QV Guarantees Only

[57eric]

I am booking one of the new QV itineraries for 2024 that went on sale yesterday.  My TA writes "unfortunately Cunard is not allowing any cabin assignments on this sailing".  Guarantees only.  Huh?  Has anyone else encountered this?

[BklynBoy8]

8 minutes ago, 57eric said:

I am booking one of the new QV itineraries for 2024 that went on sale yesterday.  My TA writes "unfortunately Cunard is not allowing any cabin assignments on this sailing".  Guarantees only.  Huh?  Has anyone else encountered this?

 

I hope they are not considering quarantine cabins set aside from now on.

[Victoria2]

As I have already posted on Hattie's new Q.A. thread

...........................................................

 

Usual problem.

The cabins we want are sold out, except they're not as they're available on longer portions of the cruise, but we can't select our cabin on those. As we like specific cabins,  we can wait and if we end up not booking anything on the W.C., it's not the end of the world.

.............................................................

 

The cabins will be released for selection at some stage.

[Host Hattie]

I think this is standard when segments initially go on sale.

[bluemarble]

6 minutes ago, 57eric said:

I am booking one of the new QV itineraries for 2024 that went on sale yesterday.  My TA writes "unfortunately Cunard is not allowing any cabin assignments on this sailing".  Guarantees only.  Huh?  Has anyone else encountered this?

 

Which specific sailing are you looking at @57eric?

 

Is your travel agent quoting you Cunard's "Value Fare" or what Cunard is calling "Our Lowest Fare"? Those fares are guarantee only. That may also be the case for other special promotional fares.

 

If your travel agent is quoting you the higher "Launch Benefits Fare" or the "Cunard Fare" you should be able to get a specific cabin assignment. A few popular cabin categories might be guarantee only at this point on those higher fares, but it would be unusual for all cabin categories to be guarantee only.

[57eric]

1 hour ago, Host Hattie said:

I think this is standard when segments initially go on sale.

Was absolutely not the case last year.

[bluemarble]

Oh, this is interesting! I am seeing some of the segments for QV's 2024 world voyage are indeed only available to book here in the US on a guarantee basis, even at the higher "Launch Benefits Fare" or "Cunard Fare". Of the 30 QV voyages for 2024 listed on the Cunard US website, these 8 voyages do not appear to be accepting cabin assignments. I wasn't expecting to see that. I've learned something today.

 

Fort Lauderdale To Sydney, 41 Nights (V405A)

San Francisco To Auckland, 17 Nights (V406A)

Auckland To Sydney, 8 Nights (V406C)

Auckland To Southampton, 63 Nights (V406D)

Hong Kong To Singapore, 6 Nights (V408A)

Hong Kong To Cape Town, 23 Nights (V408)

Singapore To Cape Town, 17 Nights (V408C)

Cape Town To Hamburg, 18 Nights (V409A)

Edited May 25, 2022 by bluemarble

[57eric]

1 hour ago, bluemarble said:

Oh, this is interesting! I am seeing some of the segments for QV's 2024 world voyage are indeed only available to book here in the US on a guarantee basis, even at the higher "Launch Benefits Fare" or "Cunard Fare". Of the 30 QV voyages for 2024 listed on the Cunard US website, these 8 voyages do not appear to be accepting cabin assignments. I wasn't expecting to see that. I've learned something today.

 

Fort Lauderdale To Sydney, 41 Nights (V405A)

San Francisco To Auckland, 17 Nights (V406A)

Auckland To Sydney, 8 Nights (V406C)

Auckland To Southampton, 63 Nights (V406D)

Hong Kong To Singapore, 6 Nights (V408A)

Hong Kong To Cape Town, 23 Nights (V408)

Singapore To Cape Town, 17 Nights (V408C)

Cape Town To Hamburg, 18 Nights (V409A)

It's a rare, proud moment when I can come up with something Blue Marble didn't already know. 

 

So, any speculation as to WHY Cunard would do this?  And how they'll sort it out?  Randomly assigning cabins to those who took the trouble to book on day 1 seems to me to be a great way to generate hostility.

[roscoe39]

I managed to get my choice of stateroom for the full WC 2024 , its been my experience in the past that the full world passengers get first pick at the staterooms and the segmenters get what's left after a period. I think the guarantees would clear quickly after the initial rush of the people taking the full trip.... Personally I think its fair for those willing to make the 100 day commitment to have first pick as its a long period to be in a stateroom you don't particularly want to be in....

[57eric]

22 minutes ago, roscoe39 said:

I managed to get my choice of stateroom for the full WC 2024 , its been my experience in the past that the full world passengers get first pick at the staterooms and the segmenters get what's left after a period. I think the guarantees would clear quickly after the initial rush of the people taking the full trip.... Personally I think its fair for those willing to make the 100 day commitment to have first pick as its a long period to be in a stateroom you don't particularly want to be in....

That sounds reasonable, but it's not what happened for me last year.  Moreover, if Blue Marble hasn't seen it, it's a fair bet it's never happened.

[bluemarble]

33 minutes ago, 57eric said:

It's a rare, proud moment when I can come up with something Blue Marble didn't already know. 

 

So, any speculation as to WHY Cunard would do this?  And how they'll sort it out?  Randomly assigning cabins to those who took the trouble to book on day 1 seems to me to be a great way to generate hostility.

 

Since I wasn't aware they did this, I'll speculate as to the "why".

 

As you may already know, Cunard never assigns the same cabin to more than one overlapping voyage at the same time. For example, if cabin 4123 is available on a 14-night roundtrip transatlantic crossing on QM2, then it is also technically available on both of the separate 7-night crossings as well. But that's not how it works. You will only see cabin 4123 listed as available on the 14-night roundtrip crossing or on the 7-night crossings, not both.

 

For this reason, any given cabin can only be assigned to one of the segments of the QV world voyage at any given time. By my reckoning, there are 29 voyages listed on the Cunard US website that fall within the range of the QV 2024 full world voyage from Hamburg (Jan 9-Apr 30, 2024). Apparently Cunard has decided that it will forgo assigning any cabins at all to some of those segments at this time. Not sure how they decided on the eight specific segments which apparently have no cabin assignments at all currently.

 

2 minutes ago, 57eric said:

That sounds reasonable, but it's not what happened for me last year.  Moreover, if Blue Marble hasn't seen it, it's a fair bet it's never happened.

 

Thanks, @57eric, but you're giving me far too much credit there!

[roscoe39]

50 minutes ago, 57eric said:

That sounds reasonable, but it's not what happened for me last year.  Moreover, if Blue Marble hasn't seen it, it's a fair bet it's never happened.

yes interesting, for the 2023 WC I was on the phone as the bookings opened as I was after a specific PG suite, I knew that there were a number of people after the same room but were not doing the full world. but SFO to Sou and NY to Sou. Me booking from NZ, one booking from the East Coast and one booking from England. We were all told we were on a guarantee basis and then two days later I was given the suite and the other two in the race were told they were to stay as guarantee and subsequently received other allocations. It only backed up my experience in the past of canon assignments but it doesn't have to be the way all regions treat their allocation of cabins.

 

[bluemarble]

54 minutes ago, bluemarble said:

... any given cabin can only be assigned to one of the segments of the QV world voyage at any given time. ...

 

I should correct this statement since it's not technically correct as stated. It's true a cabin assigned to the full world voyage cannot be assigned to any other segment of the world voyage. But it's certainly possible for the same cabin to be assigned to "Southampton To San Francisco" and also to another segment that starts on or after San Francisco for example. The point I was trying to make is that the same cabin cannot be assigned at the same time to two segments that overlap in any way. I imagine an algorithm to determine the optimum strategy for assigning cabins to various world voyage segments would have to be complex.

[Megabear2]

I looked to book a QE relocation Melbourne to Tokyo.  Wanted an OV but the Cunard fares which are considerably dearer are all guarantee.  As a solo traveller paying a large supplement in the first place I was disappointed by this.

 

I also noted these sailings are back to "normal" booking conditions, ie 15% deposit, changeable oonly up to 90 days before departure and early saver with no changes.  After contemplating this it seemed too risky to book this far out as no one really knows how covid may develop and affect any plans.  

[bluemarble]

43 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

I looked to book a QE relocation Melbourne to Tokyo.  Wanted an OV but the Cunard fares which are considerably dearer are all guarantee.  As a solo traveller paying a large supplement in the first place I was disappointed by this.

 

I also noted these sailings are back to "normal" booking conditions, ie 15% deposit, changeable oonly up to 90 days before departure and early saver with no changes.  After contemplating this it seemed too risky to book this far out as no one really knows how covid may develop and affect any plans.  

 

Ah, yes. If I have deduced correctly, it looks like the QE voyage "Melbourne To Tokyo, 31 Nights (Q410B)" has the same issue with no cabins assigned to it yet. In this case though, there is a workaround if you really wanted to book that trip now in an assigned cabin. The two separate segments "Melbourne To Tokyo, 21 Nights (Q410A)" and "Japan Circumnavigation, 10 Nights (Q412)" both have specific cabins available and it is possible to find the same Oceanview cabin available on both of those segments.

 

Probably a moot point though given your other concerns about the booking conditions and uncertainties about booking this far out. Just thought I'd mention that work-around.

Edited May 26, 2022 by bluemarble

[Victoria2]

8 hours ago, Host Hattie said:

I think this is standard when segments initially go on sale.

I'm a bit surprised at any surprised reaction.

 

If I'm on a ship for a month or more, I want to know the exact cabin position and  I don't know if these booking restrictions apply across the board, but we've always had to wait until the cabins we want are released to us as segmenteers. Over the years, we've been lucky and always managed to get a Q3.

As Roscoe said, only fair really the full Worldies, or those on more than our thirty-five/forty day holidays, get first bite at the cherry.

So saying, we didn't have a go at the '23 World Cruise and as the pandemic eases into endemic, I'm quite glad not to be on a ship for forty nights and worry about being quarantined off the ship.

 

Unless there's a mad frenzy to book the whole or most of the full whack,  cabins grades will be released and if our choices have gone, then it wasn't meant to be.

[LadyL1]

When we were onboard in January, we wanted to book S’ton > SFO, in PG 2023. The only option was to make a G’tee booking, and at £26k+ was not prepared to proceed when paying that sum without an allocation. Knowing our luck we would be assigned deck 8 under the buffet, and would not want this even for a short trip.

We are now flying both ways!

[Wordzz]

I booked the QV Southampton to Auckland on 11 Jan 2024  as soon as booking opened on Tuesday. That's 44 nights. I was only able to book a cabin category on a guarantee basis, specific cabins not available to book. I booked by phone and the Cunard operative (UK) wasn't able to explain the reason.

 

If I do a dummy booking for a shorter segment (e.g. Southampton to San Francisco, 27 nights) I find that I'm able to book the specific cabin number I want. So a shorter booking apparently takes precedence over a longer one? 

 

I've booked world cruise segments several times in the past, including most recently QM2 Southampton to Singapore in Jan 2023, and never had this experience before.

 

It does seem unfair to me. A big part of our reason for paying the full Cunard Fare is to be able to choose the specific cabin number we want. If Cunard want to give precedence to full world cruisers, fair enough, but they could perhaps have a day or two that are open only for booking the full world cruise. I'm just a humble customer (coming up to Diamond), but it seems to me that if they are charging the full Cunard Fare, they should be offering the full range of benefits. Not impressed, tbh. 

[Megabear2]

3 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

Ah, yes. If I have deduced correctly, it looks like the QE voyage "Melbourne To Tokyo, 31 Nights (Q410B)" has the same issue with no cabins assigned to it yet. In this case though, there is a workaround if you really wanted to book that trip now in an assigned cabin. The two separate segments "Melbourne To Tokyo, 21 Nights (Q410A)" and "Japan Circumnavigation, 10 Nights (Q412)" both have specific cabins available and it is possible to find the same Oceanview cabin available on both of those segments.

 

Probably a moot point though given your other concerns about the booking conditions and uncertainties about booking this far out. Just thought I'd mention that work-around.

Thanks Blue Marble.  I will have a look at that as I'm still wavering.  I really want to do this particular trip and have also been looking at the 2023 equivalent.  My main concern remains not the cancellation but the leap of faith that if I need to move the cruise I will need to choose something more expensive.  I have a limited budget for my cruising and the recent price increases are rather prohibitive for me going forward.

 

As a single cruiser I appear to be looking at increases of around 55% on a WC segment of 30-40 days over my aborted 2020 price. Sadly I'm being priced out.

[57eric]

Interesting responses.  Indeed, I can split my voyage into two segments and select a cabin for each.  My loyalty is being tested.

[bluemarble]

4 hours ago, Wordzz said:

I booked the QV Southampton to Auckland on 11 Jan 2024  as soon as booking opened on Tuesday. That's 44 nights. I was only able to book a cabin category on a guarantee basis, specific cabins not available to book. ...

 

Thanks, @Wordzz. I missed the Southampton to Auckland segment as one which as of now can only be booked as a guarantee in any cabin grade. These are now the nine segments of the 2024 QV World Voyage which I'm currently seeing can only be booked on a guarantee basis anywhere on the ship.

 

Southampton To Auckland, 44 Nights (V404B)

Fort Lauderdale To Sydney, 41 Nights (V405A)

San Francisco To Auckland, 17 Nights (V406A)

Auckland To Sydney, 8 Nights (V406C)

Auckland To Southampton, 63 Nights (V406D)

Hong Kong To Singapore, 6 Nights (V408A)

Hong Kong To Cape Town, 23 Nights (V408)

Singapore To Cape Town, 17 Nights (V408C)

Cape Town To Hamburg, 18 Nights (V409A)

[bluemarble]

6 hours ago, Victoria2 said:

I'm a bit surprised at any surprised reaction. ...

 

I'm not at all surprised this situation occurs with Grill Suites, especially for the higher end suites. For example, with only 16 Q3 suites on the ship, it's certainly reasonable Cunard would allocate most if not all of those to the full world voyagers first. I can't imagine any good way to spread those out across most of the 29 different segments right out of the gate.

 

No, what surprised me was to see that the nine segments I've mentioned above do not allow booking any specific cabin at all even in the Britannia grades where there are far more cabins to allocate. I would have thought Cunard would have found a way to allocate at least a few Britannia cabins (especially Britannia Balconies) to each segment.

 

It does seem a bit odd that it is possible to book specific cabins on the shorter segments "Fort Lauderdale To San Francisco, 16 Nights (V405)" and "San Francisco To Sydney, 25 Nights (V406)" but you can't book a specific cabin on the longer segment "Fort Lauderdale To Sydney, 41 Nights (V405A)". And it doesn't take too much effort to find instances of the same Britannia grade cabin available to book on both of those shorter segments which could have been allocated to the longer segment instead.

 

But then mine is not to reason why. I haven't avidly investigated how individual world voyage segments have been allocated cabins upon initial release in the past the way I've done this year after @57eric brought the situation to our attention. So I can't say Cunard has never assigned entire segments to be guarantee-only throughout the entire ship on initial release before. But I must say it did catch me off guard.

[bluemarble]

I'll expand the picture by bringing the QM2 2024 World Voyage into the discussion. For comparison purposes, there are 30 voyages listed on the Cunard US website that make up all or part of the QM2 2024 World Voyage. One of those voyages is showing only guarantee availability across the entire ship at this time. That's the segment "Cape Town To Hong Kong, 42 Nights (M404B)". All other segments have availability to book a specific cabin somewhere within a Britannia category at least.

[Victoria2]

1 hour ago, bluemarble said:

 

I'm not at all surprised this situation occurs with Grill Suites, especially for the higher end suites. For example, with only 16 Q3 suites on the ship, it's certainly reasonable Cunard would allocate most if not all of those to the full world voyagers first. I can't imagine any good way to spread those out across most of the 29 different segments right out of the gate.

 

No, what surprised me was to see that the nine segments I've mentioned above do not allow booking any specific cabin at all even in the Britannia grades where there are far more cabins to allocate. I would have thought Cunard would have found a way to allocate at least a few Britannia cabins (especially Britannia Balconies) to each segment.

 

It does seem a bit odd that it is possible to book specific cabins on the shorter segments "Fort Lauderdale To San Francisco, 16 Nights (V405)" and "San Francisco To Sydney, 25 Nights (V406)" but you can't book a specific cabin on the longer segment "Fort Lauderdale To Sydney, 41 Nights (V405A)". And it doesn't take too much effort to find instances of the same Britannia grade cabin available to book on both of those shorter segments which could have been allocated to the longer segment instead.

 

But then mine is not to reason why. I haven't avidly investigated how individual world voyage segments have been allocated cabins upon initial release in the past the way I've done this year after @57eric brought the situation to our attention. So I can't say Cunard has never assigned entire segments to be guarantee-only throughout the entire ship on initial release before. But I must say it did catch me off guard.

 Fair comment.

We only look at the Q3s and not the rest of the ship for  Worldie segments as the higher prime real estate usually books out pretty quickly. We're  used to biding our time until numbered cabins are released. Like LadyL1, we will never book on a GUA. Never.

It's a C21st problem and if the cabins go, then so be it. We'll just have to book more cruises for when the '24 Worldie has finished.🙂 

[Megabear2]

4 hours ago, bluemarble said:

I'll expand the picture by bringing the QM2 2024 World Voyage into the discussion. For comparison purposes, there are 30 voyages listed on the Cunard US website that make up all or part of the QM2 2024 World Voyage. One of those voyages is showing only guarantee availability across the entire ship at this time. That's the segment "Cape Town To Hong Kong, 42 Nights (M404B)". All other segments have availability to book a specific cabin somewhere within a Britannia category at least.

There's an irony!  That was my first choice trip and I pre registered with a top UK cruise specialist agent who on open if sailings was told waitlist only for an OV.  If I'd gotten that reservations I wouldn't be looking at the Queen Elizabeth Melbourne/Tokyo.