You can upgrade, but you can’t downgrade

[Boatharbour]

A cabin in a better location than the one we originally booked has become available. We have already made final payment.

 

i contacted Celebrity to see if we could swap cabins. Not a problem until they realised that this would be a downgrade - concierge down to verandah. The only way to swap would be to cancel our original booking, forfeit the fully paid fare and then rebook.
 

However, if we wanted to upgrade it’s a different story. All we would need to do is pay the difference in fares.

 

Can any one explain the logic behind this policy? We don’t want a credit for the lower fare, just want to change cabins. 

[Doctor G]

A few years ago I downgraded from Concierge to Family Veranda (while this is a better cabin, it is still considered a regular veranda rather than Concierge), and all they did was switch my cabin.  I did not cancel and rebook.  I still paid the higher fare, but that was fine with me.  I cannot remember if this was after final payment, but I think it was.  Of course, Celebrity changes the rules every other minute 😁

 

Carolyn

[wrk2cruise]

It's been pretty common that they require the new room category to be at least $1 more when making a change after final payment.  Can you try to add perks or something to make it a true upgrade?

[dkjretired]

That's why its called final payment....

[deliver42]

This is fairly common regardless of cruise line.

[Boatharbour]

3 hours ago, dkjretired said:

That's why its called final payment....

I understand that final is final, but why is an upgrade treated differently?

[dkjretired]

13 minutes ago, Boatharbour said:

I understand that final is final, but why is an upgrade treated differently?

Because they can make money on it, downgrade not so much.

[royalcruz]

1 hour ago, dkjretired said:

Because they can make money on it, downgrade not so much.

They CAN make money on a downgrade! They can resell the concierge room at a higher cost than the veranda room that the OP is willing to accept. 

For example....if a veranda is $1000 and a concierge is $1500, that's $2500. But the OP's request would net $3000 to Celebrity!

 

[cruisestitch]

It would only do IF they could re-sell the stateroom

[sanger727]

I think it's pretty standard that you can upgrade (because they want you to pay more money) but you can't downgrade after final payment. Now, I've been offered an upgrade for free before because the price of that category dropped to below what we had paid. But I think it's just a booking quirk that that is offered when a downgrade for free is not. Now, an interesting question would be if a downgraded category rose in price to more than you paid, if they would allow you to downgrade for a price. But I've not heard of anyone doing that.

[tgg]

17 hours ago, Boatharbour said:

A cabin in a better location than the one we originally booked has become available. We have already made final payment.

 

i contacted Celebrity to see if we could swap cabins. Not a problem until they realised that this would be a downgrade - concierge down to verandah. The only way to swap would be to cancel our original booking, forfeit the fully paid fare and then rebook.
 

However, if we wanted to upgrade it’s a different story. All we would need to do is pay the difference in fares.

 

Can any one explain the logic behind this policy? We don’t want a credit for the lower fare, just want to change cabins. 

 

You said you don't want a credit for the lower fare, just to change cabins. There seems no logical reason for Celebrity not to do this for you.  Did you book directly with Celebrity?  I think a good travel agent could get this done with a phone call.

[TeeRick]

Which is more important- Changing cabins or saving money on the new cabin?   It seems you just want to change cabins.  Perhaps if you just want to change cabins without a new fare they can do this for you with a direct phone call to them.  Or perhaps charge you just $1 more for the new cabin so it goes through as an upgrade.  Their computer system probably has no way to downgrade at a cheaper price post final payment without a complete re-book.  But people can actually over ride these things if you are persistent.  It works in their favor since they can rebook your original cabin at a higher price for somebody else.

[dkjretired]

11 hours ago, royalcruz said:

They CAN make money on a downgrade! They can resell the concierge room at a higher cost than the veranda room that the OP is willing to accept. 

For example....if a veranda is $1000 and a concierge is $1500, that's $2500. But the OP's request would net $3000 to Celebrity!

 

 

THat's why I said not so much, that Concierge cabin may go for the market price at the time also which may be lower.  Works both ways. 

[K&RCurt]

6 minutes ago, dkjretired said:

 

THat's why I said not so much, that Concierge cabin may go for the market price at the time also which may be lower.  Works both ways. 

 

Exactly.  They go through all the upgrades and upsells to free up lower cost cabins for last minute sales.  They don't want capacity in the higher level cabins because they are harder to sell at the last minute.  

[Boatharbour]

5 hours ago, tgg said:

 

You said you don't want a credit for the lower fare, just to change cabins. There seems no logical reason for Celebrity not to do this for you.  Did you book directly with Celebrity?  I think a good travel agent could get this done with a phone call.

We booked directly with Celebrity. I spoke at length to Celebrity on the phone about a swap, but was told it could not be done.

 

The change is from a concierge to a family verandah of which there are still several unsold. The family verandah cost more than the concierge, but the issue is that it’s a lower category therefore a downgrade. 

[Boatharbour]

3 minutes ago, Boatharbour said:

We booked directly with Celebrity. I spoke at length to Celebrity on the phone about a swap, but was told it could not be done.

 

The change is from a concierge to a family verandah of which there are still several unsold. The family verandah cost more than the concierge, but the issue is that it’s a lower category therefore a downgrade. 

Just to clarify the cost - family verandah cost more when we originally booked. It’s now considerably less than we paid for a concierge.

[bEwAbG]

Did you ask to speak to a supervisor?  Basing all of this on talking to only one agent would be a mistake.  

[Boatharbour]

13 hours ago, bEwAbG said:

Did you ask to speak to a supervisor?  Basing all of this on talking to only one agent would be a mistake.  

Thanks for the tip. I’ll try again.
 

I’m a novice at this, but quickly learning if you don’t like the answer you get from a Celebrity rep, ring again and talk to someone else. 

[Boatharbour]

On 11/9/2019 at 6:17 AM, bEwAbG said:

Did you ask to speak to a supervisor?  Basing all of this on talking to only one agent would be a mistake.  

I made another call today and unfortunately got the same answer. Upgrades are possible, downgrades are not.

 

Then I asked to speak to a supervisor and once again, same reply. He explained that the  system can’t handle a downgrade unless we cancel altogether and rebook. He looked at ways to get around it, but it came back to us losing the full payment we had already made as a penalty. For some reason however, the system can handle an upgrade without penalty...even a free upgrade. 

It still going to be a great cruise.