Does NCL offer upgrades?

[Binks240]

Traveling on Gem on April 30th and noticed obstructed window is currently cheaper than inside and guarantee balcony price was $168.00 more than original price of the inside cabin. Called to see what they can do and they said because the inside cabin is currently at a higher rate than originally booked at, they can't offer me anything. They said to upgrade to the guarantee balcony it would be well over $1,000 to do so and the price currently listed online is only for new customers.

 

I see on CC that people are always getting free or paying a little more for an upgrade. I guess we just weren't lucky. I've only cruised once with Norwegian so I'm not familiar with how they do their upgrades.

 

Thanks

[Regguy]

Traveling on Gem on April 30th and noticed obstructed window is currently cheaper than inside and guarantee balcony price was $168.00 more than original price of the inside cabin. Called to see what they can do and they said because the inside cabin is currently at a higher rate than originally booked at, they can't offer me anything. They said to upgrade to the guarantee balcony it would be well over $1,000 to do so and the price currently listed online is only for new customers.

 

I see on CC that people are always getting free or paying a little more for an upgrade. I guess we just weren't lucky. I've only cruised once with Norwegian so I'm not familiar with how they do their upgrades.

 

Thanks

 

There are some weird cases of people talking past each other on these boards, because there are two very distinct concepts going on here. Usually, these are accounted for on these boards by using "upgrade" for one concept and "upsell" for the other, but if you don't understand the underlying situation, you can stay confused.

 

After final payment, your cruise is nonrefundable. NCL does this for obvious reasons. If they didn't, then people could just wait and wait and wait and continually cancel and rebook if prices go down. If NCL had a ship that was not going to sail full, everyone on the ship would change to the lower price as they dropped prices to sell the cabins. And, over time, people would wait longer and longer to book if they thought they could wait it out. It's not good for NCL and would ultimately raise the cost of the cruises for all of us.

 

So, once NCL has your money, you are locked in. They are not going to give you any option makes it so you pay less. If they have a number of unsold rooms as the cruise approaches, they will start to lower prices. (They won't lower them too much, though - there's a point at which they'd rather not sell them, because they don't want to cannibalize their own business.) These price drops are to try to get more people to book, not to move people who already are booked around to better cabins that they are hoping to sell to new customers. That's why you're getting the reaction you're getting. There are some who report they may be able to wrangle a bit of OBC out of NCL in this circumstance, but that's mostly a goodwill gesture to make you not angry and not something to count on.

 

Ok, so that's concept 1. Concept 2 is that there comes a time when the cruise is getting close, and they realize that cabins are going to be empty. They have data that shows them how many new customers book within X days of sailing, and their data show they are likely to only sell 10 more cabins at most, but they have 50 free, then they may be inclined to wheel and deal a little more. At this point, they'll take whatever additional revenue they can get. If they can get you to pony up more money by moving you, they might -- this is called an upsell and to get it you either need to call or they contact you and it has to be relatively close to the sailing date for the reasons above. (I don't know the number. Never done it. It's posted on these boards frequently.) Again, this isn't a sure thing. In some contexts, NCL would rather sail with empty cabins than to have your extra $500 or whatever because they have to take a long view of the business. NCL wants to sell Haven cabins for $5000. If word gets around that you can usually get one by booking a $2500 cabin and then paying another $1000, people will do this instead and they will stop selling Haven cabins at the price they prefer. So, NCL walks a balance -- between the desire to get short term revenue but only to the extent it doesn't hurt their future business. How they make these determinations is anyone's guess. You can get a little bit of a sense by reading people's upsell experiences here. But ultimately it's a formula known only to them.

 

So, anyway, you're probably trying to "upgrade." You might have better luck with an upsell.

[Binks240]

Thanks! Yeah I totally agree with you that people would just cancel and cancel. I'm ok with what we paid at the time. I guess just seeing what I "could" get now vs what I have is what gets me!:)

 

 

There are some weird cases of people talking past each other on these boards, because there are two very distinct concepts going on here. Usually, these are accounted for on these boards by using "upgrade" for one concept and "upsell" for the other, but if you don't understand the underlying situation, you can stay confused.

 

After final payment, your cruise is nonrefundable. NCL does this for obvious reasons. If they didn't, then people could just wait and wait and wait and continually cancel and rebook if prices go down. If NCL had a ship that was not going to sail full, everyone on the ship would change to the lower price as they dropped prices to sell the cabins. And, over time, people would wait longer and longer to book if they thought they could wait it out. It's not good for NCL and would ultimately raise the cost of the cruises for all of us.

 

So, once NCL has your money, you are locked in. They are not going to give you any option makes it so you pay less. If they have a number of unsold rooms as the cruise approaches, they will start to lower prices. (They won't lower them too much, though - there's a point at which they'd rather not sell them, because they don't want to cannibalize their own business.) These price drops are to try to get more people to book, not to move people who already are booked around to better cabins that they are hoping to sell to new customers. That's why you're getting the reaction you're getting. There are some who report they may be able to wrangle a bit of OBC out of NCL in this circumstance, but that's mostly a goodwill gesture to make you not angry and not something to count on.

 

Ok, so that's concept 1. Concept 2 is that there comes a time when the cruise is getting close, and they realize that cabins are going to be empty. They have data that shows them how many new customers book within X days of sailing, and their data show they are likely to only sell 10 more cabins at most, but they have 50 free, then they may be inclined to wheel and deal a little more. At this point, they'll take whatever additional revenue they can get. If they can get you to pony up more money by moving you, they might -- this is called an upsell and to get it you either need to call or they contact you and it has to be relatively close to the sailing date for the reasons above. (I don't know the number. Never done it. It's posted on these boards frequently.) Again, this isn't a sure thing. In some contexts, NCL would rather sail with empty cabins than to have your extra $500 or whatever because they have to take a long view of the business. NCL wants to sell Haven cabins for $5000. If word gets around that you can usually get one by booking a $2500 cabin and then paying another $1000, people will do this instead and they will stop selling Haven cabins at the price they prefer. So, NCL walks a balance -- between the desire to get short term revenue but only to the extent it doesn't hurt their future business. How they make these determinations is anyone's guess. You can get a little bit of a sense by reading people's upsell experiences here. But ultimately it's a formula known only to them.

 

So, anyway, you're probably trying to "upgrade." You might have better luck with an upsell.

[Regguy]

Thanks! Yeah I totally agree with you that people would just cancel and cancel. I'm ok with what we paid at the time. I guess just seeing what I "could" get now vs what I have is what gets me!:)

 

That's true, but you can drive yourself crazy with that. I like to pick my cabin. I like to be sure of the dates. And you can never predict the future -- maybe if you had waited the cruise would have sold out. So, even though it doesn't seem like it, you really did "buy" something with the amount extra that you paid above what you could pay now. It's sort of like insurance. Just because your house didn't flood last year doesn't mean you didn't get anything for your homeowner's premium, I guess!