after boarding so that they could confirm that I had Premier. I did indeed have Premier.

 

Next time I will be sure to book Premier at the same time I book the cruise.

 

[Jnsplace1]

I did an upgrade through Princess, and while my header still says PLUS.  There are line items for Premier upgrade in the booking details.

App also continues to say Plus.   I figure, whatever, as long as I get the benefits I'm good.

 

I know it works because I booked two specialty dining at no cost.

[wallyj]

@Wishing on a star, are you saying in your travel summary there are no line items of all the amenities you are getting, none of them say upgraded to Premier beverage package, etc., see post #8.

 

The few instances where I have heard passenger was not able to upgrade to premier was on a short cruise as all specialty dining was fully booked. Passenger said they really wanted upgraded drink limit and did not care about SD, but was still  denied ability to upgrade as ‘capacity/limit’ was reached for Premier.

[Wishing on a star]

Yes, line items also still show PLUS.   (which is okay if I know that this is just the IT glitch)

Just wish I could figure out what was going on?

Confusing!

[lx200gps]

We have done this upgrade numerous times, both on the ship right after embarking, and twice on the phone with Princess (we have a TA who handles all our trips but things like this I do myself). I haven't tried the Chat yet but I may try it int he future; connecting by phone was very fast anyway. The first time I upgraded over the phone they changed our booking to say "Premier" in the Personalizer, on the Travel Summary etc. The second time it was done as an upgrade instead of a full change and our details for that trip still all say "Plus" but explicitly show all the upgrades. In addition to the Travel Summary, you can also see the status of this on the Personalizer under the "Extras" tab. Scroll to the bottom and a Plus to Premier upgrade looks like this. There are a lot of other line items I didn't bother copying:

 

[Wishing on a star]

It doesn't sound like this used to be any issue.   But...

 

Okay,  this is very confusing...  But, something might be going on here with Princess.

 

We contacted our TA, who passed this off to somebody who called Princess.  No luck.  Some kind of language about changes with Premier, we booked before changes... etc.

I tried Princess Chat.   No surprise, I have Screen-Shots and Chat transcript that show we have upgraded...  But no upgrade ever showed up.

I tried Princess Chat, again...  This time they told me to give them a few minutes.. and came back with a 'NO'...  But, this time they tried to pass it off as something to do with our Agency or Promo or 'whatever'.  And, it is a TA booking...  yada yada yada...

 

Then there is the thought that, maybe, they might now be trying a cap on the number of Premier packages, perhaps due to availability of Specialty dining.    So, I double checked, acted like I was booking this cruise online...  it definitely offers to add Premier...  no problem.  Premier shows up as an option.  (Save on what our are going to do anyway)

 

Final take-away....  something might be going on here.  More confusions and craziness.

If anyone is booking a cruise, or has a booking, especially thru a TA, and not directly with Princess...  You might want to think about going ahead and booking Premier if you might be interested at all.  Go ahead and add it to your booking, and you won't have to be concerned about all of this.

 

[ceilidh1]

48 minutes ago, Wishing on a star said:

It doesn't sound like this used to be any issue.   But...

 

Okay,  this is very confusing...  But, something might be going on here with Princess.

 

We contacted our TA, who passed this off to somebody who called Princess.  No luck.  Some kind of language about changes with Premier, we booked before changes... etc.

I tried Princess Chat.   No surprise, I have Screen-Shots and Chat transcript that show we have upgraded...  But no upgrade ever showed up.

I tried Princess Chat, again...  This time they told me to give them a few minutes.. and came back with a 'NO'...  But, this time they tried to pass it off as something to do with our Agency or Promo or 'whatever'.  And, it is a TA booking...  yada yada yada...

 

Then there is the thought that, maybe, they might now be trying a cap on the number of Premier packages, perhaps due to availability of Specialty dining.    So, I double checked, acted like I was booking this cruise online...  it definitely offers to add Premier...  no problem.  Premier shows up as an option.  (Save on what our are going to do anyway)

 

Final take-away....  something might be going on here.  More confusions and craziness.

If anyone is booking a cruise, or has a booking, especially thru a TA, and not directly with Princess...  You might want to think about going ahead and booking Premier if you might be interested at all.  Go ahead and add it to your booking, and you won't have to be concerned about all of this.

 

If you have a TA, they should be able to simply add the code to your booking and that will upgrade to the premiere package from plus. It's done right in Polar (the booking engine) and the code to add to go from Plus to Premiere is NEWPLS2PRM (assuming you booked Plus at $60 a day - the difference would be an additional $20 per day per person and both pax 1 and 2 must have it). 

[Wishing on a star]

Thanks for the info and the code!  

Yes, I know this is what should be... That is what one would assume...  But my TA, who is now management/supervisory, is going by the info she received when she forwarded this to somebody, who called Princess.  I would mention the Agency... but of course can not here on CC.

And, on my second Chat with Princess...  the agent also mentioned some 'language' where this could not be upgraded.  (Promos...  changes to Plus and Premier since we booked... on and on.)

I don't know what the issue is...  But there are ten different stories out there.

This should not be the case.  But, believe me... This has been my experience.

Edited July 13 by Wishing on a star

[Wishing on a star]

I went and looked up dates for the changes when PLUS went to $60. per day.

I believe this was effective Dec 2022.  

We booked last year in 2023.

Any major changes since we booked????  I don't know?

None of this makes since.

[Rick&Jeannie]

I have seen a few references by CC members here that *seem* to imply that some cruises *have* had their Premier numbers capped. No first-hand experience, though.

[gvre]

9 hours ago, Wishing on a star said:

Thanks Wally!

Just double checked the Travel Summary. (where it says 'print travel summary').

Still just shows PLUS.

I will def. have to look more into this today!

 

Adding PLUS should not be a problem at all.  But, about upgrading to Premier when onboard.

Of course, they seem to hold a number of reservations at the Specialty Restaurants until boarding.   But, has anyone heard of Princess limiting new PREMIER upgrades, possibly because the Specialties are booked up?

We upgrade to preimer all the time when we board. Just do it as soon as you board.

I can't say for sure but it seemed cheaper than before we left.

[Wishing on a star]

I am also remembering the issue where you could pull up a cruise, and it would only show PLUS.   Like it might have been an IT problem.

But, now it seems that cruises are showing both PLUS and PREMIER.

 

If they had reached the limit or cap on Premier, then it shouldn't be showing Premier as an option when going in like you are making a new booking.

 

Seems like something is going on with all of this?

[Wishing on a star]

Update:   No matter what has been going on at Princess with this Premier Package thing, it seems that the problem that I am having here might be a more specific problem to our booking...  Like maybe an IT thing after all.

Premier seems to be showing available with no problem online.

 

Leave it to me to be the one to hit upon something like this!!!!!

I am the problem child!!!!!!

Anyhow,  most people probably would probably not see this problem.

Ugggghhhh!!!!!

[RicoRoxy]

13 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

You definitely can. I have been informed by lots of people here on CC that there is usually a table set up to the side of where you come onto the ship at embarkation where you can do it right away without having to go to Guest Services.

I can confirm that this is true. Many "upsell" tables around, especially when you board. We always book Plus and then upgrade to Premier using OBC once onboard. The only caveat is that if your first folks to board, it sometimes takes the computers an hour or so to update (old pax vs new pax). But they give you a written receipt and you ca take that (as we have) to Alfredo's or Sushi and order whatever you want. We had no problems and no obscure charges, but were prepared to go to Guest Services if need be.  

Edited July 13 by RicoRoxy

[ceilidh1]

2 hours ago, Wishing on a star said:

Update:   No matter what has been going on at Princess with this Premier Package thing, it seems that the problem that I am having here might be a more specific problem to our booking...  Like maybe an IT thing after all.

Premier seems to be showing available with no problem online.

 

Leave it to me to be the one to hit upon something like this!!!!!

I am the problem child!!!!!!

Anyhow,  most people probably would probably not see this problem.

Ugggghhhh!!!!!

By any chance did your booking have pre-paid gratuities/crew appreciation (outside of the plus package) or, when you booked, was the plus package part of your booking as a promo (so you didn't pay "extra" for it but it was "gifted" as part of the promotion? I suspect that your booking already has an offer code attached (either for Plus or some other promotion) and the folks looking at your booking don't know how to handle that (the Princess agents are the WORST lately - I often have to go through at least 4 before I can find one that can actually help). It is simply a case of removing the offer code attached and assigning the new one. You just need to find a rep seasoned enough to know how to do this. 

 

That being said, it is possible that your booking was some kind of promo that will not combine with the offer code (you should know what promo you booked with). This is from the Princess FAQ: Does Princess Plus or Princess Premier combine with any other promotions, offers or cruise deals?
Yes. Princess Plus and Princess Premier can be combined with most publicly available offers including Standard Groups, Cruise Sales, casino discounts, military benefits, Future Cruise Deposits, Princess Referral Rewards, geo-targeted and recipient-only offers and Captain's Circle Launch Savings. Princess Plus and Princess Premier are not combinable with any other promotions. 

 

If all else fails, would there be a huge price difference to just cancel and rebook (assuming final hasn't already passed)? If not, that may be the route to take. Or just wait until onboard and upgrade at that point...

[Wishing on a star]

Thanks!!!

Yes, it seems to be something like you describe.   But maybe some confusion or IT problem.

It was so confusing, and kind of bugged me, not knowing why they didn't want to take a customer's money for an upsell !!!  (kind of getting a run-around)

We are going to stay just like we are, with the PLUS package.

No biggie...  First world problem!!!