julig22

I was offered a paid upgrade when it was a NCL charter to Tahiti a few years ago. Bidding probably makes more sense in that case because as I recall the price for the upgrade was pretty spendy. In fact I think I may have gotten a second, lower offer. I've also gotten other offers to bid but from the airline, not NCL.

It's based on when when you will arrive, not when you leave.

Deviation is booked for you to ARRIVE 1 or 2 days prior to your cruise, whichever you choose. Which often means you might leave 2or 3 days early, depending on how long it takes to get to your destination.

My 2nd cruise was through the Panama Canal, from San Diego, on the Pearl. Only cruise where I didn't have a balcony. The captain opened the front deck and I got up early to get a good view, stayed there for the majority of the time. But I do like having a balcony so I'd probably get one if I do that trip again but not necessarily for viewing the transit portion of the trip. On that cruise, I had OV/gty (booked late) and ended up with a porthole, deck 4. Pretty bad location except that in retrospect I should have spent some time watching from water level! On that cruise we left San Diego while there was a hurricane in Mexico, so we had to go way out to sea to miss the bad weather but it was still rough waters. My porthole was underwater much of the time those first few days - quite an experience, fortunately I'm not claustrophobic.

Not just a simple delayed flight. Flight from Copenhagen to Reykjavik was delayed, no way to make it to Reykjavik in time - flight was already long gone. In this case she had the new flight information and would have booked the flight from Reykjavik the next day, right then and there if I had said go. Wasn't bad information, I was on the phone with the emergency contact number, not a random NCL call handler. Yes, the emergency number works, at least it did for me.

Depends on the source of the FCC. Last I knew, bonus FCC couldn't be split, refund FCC can.

I just used my FCC from a price reduction to pay for an upcoming cruise, FCC covered about 40% of the fare - which already has almost every imaginable discount already applied. So it would appear that it's the fare/fcc ratio?

No, wish they did.

Yes, your mileage may vary. But from the NCL faq (which seems to change quite often, probably a direct result of the # of phone calls complaining about things that may not necessarily be under the control of NCL) - "For cruises concluding on the West Coast of the U.S. with guests returning home to a city located on the East Coast or central U.S., you may be reserved on a flight that departs up to 11:59 p.m. depending on available inventory." Doesn't make it more convenient of course, but that's pretty much the reality of cruises ending in Seattle. Probably why Seattle has the Port Valet program - store your luggage for you and encourage you to spend money in Seattle - brilliant move to get more tourist money!!

No advantage, exactly my point. By downstream effect I am referring to additional income they can get when you vacate a cabin and they resell or upgrade into that cabin. I think you are not understanding what I said.

Um, no. You are in competition with anyone else in the same balcony category, bidding for the same upgrade. How you got to that balcony has no effect on additional income they can get with upgrades.

Yes with one exception. They also figure in the downstream affect. A $300 bid that vacates a cabin they can resell or fill with a bid may trump a higher bid that simply empties a cabin. That's where the need for a more extensive algorithm comes in. Actually had this happen - I had a sold out cabin category, put in my minimum bid shortly after final payment. Got my upgrade bid shortly thereafter - they wanted my cabin to resell.

It obviously depends on the situation but to put it in perspective, most people posting on CC regarding their flight experience are complaining. No way to really weigh the actual success vs failure.

In your case I would check with your roll call and see if others are getting flights. They sometimes charter flights from LAX. Leave around midnight, arrive at 6 am.

I know that you may not be able to combine benefits from cancelled cruises with fcc so for example if you had a 10% discount for a cancellation you can't use FCC from a price reduction. Are you booking solo or is the $1000 for 2 - and they're only applying FCC to 1 reservation? That's all I got!

I had a cruise last July, starting in Stockholm. A few days before I was scheduled to leave, everything had to be changed because of cancellations. I didn't have to lift a finger to get my flights rebooked, NCL took care of it - on completely different airlines. On the way home, one of my flights was delayed, so I would miss my connection. Even tho the airline said they'd take care of it (which they did), I called NCL and they would have rebooked my ticket if necessary. What NCL won't do is change your flights if you don't like them. They don't choose your seats, they won't upgrade you from basic economy. They follow industry guidelines regarding connection times.

If you've ever traveled internationally then the TSA has your info, whether or not you think you've never given it to them. Did not change my story, I unfortunately used language from another source. Please move on.

There is a major flaw in your logic, unfortunately. They attempt to limit to 3 flights. So if you are flying from a major hub they have more options than if you're coming from a local airport and have to use at least 1 leg to get to a hub. Last year I flew to Denver, then Toronto to Rome. There were a number of passengers from Toronto that had layovers, nothing direct at all.

The fact that you are in a bidding war even tho you seem to have paid significantly less than others seems to imply that price paid doesn't matter. Who wudda thunk?

It just depends on what you want out of your cruise. Was on the Star (Iceland to London) in August. It was port intensive so the ship was where I slept and ate. NCL air was as direct as possible when flying from my location from Oregon - Seattle to Reykjavik, London to LAX. Drink package is optional, just cancel if you don't drink. Same with the dining package. Staff rotates so every cruise is different. Food is subjective. Excursions may be sold out, maybe more coming. I cruise for the itinerary, so clean and functional are my priorities.

Just a fyi - if you are using NCL airfare, book the post cruise excursion before they start booking flights. They will see it on your reservation and see if a late flight is possible, although no guarantee. If they can't book a late enough flight, they'll cancel the excursion (eventually).

Yea, I had to jump through hoops a few weeks ago. I repriced onboard when they were giving a 10% discount. When I upgraded with points the system deleted the 10% but the WP person checked and verified that none of my discounts were prohibited. But I did have to call NCL to get it fixed, although they tried to tell me it was because that promo had expired.

Of course there will be employees within an organization when there are licensed/outsourced applications. But since I have to go to a non-NCL site for bidding https://upgrade.plusgrade.com/offer/NCL/ that fits my definition of outsourced. NCL supplies the data, pays in one form or another for the processing of that data. But thanks for the insight.

My retirement pension from a career in business/database development pays for my travels... NCL outsources to Plusgrade for upgrades - so while the program could easily be as you describe, NCL isn't paying the cost of development. My point is that certain information isn't necessary to achieve the same outcomes. CAS is also not a NCL entity - so that "free casino cruise" isn't actually comped by NCL, although I have no idea on the actual arrangement. So maybe NCL got $2000 for the same cabin they sold for $1800 - who really knows. Just how many actual ties do you think there would be during bidding? All they really have to do is prioritize cabins - most desirable to least desirable, based on past booking information. Then go down the list of available cabins and start ranking bids for that cabin. Ranking by price AND current cabin, awarding the bid where bid + downstream upgrades generate the highest $$. Not necessarily simple but can be done without including any passenger information. And why bother upgrading Balcony cabins if they have 200 open on that ship - so in this case, they won't upgrade everyone, but only a portion. Huh?? Every upgrade bid generates income, why wouldn't they upgrade anyone who asks if an upgrade is available?

With most airlines you can upgrade seats within economy - but you can't upgrade to a better class.