P&O upgrade bidding - any good?

[Simonthesailor]

We have a 4 day cruise booked for late in August with a grand daughter. We have just been invited to bid for upgraded - and presumably unspecified actual - cabins. Anyone had experience of doing this and is it worthwhile. A bit of a gamble? We already have a reasonable & specified balcony cabin, with the necessary third pull down bed.

Is this bidding a new thing for P&O?

ideas and feedback welcome.

[Selbourne]

Yes it’s a new thing. As to whether it’s worth doing depends on how much they are asking and for what. Sometimes the minimum bid is almost as much as the price difference that you’d have paid when you first booked! There are quite a few risks as you have guessed. The location will be of P&Os choosing, so may be fine but also could be in a position that others don’t want (susceptible to noise etc )and once they’ve moved you that’s it. You cannot change back. Also, on Arvia and Iona if you are not careful you could end up in one of cabins on the promenade deck, which P&O may consider to be an upgrade but most would absolutely hate. 
 

If you have a balcony cabin in a good spot, I would probably only bid for a full suite and for only 4 days I wouldn’t bid more than £200, but others may take a different view. 

[Cloudyrain]

When we booked I asked what the cost would have been to upgrade a standard balcony to a superior deluxe balcony, and at the time of booking it was around £400. The bid system has allowed me to bid £100 for the same level upgrade (for a superior deluxe I’m happy to accept any location, but I would be more picky with a balcony location). 
 

It also depends on what you have: I would be more willing to “risk” an upgrade if the current option was not an allocated cabin.

[DamianG]

Does the upgrade option just state "Superior Deluxe" or specific cabin grades? For example, if it is Ventura I think that the grades would be DA, DB, DD, DE.

 

For an extra £100 a superior deluxe cabin would be worth the extra in my opinion just for that extra space for 3 occupants. However, some of the DE cabins on Ventura are situated on deck 8 aft directly above the Havana lounge where the late night noise certainly wouldn't suit us as a family seeing as we typically go to bed when onboard anytime between 10pm-11:30pm. 

 

That's the gamble you'll have to weigh up for yourself.

 

I hope that this helps.

Edited June 8, 2023 by DamianG

[davecttr]

As I understand it the £100 minimum bid is per person and to make matters worse if you are a solo cruiser you would be charged for 2 people. The offerings are by cabin type not specific grade.

[LA30]

I could be wrong, but I think I have read that the Bid for an Upgrade scheme is only available to those who book direct with P&O, not through a TA.

[da.h@ntlworld.com]

Hi have just had an email today to offer upgrades I booked with travel agent.The cost to upgrade from inside to balcony bid is £210 pp total cost for holiday will be £1818 including upgrade,just looked online saver fair £3798 .

[Selbourne]

3 minutes ago, da.h@ntlworld.com said:

Hi have just had an email today to offer upgrades I booked with travel agent.The cost to upgrade from inside to balcony bid is £210 pp total cost for holiday will be £1818 including upgrade,just looked online saver fair £3798 .

Keep in mind that the £210pp is not a cost, it’s a minimum bid, which you may or may not be successful with.
 

If you were to pay to upgrade (rather than rely on the bidding system), then the price to do so is the price difference that applied at the time that you booked, not the quoted price today.

 

If you are tempted to bid, my advice would be to bid a little bit more than the minimum, say £220 pp. The vast majority of people will probably just bid the minimum, so by bidding more, even just a tiny amount, automatically puts you ahead of everyone who just bids the minimum and probably increases your chances of being successful quite considerably. 

[da.h@ntlworld.com]

26 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Keep in mind that the £210pp is not a cost, it’s a minimum bid, which you may or may not be successful with.
 

If you were to pay to upgrade (rather than rely on the bidding system), then the price to do so is the price difference that applied at the time that you booked, not the quoted price today.

 

If you are tempted to bid, my advice would be to bid a little bit more than the minimum, say £220 pp. The vast majority of people will probably just bid the minimum, so by bidding more, even just a tiny amount, automatically puts you ahead of everyone who just bids the minimum and probably increases your chances of being successful quite considerably. 

Hi Selbourne thanks for the information £220 sounds like a plan.

[lancashire_cruisers]

We also had the upgrade email and booked with a TA not that we’ll be bidding as we’re more than happy with our deluxe balcony cabin. For information the prices to bid for an upgrade are as follows:

 

Suite £470pp

Family suite £420pp

Conservatory mini-suite £240pp

 

This is on Iona and interestingly the email splits the conservatory mini-suites into Promenade and non-promenade categories (even though the price is the same).

[otbc]

When do you find out if you've been successful in a bid by the way? Had my email yesterday for my Dec cruise and just wondered when we'd find out!

 

Also wondered, you can bid for more than 1 upgrade, how do they then determine which one to give you?

Edited September 27, 2023 by otbc

[Cruisemeister2002]

On 6/7/2023 at 2:25 PM, Simonthesailor said:

We have a 4 day cruise booked for late in August with a grand daughter. We have just been invited to bid for upgraded - and presumably unspecified actual - cabins. Anyone had experience of doing this and is it worthwhile. A bit of a gamble? We already have a reasonable & specified balcony cabin, with the necessary third pull down bed.

Is this bidding a new thing for P&O?

ideas and feedback welcome.

I have recently change allegiance to Princess from P&O and found that they have this bidding system as well. Apparently other cruise lines outside of the Carnival group have been doing this for a while and now it seems they are introducing it. I am lead to believe that a bid of say £200 would be per person for a higher grade cabin, this isn't the amount you have to bid it's up to you but the amount you bid would be x two unless of course you are a single traveller, but then I am lead to believe that single fares are the same or almost the same as two passengers sharing a cabin. The bidding is allowed 5 days after the cruise balance is paid and although I cannot remember exactly it can continue up to a day or so before your cruise. It is apparently best to bid on several cabins although if successful you will only get one and be charged for one and again the cruiseline will contact yourself to inform you that you can bid.

[Simonthesailor]

Interesting. We had a cabin with fold down bunk for our grand daughter (the original cruise cost to include her was attractively cheap) but the invitation to bid for an upgrade did not state whether the charge would be for 2 or 3. In the event we were very happy with our well positioned basic balcony cabin. The suggested bid prices in any case seemed too high.

[9265359]

1 hour ago, Simonthesailor said:

The suggested bid prices in any case seemed too high.

 

Agree.

 

I received the offer for my upcoming cruise in December and the bid prices seemed to be pretty much what the difference in price between the types of cabins was when I booked a couple of months ago - and if I declined to pay that price then, then why am I going to pay it now!

[da.h@ntlworld.com]

Hi all just put in a bid of £220 pp for a balcony cabin.Not bothered if not successful as I will have nothing and can use the £440 as spending money.😂😂🥂🥂🍺🍺

[Selbourne]

44 minutes ago, da.h@ntlworld.com said:

Hi all just put in a bid of £220 pp for a balcony cabin.Not bothered if not successful as I will have nothing and can use the £440 as spending money.😂😂🥂🥂🍺🍺

Good luck. How long is the cruise?

[yorkshirephil]

2 hours ago, 9265359 said:

 

Agree.

 

I received the offer for my upcoming cruise in December and the bid prices seemed to be pretty much what the difference in price between the types of cabins was when I booked a couple of months ago - and if I declined to pay that price then, then why am I going to pay it now!

I see your point, but in our case the slush fund we put aside for cruising before we retired has been considerably boosted by the increase in interest rates plus the cracking deals currently available which is now giving us an opportunity to book a balcony as opposed to our usual inside cabin. We have cruises booked from 1-2 years ago that we would now be interested in bidding for a better cabin option.

[da.h@ntlworld.com]

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

Good luck. How long is the cruise?

Hi Selbourne Aurora 16 nights.

[Selbourne]

2 minutes ago, da.h@ntlworld.com said:

Hi Selbourne Aurora 16 nights.

So, if successful, that would be just £27.50 per day extra, which would be an absolute bargain, especially on Aurora which carries quite a price premium.
 

Some of the upgrade prices that people quote don’t seem that attractive to me, especially on the big ships and for short cruises, but that would be a cracking deal. Fingers crossed for you. 

[da.h@ntlworld.com]

3 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

So, if successful, that would be just £27.50 per day extra, which would be an absolute bargain, especially on Aurora which carries quite a price premium.
 

Some of the upgrade prices that people quote don’t seem that attractive to me, especially on the big ships and for short cruises, but that would be a cracking deal. Fingers crossed for you. 

Thanks .

[BertieRulesOK]

On 9/27/2023 at 11:14 AM, Cruisemeister2002 said:

this isn't the amount you have to bid it's up to you but the amount you bid would be x two unless of course you are a single traveller,

Sad to report that you are scr*wed as a single traveller on upgrades.  You have to pay for two people even though there is only one of you.  So it's completely unaffordable.  Shame.

[Devonport D]

Where do you actually bid for the upgrade?  I travel next week but have not received any correspondence regarding bidding?

I did book via a travel agent.

 

Any help appreciated.

[Selbourne]

2 minutes ago, Devonport D said:

Where do you actually bid for the upgrade?  I travel next week but have not received any correspondence regarding bidding?

I did book via a travel agent.

 

Any help appreciated.

We had the email a month before the cruise. We didn’t bid but I think if you do you can hear the outcome at any time up to a few days before. If you travel next week I think it’s safe to assume that you won’t get an option to bid for an upgrade. 

[killaypirate]

Booked 7 days ago through TA & received upgrade offers. Made a bid but then read a poor review of deluxe balcony, the only one that was currently available, so withdrew the bid.

Edited October 10, 2023 by killaypirate

[Guest]

I’ve done the bid up process many times with other cruise lines. Got about a 50% success rate.

 

tips:

1. As others have said- always bid above the minimum. They allocate from the highest bids down. 
2. Check how full your sailing is. If it’s almost at capacity, only high bids are going to be successful 

3. The algorithm is strange. On my last celebrity cruise, I bid £250pp to upgrade from an inside to a balcony- this was £40 above the minimum. I didn’t get it, but I met a couple who bid the minimum for a Concierge cabin (same bid price as me) and got it. There were plenty of cabins available. I thought they must have paid more for their cruise originally, but they didn’t. We paid £700pp more per person than them for the same cabin (we went all incl) 

4. P&O do not sort out the bids. It is done by an external company that all the cruise lines use 

 

They often don’t allocate cabins until really close to the sailing