Bid to upgrade being rolled out

[Landon90]

P&O have replied saying they have liaised with their team but they do not know because it’s new, so they’re going to have to speak to someone else and will get back to me when they have an answer. 
 

🤷‍♂️

[terrierjohn]

On 4/23/2023 at 7:37 PM, FamilyCruiserUK said:

They have been doing this on royal for a while. Bid if you want but remember you can be put anywhere on the room type you bid for. Loads of people complain after winning a bid. Some ger lucky but they way i see it the rooms they will upgrade you too are prob unwanted rooms that they cant sell. Its kinda fun when you do it but also a little risky

I guess that only those with a gty booking will want to bother with this procedure, anyone booking a select fare probably won't want to risk ending up in a dodgy location.

[Megabear2]

From what I read on RCL and Celebrity threads the popular upgrade is from a cheap suite to a more expensive one.  There don't seem to be many enthusiastically bidding from an inside to balcony as they say the lowest bid is too big a differential.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Megabear2

[Selbourne]

4 hours ago, Landon90 said:

I’m just browsing the cruises going in the next few weeks - Arcadia for 16 nights around Northern Europe leaving on Tuesday - £799 for a solo traveller in an inside standard, £899 for window standards. That is a bargain. Haven’t seen many cruises that don’t have a single person supplement recently apart from this one. 

That’s fantastic and I’m pleased to hear that solos can get the bargains as well. 

[paulatsea]

2 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

I love a bit of pomp and circumstance, can't stand the plastic flag waving and out of tune bellowing though, ironic as I'm trying to get on the new QM2 Coronation sailing on Tuesday!

Good luck - if we weren’t going away the week after we would definitely try and get on this revised QM2 one as well. Let us know if you make it .

[smilesonfaces]

14 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

From what I read on RCL and Celebrity threads the popular upgrade is from a cheap suite to a more expensive one.  There don't seem to be many enthusiastically bidding from an inside to balcony as they say the lowest bid is too big a differential.

I have a guarantee inside booked, a guarantee balcony on booking for 2 was £700 more. I have made my lowest bid at £240 for both of us. Fingers crossed it is accepted. Don’t mind where it is. Anything would be an upgrade ! 

[Beckett]

15 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

I love a bit of pomp and circumstance, can't stand the plastic flag waving and out of tune bellowing though, ironic as I'm trying to get on the new QM2 Coronation sailing on Tuesday!

Good luck Megabear. If I didn't have to find someone to look after my dog at such short notice I'd have tried all day to get on the coronation cruise too - but I'm with you on the plastic flag waving! Let us know. Jane xx

[Megabear2]

I hadn't realised until clearing my junk folder this morning that you get an upgrade offer every 24 hours.  I have one started on Sunday inviting me to bid x2 for a large inside cabin at £100 (£200 for me) , £200 each (£400 for me) for an outside and £350 each (£700 for me).  All based on my original booking of the cheapest inside grade cabin.  Only one small problem - they've already upgraded me to a small balcony cabin on deck 9 free of charge! 

[Nix2023]

37 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

I hadn't realised until clearing my junk folder this morning that you get an upgrade offer every 24 hours.  I have one started on Sunday inviting me to bid x2 for a large inside cabin at £100 (£200 for me) , £200 each (£400 for me) for an outside and £350 each (£700 for me).  All based on my original booking of the cheapest inside grade cabin.  Only one small problem - they've already upgraded me to a small balcony cabin on deck 9 free of charge! 

Nice. 
I opted for Select as I hoped we might get an upgrade. I now realise I should've chosen Saver as the upgrade prices are crazy and are more than if I'd booked at the time. 

[Nix2023]

38 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

I hadn't realised until clearing my junk folder this morning that you get an upgrade offer every 24 hours.  I have one started on Sunday inviting me to bid x2 for a large inside cabin at £100 (£200 for me) , £200 each (£400 for me) for an outside and £350 each (£700 for me).  All based on my original booking of the cheapest inside grade cabin.  Only one small problem - they've already upgraded me to a small balcony cabin on deck 9 free of charge! 

How did you get the upgrade to a balcony? wow ! 

 

[Megabear2]

35 minutes ago, Nix2023 said:

How did you get the upgrade to a balcony? wow ! 

 

Long story, I'm afraid.  Let's just say I have a "special relationship" with Carnival cruises lines in the UK!!!

[Britboys]

1 hour ago, Megabear2 said:

I hadn't realised until clearing my junk folder this morning that you get an upgrade offer every 24 hours.  I have one started on Sunday inviting me to bid x2 for a large inside cabin at £100 (£200 for me) , £200 each (£400 for me) for an outside and £350 each (£700 for me).  All based on my original booking of the cheapest inside grade cabin.  Only one small problem - they've already upgraded me to a small balcony cabin on deck 9 free of charge! 

I wouldn't remotely consider those bids as a solo I'm afraid - unless I'd paid a spectacularly low fare in the first place...

[Megabear2]

24 minutes ago, Britboys said:

I wouldn't remotely consider those bids as a solo I'm afraid - unless I'd paid a spectacularly low fare in the first place...

I agree, I did pay a very low price though at the time I booked £749 single occupancy select inside with a tiny solo supplement. I'd have been happy with that but they kindly pushed me up.

 

I'm interested to see what my saver inside on Iona on 3 June gets offered at, if at all.

[Landon90]

I chased P&O for an update today on whether single rooms to single rooms is 100% or 200% upgrade fee. They still aren’t sure and the team they contacted last week hasn’t got back to them with an answer yet either (no offer to chase them either). 
 

I did notice today that if I put £110 offer in to upgrade my single inside room to a single window room (both single bed so can only accommodate 1 person), the screen after I put my credit card details in shows the final price as £220 so I’m gonna assume they do double it even for single solo rooms. 

[davecttr]

Do they no longer do free upgrades? I was upgraded on Iona from an inside to a Sea View, a bigger cabin than a balcony. I was pleased with it so Have just booked another Iona cruise Sea View cabin, no chance of an upgrade to a balcony though?

[Obobru]

P&O do not set the prices for these upgrade bids it's run by PlusGrade who use algorithms to price the minimum bids, as it's new the data will be limited and based on other cruise line customers they have. Over time the pricing will be based on data of what people bid, if no one bids the current minimums they will lower them and see what people will bid.

 

My friend managed the relationship with PlusGrade for an airline so has some insight into the service. 

[Presto2]

Andymichelle is like us - it is pretty useless as we always book saver as we know what we want and alweays ask not to be moved. If we could have some say in where they move us too that would be fine, but I would hate to be  'upgraded' to a mid cabin under the pool deck even though on paper it seems a good deal. We had the offer for Britannia and have chosen to stay where we are - aft cabin, wake view and we will be very happy with that :-)

[pete14]

6 hours ago, Presto2 said:

Andymichelle is like us - it is pretty useless as we always book saver as we know what we want and alweays ask not to be moved. If we could have some say in where they move us too that would be fine, but I would hate to be  'upgraded' to a mid cabin under the pool deck even though on paper it seems a good deal. We had the offer for Britannia and have chosen to stay where we are - aft cabin, wake view and we will be very happy with that 🙂

For clarity, I think you meant to say you always book select rather than saver in order to be able to book your favourite aft position. 

[Presto2]

11 minutes ago, pete14 said:

For clarity, I think you meant to say you always book select rather than saver in order to be able to book your favourite aft position. 

Yes thanks.. been a long day gardening..

[molecrochip]

On 4/24/2023 at 2:39 PM, Megabear2 said:

I believe Moley stated somewhere that single to single should only be one fee.

 

Mind you looking at how many cruises are showing inside cabins unavailable there's either been a stampede of people taking them because they are being offered at silly money or lots of people are planning on trying their luck.

That is still my understanding although not seen anyone win in practice. I would argue under UK law that you cannot charge £100 x 2 people for an upgrade from a 1 bed cabin to another 1 bed cabin. You can charge £200 x 1 person but not the other. I know its semantics but it matters in law as you can't be charged for something that doesn't exist/isn't possible (which the second £100 would be doing).

 

As for inside rooms - very popular at present. This is to be expected with encouraging new cruisers onto the ships. Where cruise lines win is converting those newbie inside passengers to balcony (and hopefully eventually suites) for future cruises. Very few new to cruise passengers go straight into a suite on a mainstream cruise line.

[StickInsect2]

From what I have read on here then, they can invite you to bid on cabin types that aren't even available? Why would they do that? We have been given about 5 different cabin types to bid for but I think only one type has any availability left - I am confused and annoyed as I was hoping to get a family suite rather than have 4 of us in a balcony cabin.

[Selbourne]

51 minutes ago, StickInsect2 said:

From what I have read on here then, they can invite you to bid on cabin types that aren't even available? Why would they do that? We have been given about 5 different cabin types to bid for but I think only one type has any availability left - I am confused and annoyed as I was hoping to get a family suite rather than have 4 of us in a balcony cabin.

Many of the minimum bids come close to the price difference at booking anyway, so no huge saving. Upgrades are charged at the rate applicable when you booked, not the current rate, so it might be worth a call if you would ideally like a bigger cabin. Just be careful if on Iona or Arvia you don’t end up on the dreaded deck 8!

[Landon90]

Just an update on the single room (single bed) upgrade to another single room/bed outside etc, P&O replied on Twitter saying they couldn’t get to the bottom of this and still didn’t know after speaking to a certain team. 
 

They asked me to email them the upgrade email I got. That was a few days ago. Heard nothing since and now all window single bed rooms are sold out. 

[AlixN]

5 hours ago, StickInsect2 said:

From what I have read on here then, they can invite you to bid on cabin types that aren't even available? Why would they do that? We have been given about 5 different cabin types to bid for but I think only one type has any availability left - I am confused and annoyed as I was hoping to get a family suite rather than have 4 of us in a balcony cabin.

They are allowing you to bid on cabins that aren't available as they are hoping that passengers in those cabins will also bid for higher and so those cabins will become available.

 

E.g there are no balconies available but they allow inside to bid for a balcony and hope that a balcony will bid for a suite, that way everyone gets upgraded and they are left with an empty inside which is supposedly easier to sell than the empty suite they had.

The sale of the inside plus the two upgrade premiums may also be more than the suite they were trying to sell, so they are in profit and everyone thinks they got a good deal

Edited May 16, 2023 by AlixN

[StickInsect2]

11 hours ago, AlixN said:

They are allowing you to bid on cabins that aren't available as they are hoping that passengers in those cabins will also bid for higher and so those cabins will become available.

 

E.g there are no balconies available but they allow inside to bid for a balcony and hope that a balcony will bid for a suite, that way everyone gets upgraded and they are left with an empty inside which is supposedly easier to sell than the empty suite they had.

The sale of the inside plus the two upgrade premiums may also be more than the suite they were trying to sell, so they are in profit and everyone thinks they got a good deal

I did wonder if that was the case but I'm not convinced that anyone in a family suite would upgrade as I think they would be worse off in a suite (even though they are more expensive) as there would only be one bedroom and one bathroom. I'm glad I came across this thread though as it's allowing me to come to terms with the fact that my bid won't be successful even though it was some way above minimum.

 

Also why would they let you bid for the Penthouse suite when it's not available as there is nothing above that to upgrade to?

Edited May 17, 2023 by StickInsect2