Royal Up Versus Wait listed

[dodgestang]

So when I booked last time through the Casino the room I wanted wasn't available.

So I booked with a different room and they put a note in, just in case it became available.

 

Time passes

 

Royal Up emails go out....I get one...I bid on the room I wanted at price point X 

 

Get an email today from casino, room I was wait listed for has become available.  Call and I am told it is 3x to upgrade my booking into the room.

 

UGH.  

 

I suppose it's Royal Up and roll the dice.   😞

 

I was willing to pay more than my Royal up offer to secure the room I wanted, but not 3x

I even said that...I'm like look....we are less than 2 months out....I'm willing to pay more, but the royal up interface has a cap, so I can't bid more.  Call me back when you are willing to negotiate on this room.

[dodgestang]

Well....pretty sure this will be the last cruise I take on Royal at this point.  After 4 cruises in 11 months.  This 'room' is now available for booking on site.  FOR 2k LESS THAN IT WAS OFFERED TO ME as a new booking with 4 people.....and I'm booked with Emerald level discounts AND prime free cruise discount.

 

[Biker19]

8 minutes ago, dodgestang said:

  FOR 2k LESS THAN IT WAS OFFERED TO ME as a new booking with 4 people....

Dynamic pricing can lead to wild price swings - probably not much different on other lines.

[dodgestang]

Absolutely ludacris.....because now....I called them back.....talked to someone else, just said I wanted to see about upgrading into a room that looks like it was available....and the price.....is what I was willing to pay for the upgrade....so now....I'm upgraded to the room.

 

There was literally a 10k difference in the price I was told yesterday versus what I just paid today to upgrade into the room.

[RFerrington]

Did you end up with a casino upgrade discount or something else ?  I am so annoyed with the casino upgrade discounts currently.  I’m sure it’s due to RoyalUp.  As good as they are, I still can’t believe that they wouldn’t make more on the casino upgrade than they would with the RoyalUp bids.  You’d think they would be happy to give us a good casino upgrade discount and forego the whole RoyalUp process entirely but they don’t seem to want to do that.

[dodgestang]

I had booked a Grand Loft Suite using the prime annual free cruise discount.  It gave us the room at a pretty discounted rate so I was happy.

 

Now that I made multiple phone calls I am in the Royal Loft Suite at a price I feel was acceptable.

 

To put it all into context when I first booked the Royal Loft wasn't available so I couldn't even get pricing on it.  But they put a note in my booking (which I didn't know they could do) and they sent me an email yesterday saying it was available.  So someone must have cancelled last minute.  The email said the room was 'held' for me until 10pm EST when it would become available for anyone.

 

I called right up and the girl was like no problem....if you want it...its $17,800 US.....MORE......than I had already paid for Grand Loft.  So I passed and decided I would just wait and see if my Royal Up Bid snagged me the room.  Thinking of course....that the Royal Up program would then take over and at least someone with bids in would get an upgrade.

 

On a lark this morning I popped over to a discount cruise website, put in 4 people, no discounts for previous cruising, no casino comps (basically a virgin booking) and the Royal Loft was available and the total price if I wanted to book it was $2,000 less than the price I had been quoted on the phone which was supposed to have included all kinds of crazy discounts because of my 'status'.  So I was more than a little peeved.  Especially since I asked TWICE on the phone if the person was sure that she didn't mean total cruise fare and then we had to subtract what I had already paid to come up with what I would to pay for the upgrade.

 

Ultimately this all comes down to a training issue IMO.  My best guess at this point is that she didn't bother to take into account all the various discounts that needed to be calculated.  She gave me the number in like 60 seconds.  The guy I talked to today it took 10-15 minutes before he had the numbers.

 

 

[John&LaLa]

I'm happy with Casino Royale freebies.

Cant beat 4 free cruises in 3 months.

And technically 7 in total for 2019. 😁

[dodgestang]

2 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

I'm happy with Casino Royale freebies.

Cant beat 4 free cruises in 3 months.

And technically 7 in total for 2019. 😁

 

I never take the 'free' as is.  I hate inside rooms.  If I could though....I'd be right there with you......the casino seems to love to give me free cruise certs when I am on board...and in the mail......but I don't live in FL....so most of the time they are useless to me anyway.  

[RFerrington]

Don’t get me wrong.  We get lots of freebie offers.  I’m not complaining about that.  My beef is with the cost of upgrading those freebie offers now compared to 3 months ago.

 

Last year we basically paid 40% of the already discounted price of whatever casino comp cruise we booked.  In other words, if the current booking scam is BOGO 50 (which is essentially 25% off retail) then the cost for us to upgrade our “free” cruise would be 40% of the 75% to any category up to and including Star Class.

 

The last casino comp upgrade that I priced would have been 60% of the 75%.  

 

Big difference.

[dodgestang]

I understand.  Our free prime cruise saved us a little more than 5k above the discounts we get for Emerald/Diamond/whatever we are these days and the standard 'promotions' when we booked into the GrandLoft. .  I would have liked to have seen a bigger discount....but......the economy is up....the ships are not sailing with a lot of vacancies.....so supply/demand and all that 😉  With the now updated booking it saved us somewhere between 7-8k.

Edited June 4, 2019 by dodgestang