Move up bids very high

[DLWood]

We’re booked into an AQ room for 9night Beyond out of Rome on 27 May. There are still 43 sky suites and 12 Aqua suites available yet the min move up bid is $1800 pp for a suite.  I see many other trips with much lower mins. What are these ones so high?

[Mark.Jules]

I see the same for my sailing on Apex in June out of Rotterdam. $1,700 pp for a entry level suite. I was planning to put in a bid but with these prices I am struggling to take the plunge.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Mark.Jules
typo

[Arizona Wildcat]

26 minutes ago, DLWood said:

We’re booked into an AQ room for 9night Beyond out of Rome on 27 May. There are still 43 sky suites and 12 Aqua suites available yet the min move up bid is $1800 pp for a suite.  I see many other trips with much lower mins. What are these ones so high?

An outside company does MoveUp.   The prices are computer generated.  The prices could be reduced - ours were recently - if they do not sell out.  

Impossible to know how many suites are available until under 30 days out as some TAs likely still have GTY suites in a group block that do not always show as sold.

If too expensive- Don't Bid.  We aren't on out upcoming cruise.  Happy in Aqua. 

[Ex-Airbalancer]

For the Reflection April TA , they have drop the price on min move up by 20% , but they are still way high, and ship is only 50% full 

[Jim_Iain]

I've been noticing many really high prices on move-up.   Some make no sense at all.  On Apex the min and max for a Villa are less than a Royal Suite.

 

I'm sure that the popularity of the cruise will affect the prices.    I have seen in the past (rarely but have seen it) where they dropped both Min an Max as they got closer to sailing.   I guess they realized how greedy they were being and had no one bid.

[Hawkstar33]

It's all about trying to make up, for what they lost.  The minimum bid may never again come down to where it makes it easy to jump up and make a bid  

[tnm6217]

1 hour ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

For the Reflection April TA , they have drop the price on min move up by 20% , but they are still way high, and ship is only 50% full 

 

Is there an easy way to see how full a sailing is without having to do a fake booking for each category on X's website?

[letsgogogo]

5 hours ago, DLWood said:

We’re booked into an AQ room for 9night Beyond out of Rome on 27 May. There are still 43 sky suites and 12 Aqua suites available yet the min move up bid is $1800 pp for a suite.  I see many other trips with much lower mins. What are these ones so high?

I’m seeing the exact same thing on apex for Norwegian fjords cruise this June 18. Over 50 sky suites open and min bid for a 7 night cruise is $1700 pp. Mayne it’s just not worth it for them to have all that extra staff taking care of suite guests who aren’t paying the real money for it. They can move those individuals to provide better and more service for regular class passengers. 

[chemmo]

Suite prices seem really high across the board at the moment. In the Mediterranean they were really becoming expensive even before covid. In previous years we have booked RS or PH on release of itinerary and then seen prices go up as rooms available drop. Now they seem to be constantly high from release to weeks before sailing.
 

I have been looking at the M class which I fancied doing again but I can’t believe the prices they are charging on Infinity and Constellation which are well overdue a makeover…

 

At the end of the day we all have to make a choice of booking or not/upgrading or not. I think we all have a number in our heads as to what a cruise is ‘worth’ and if the price is above that then we look at other options…

[SeaWatch12]

You may want to look at the difference in fare by upgrading on your own without using a move up bid. I recently did and it came out a bit less expensive than the minimum upgrade offer. Especially with the Captains Club one category upgrade for AQ. 
Upgrading on your own also gives you an immediate cabin assignment. 
There is no guarantee that a move up bid  will be accepted, especially at the minimum bid. 
Upgrading on my own gave me my control of my reservation, so I don't have to wait to find out if I am sailing in AQ. 

[rmalbers]

I did a couple of move up tries but when the move up bids are more than the price of eating in specialty restaurants for almost every meal, that's too much for me, especially ships that don't have the real retreat upgrades. 

[DCPIV]

4 hours ago, SeaWatch12 said:

You may want to look at the difference in fare by upgrading on your own without using a move up bid. I recently did and it came out a bit less expensive than the minimum upgrade offer. Especially with the Captains Club one category upgrade for AQ. 
Upgrading on your own also gives you an immediate cabin assignment. 
There is no guarantee that a move up bid  will be accepted, especially at the minimum bid. 
Upgrading on my own gave me my control of my reservation, so I don't have to wait to find out if I am sailing in AQ. 

 

Exactly.  MoveUp is not requried when cabins are available.

 

And, if the difference in fares is very high, then I don't know why anyone should expect the MU bid to be much less when the sailing still is over a month out.

[NutsAboutGolf]

17 hours ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

An outside company does MoveUp.   The prices are computer generated.  The prices could be reduced - ours were recently - if they do not sell out.  

Impossible to know how many suites are available until under 30 days out as some TAs likely still have GTY suites in a group block that do not always show as sold.

If too expensive- Don't Bid.  We aren't on out upcoming cruise.  Happy in Aqua. 

 

PlusGrade handles the bidding software, my WAG (Wild A$$ Guess) is X employees log into their licensed PlusGrade account and populates the min and max pricing

[paulh84]

All signs points to suites across the fleet selling at nearly full capacity. I would expect to see prices pushed to a point where it starts to impact the willingness to pay. At minimum, determine the price to make it a tougher decision if it's worth it to pay a high upgrade price in an unknown cabin or just book the suite from the get-to and take advantage of the OBC, WiFi and drinks. The difficulty would be that Caribbean vs. European cruises may have very different price ceilings.

[Lastdance]

Suite prices are extremely high for an 8 day cruise in Adriatic.  MoveUp starts at 1,700 per person for all three types of Sky Suites.  Last year, I did a MoveUp for a 12 day cruise from SV to SS(excellent suite) for half that price!  On my TA this year, a villa was less for a MoveUp than my 8 day cruise to a suite.  When I put in a bid for the villa, it was discounted by 20%, after the villas were gone.  I never received an email, but looked at my bid.  I was told my bid was too high?  Really?  Celebrity must be changing their MoveUp details.  I was told in an email that 20% off was a promo to me, but I needed to place another bid.  Honestly, I did not know that.  Why, when both villas were gone?  Lots of suites left on this 8 day cruise...prices are very, very high! 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Lastdance

[Ex-Airbalancer]

Here are the bids with 2 weeks to go 

we are in a V2 with always included 

[phoenix_dream]

IMHO all suite prices (at least those I've looked into) are sky high at the moment.  On every sailing I've been on lately they are also fully booked.  Until the price bubble bursts I don't see any suite bargains coming, through Move Up or otherwise.

[letsgogogo]

On 4/10/2023 at 6:35 AM, SeaWatch12 said:

You may want to look at the difference in fare by upgrading on your own without using a move up bid. I recently did and it came out a bit less expensive than the minimum upgrade offer.

For sure. I did this on Summit for a 10 night Canada/New England cruise. I had bid the absolutely max for all categories of verandas, including Aqua. Lost every bid. Got on the ship, front tipped someone in guest services to help me track down an aqua for upgrade around 5 pm, after sail away, after they figure out the no shows. I paid $625 each to go from inside to aqua. The move up bids were way more. 

[Arizona Wildcat]

3 hours ago, letsgogogo said:

For sure. I did this on Summit for a 10 night Canada/New England cruise. I had bid the absolutely max for all categories of verandas, including Aqua. Lost every bid. Got on the ship, front tipped someone in guest services to help me track down an aqua for upgrade around 5 pm, after sail away, after they figure out the no shows. I paid $625 each to go from inside to aqua. The move up bids were way more. 

On every cruise there are on average a few that cancel in the last couple weeks and one or two no shows.  Those you can often book on board at a bargain price.  Just need to be lucky.

[cruisemover]

4 hours ago, letsgogogo said:

For sure. I did this on Summit for a 10 night Canada/New England cruise. I had bid the absolutely max for all categories of verandas, including Aqua. Lost every bid. Got on the ship, front tipped someone in guest services to help me track down an aqua for upgrade around 5 pm, after sail away, after they figure out the no shows. I paid $625 each to go from inside to aqua. The move up bids were way more. 

Did the $625 come out from your OBC or does it get charged to a credit card?

Edited April 14, 2023 by cruisemover

[DaKahuna]

21 minutes ago, cruisemover said:

Did the $625 come out from your OBC or does it get charged to a credit card?

 
If you are successful in your MoveUp bid it is charged to your credit card.  You cannot use OBC to pay for a MoveUp. 

[cruisemover]

Just now, DaKahuna said:

If you are successful in your MoveUp bid it is charged to your credit card.  You cannot use OBC to pay for a MoveUp. 

I mean upgrading after boarding at guest services.

[DaKahuna]

4 minutes ago, cruisemover said:

I mean upgrading after boarding at guest services.

Oh, I am sorry that I misunderstood.  I have no experience with that situation. 

[Jim_Iain]

I received my reject upgrade today for our April 15 Apex cruise.    I'm in a CS and they did have a RS open up 5 days prior to the cruise.    The mid-range price of the upgrade was $1,500 more expensive than what I could have called and paid for an upgrade.      Really out of sync with reality for this cruise.

[letsgogogo]

2 hours ago, cruisemover said:

Did the $625 come out from your OBC or does it get charged to a credit card?

Credit card. But I’m sure had I had any OBC credit I could have used it toward the fees.