Cunard Bid to Upgrade - Results

[ChrisMV]

Would anyone be willing to share their Cunard “bid to upgrade” recent results?  (Including your voyage date or month would be helpful as well.)

 

If your offer was accepted, how close to the minimum bid was your accepted offer?  Or, alternatively, how close to the maximum bid was your accepted offer?  

 

How close to the sailing date were you informed that your bid had been accepted?

[3rdGenCunarder]

I did not have my bid accepted. Queen Victoria, October-November Northern lights. 

 

I was in a Britannia cabin. I was offered the chance to bid on Club and Princess Grill, but not Queens Grill. I only bid on PG, about halfway between the minimum bid and the cost to just pay to upgrade myself. 

 

Ironically, I'm glad I didn't get the upgrade. I was at a table for 10 with a fantastic group of people. If you were on that cruise in early seating for dinner, yeah, we were the noisy table at the back, laughing our heads off. 

[Pushpit]

There is quite a lot of material and data points in this thread, I've put some of my own examples here:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/topic/2927241-bidding-on-an-upgrade/

 

I'm also aware of how Plusgrade works on Lufthansa Group of airlines, and broadly speaking if you know the ship / aircraft isn't full, you can look to a bid towards the lower - but not lowest - end of the scale. Plusgrade make no money unless they can seal the deal with you. I would also advocate keeping an eye on a bargain, there's not much point bidding for a stateroom that you would have got anyway had you paid for that in the first place.

 

 

Edited January 22 by Pushpit

[Jim_P]

I'm on QM2 next month. Both my travel companion and I booked separately as solo cruisers. I was offered to upgrade from my interior. I bid the minimum for an enclosed balcony. It was accepted within three days. About two weeks later my companion got an offer to bid on an upgrade from her obstructed view balcony, she bid the minimum for a regular balcony. It took about ten days and was accepted.

Edited January 23 by Jim_P

[3rdGenCunarder]

3 hours ago, Jim_P said:

I'm on QM2 next month. Both my travel companion and I booked separately as solo cruisers. I was offered to upgrade from my interior. I bid the minimum for an enclosed balcony. It was accepted within three days. About two weeks later my companion got an offer to bid on an upgrade from her obstructed view balcony, she bid the minimum for a regular balcony. It took about ten days and was accepted.

 

Not asking for a specific amount, but how far on the meter did you and your friend bid?

[Jim_P]

9 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Not asking for a specific amount, but how far on the meter did you and your friend bid?

Right at the bottom, plus a token $5 in case I was bidding against other people who bid the minimum.

[3rdGenCunarder]

2 hours ago, Jim_P said:

Right at the bottom, plus a token $5 in case I was bidding against other people who bid the minimum.

 

Wow, that's great. Did you have to pay the 75% extra for being a solo?

[busmech]

If your solo the bid is the same as 2 people

[ChrisMV]

3 hours ago, Jim_P said:

Right at the bottom, plus a token $5 in case I was bidding against other people who bid the minimum.

And this was for a world voyage segment that you won the upgrade for the minimum bid plus $5?  That is really outstanding, congrats!

[Winifred 22]

If you are a solo you have to bid for two people you can’t just bid for one and the second one is 100% not 75% as for normal booking. Certainly that is the rule on U K bookings. My daughter recently won  a minimum bid from forward inside to midship sheltered balcony on QM2 .  

[3rdGenCunarder]

2 hours ago, Winifred 22 said:

If you are a solo you have to bid for two people you can’t just bid for one and the second one is 100% not 75% as for normal booking. Certainly that is the rule on U K bookings. My daughter recently won  a minimum bid from forward inside to midship sheltered balcony on QM2 .  

 

Just to be clear, my bid is assumed to include the "solo penalty" and is the amount I will be charged? They won't double it? 

[Winifred 22]

4 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Just to be clear, my bid is assumed to include the "solo penalty" and is the amount I will be charged? They won't double it? 

In UK the bid is per person but if you are solo you pay twice for example I was offered a minimum of £100 per person to upgrade from

sheltered to standard but for me would have been 2 x 100 so £200 to upgrade not worth it As I said the solo penalty if you want t use they word is 100% not 75% as is normal for the ticket price. For solos it is not a good deal at all. You need to read the small print of the quoted is for one then you will pay double. Hope I am making sense. As a solo I have never bothered to bid. 

. 

[busmech]

When you move the slider for your bid, it will show the per person price, so double that. and when you go to put your credit card info in the next page at the top it will state the total bid offer

[Winifred 22]

1 minute ago, busmech said:

When you move the slider for your bid, it will show the per person price, so double that. and when you go to put your credit card info in the next page at the top it will state the total bid offer

I am not sure why you have to put your card details in,when my daughter won  her bid she had I think 72 hours to pay for it. They never took it off her card she had to either ring up or enter payment details. We just assumed it would be automatic. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

2 minutes ago, Winifred 22 said:

I am not sure why you have to put your card details in,when my daughter won  her bid she had I think 72 hours to pay for it. They never took it off her card she had to either ring up or enter payment details. We just assumed it would be automatic. 

 

In the US we're asked to put in the card details. You win the bid, they change your cabin and charge your card. No going back.

[Winifred 22]

1 minute ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

In the US we're asked to put in the card details. You win the bid, they change your cabin and charge your card. No going back.

Oh I assumed it would be like that here too as she was with her partner they did well as it was much cheaper than if she had upgraded

at her booking quote. 

[ChrisMV]

28 minutes ago, Winifred 22 said:

Oh I assumed it would be like that here too as she was with her partner they did well as it was much cheaper than if she had upgraded

at her booking quote. 

How long before the sailing date did she find out her bid was accepted?  Thank you 

[majortom10]

We had bid accepted from P2 to Q5/6 on QV in Nov/Dec and had 72 hrs to accept and if we did the cost would be automatically added to my credit card I had used to pay my balance.

[Winifred 22]

45 minutes ago, ChrisMV said:

How long before the sailing date did she find out her bid was accepted?  Thank you 

A couple of months. Late September for a mid November sailing. 

[Jim_P]

8 hours ago, ChrisMV said:

And this was for a world voyage segment that you won the upgrade for the minimum bid plus $5?  That is really outstanding, congrats!

Yep, Fremantle to Sydney. As a solo cruiser I've always had interior cabins so pretty excited to have my own balcony for the first time!

[Winifred 22]

How exciting. You will certainly enjoy your balcony. 

[tiggis]

Cunard seem to invite bids irrespective of whether there are any vacancies at the time of making the offer. Presumably they want to be prepared in the event of cancellations. This happened to us on a recent Christmas cruise where we heard only around a week before sailing that our bids - well above the minimum - had not been successful.

[Winifred 22]

It’s not done by Cunard but by a third party who administer the scheme on their behalf. It depends on other people bidding up from their category who may release spots in categories that previously were fully booked. 

[Pushpit]

1 hour ago, tiggis said:

Cunard seem to invite bids irrespective of whether there are any vacancies at the time of making the offer. Presumably they want to be prepared in the event of cancellations. This happened to us on a recent Christmas cruise where we heard only around a week before sailing that our bids - well above the minimum - had not been successful.

If you were to ask Plusgrade about this, bearing in mind they only get paid if you are successful, they would probably say "we had x cabins at that grade, x+1 bids or more, and we allocated from the highest bid downwards". That's why they allow you to up your bid after first submission since ideally you would be involved in social media chat and hear about other successful bids. This clearly works on the airlines, and sites like Flyertalk have detailed threads on Plusgrade for Lufthansa, TAP, LOT and what-not, it's probably less likely to work on Cunard.

 

The number of available staterooms is very fluid, you will note that the main activity here is in the final 90 days and so this is when deposits may or may not get paid up, non revenue cabins (e.g. musicians) confirm or don't confirm, travel agents with large bookings release spare allocations, so it's always a moving target.

[NancyDrew1953]

On 1/24/2024 at 2:15 AM, tiggis said:

Cunard seem to invite bids irrespective of whether there are any vacancies at the time of making the offer. Presumably they want to be prepared in the event of cancellations. This happened to us on a recent Christmas cruise where we heard only around a week before sailing that our bids - well above the minimum - had not been successful.

I am on an upcoming cruise on the Queen Elizabeth, which I purchased as one cruise, but consists of two shorter cruises.  My cruise is shown as SOLD-OUT, but the two individual shorter cruises are not sold out.  I'm in the Club and have been offered the opportunity to bid on the Princess Grill at an attractive price.  I am considering bidding, but when I looked at the two shorter cruises, the available Princess cabins shown are different cabins between the two cruises.

 

Before I bid, I am concerned that the QE would require me to change Princess Grill cabins in the middle of my booked (longer) cruise.  Cunard's FQA does not seem to address this.  Does anybody have any insight or thoughts on this issue?