Question about Club Orange

[3rdGenCunarder]

4 minutes ago, TAW1963 said:

Thanks for the reply.  For my current veranda cabin, there has not been a price drop.   However, it appears that the fare for the Signature suite is the one that has not dropped or, perhaps, it has been low for quite some time.   We are perfectly happy in our aft-facing veranda cabin.

 

I love aft cabins, and it would take something special to get me to move from one.

[TAW1963]

Just now, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I love aft cabins, and it would take something special to get me to move from one.

I totally agree!  Our cabin is centered between starboard and port, and on deck 5, which has the extremely large balconies on the Westerdam.  Easy access to the MDR too.  

[Haljo1935]

1 hour ago, TAW1963 said:

I totally agree!  Our cabin is centered between starboard and port, and on deck 5, which has the extremely large balconies on the Westerdam.  Easy access to the MDR too.  

Congrats!! Those are akin to winning the lottery!!

[TAW1963]

36 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

Congrats!! Those are akin to winning the lottery!!

Thanks!  I couldn't believe that I was able to book that cabin when I did a few months ago.  It was a really good price too.  Less than $1000 pp (not including tax and port fees)  including the Club Orange costs.   It really did feel like winning the lottery!

Edited March 11 by TAW1963

[TAW1963]

42 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

Congrats!! Those are akin to winning the lottery!!

@Haljo1935, I seem to recall reading that you are on the sailing before ours?  If so, we will just miss you by a week.  Our wedding anniversary (31st) is during our sailing, thus, the reason for choosing this one (plus the great price).

[Crew News]

2 hours ago, TAW1963 said:

I totally agree!  Our cabin is centered between starboard and port, and on deck 5, which has the extremely large balconies on the Westerdam.  Easy access to the MDR too.  

And fully covered on the Westerdam.

Edited March 11 by Crew News

[TAW1963]

34 minutes ago, Crew News said:

And fully covered on the Westerdam.

Thanks to you for your advice given well over a year ago, and repeated to others, regarding the aft cabins!   It is good to learn from experienced cruisers such as yourself!

[KAKcruiser]

Why not call and ask HAL your question?  Then you can decide what to do.  Ask to be connected with a pricing specialist.  They seem to be more knowledgeable than the people who answer the phone.

[crystalspin]

4 hours ago, TAW1963 said:

If I were to call HAL and try and purchase the lowest category Signature suite as an upsell, would they apply my, already purchased, Club Orange and allow me to then upgrade to my choice of Signature suite?

While I love the pricing specialists on HAL, I think you need to ask for the Upgrade person. Have a credit card and the deck plan handy. If purchasing an upgrade (upsell on Cruise Critic) you normally get your choice of available cabins, CO not necessary. 

 

Not having done it, but having read a lot on Cruise Critic, the other advantages of CO come with you. I base this on people taking an upsell to a Neptune suite (which includes everything in CO) and getting the price of their CO as OBC.

 

There are no benefits to Signature Suites except square footage. If bought at a published rate, you would get double Mariner Points but not with an upsell/upgrade. 

[YourWorldWithBill]

22 minutes ago, crystalspin said:

There are no benefits to Signature Suites except square footage. If bought at a published rate, you would get double Mariner Points but not with an upsell/upgrade. 

Yes, that's the only thing that's too bad about getting a decent upgrade: no double points for the Vista or the Signature. Oh. Well.

[POA1]

If you are past final payment, you are in penalty. It's gotta be a heck of a price drop to be worth it. Assuming you have cancellation protection, you'll forfeit that and either 10% or 20% of the cruise fare. (Taxes, fees and port expenses will be refunded.)

 

You will also lose Club Orange and, if there's a wait list, the next person in line will get CO.

[TAW1963]

7 hours ago, POA1 said:

If you are past final payment, you are in penalty. It's gotta be a heck of a price drop to be worth it. Assuming you have cancellation protection, you'll forfeit that and either 10% or 20% of the cruise fare. (Taxes, fees and port expenses will be refunded.)

 

You will also lose Club Orange and, if there's a wait list, the next person in line will get CO.

Sorry, I may not have been entirely clear.  I have, or had,  no plans of cancelling my current booking regardless.  If that is what it would take to do an upgrade, or upsell, to a higher cabin and transferring CO to it, then I am staying put.  I fully understand that I am within final payment and what the penalties would be due to cancellation.

 

Not that it makes any difference, but we have been sailing more with Princess than HAL lately.  We like both cruise lines, but at the current time, Princess is a better fit for us. Just recently a higher level cabin became available on my upcoming Hawaii cruise on Princess that is also within final payment.  In fact we sail this Saturday.  I called Princess, whose phone agents are like HALs --nice but sometimes clueless, and asked if I could upgrade my cabin.  I ended up upgrading and just paying a difference in the fare.  I did not have to cancel and rebook.  I thought, perhaps, that HAL's process may be about the same but with CO as an extra twist.

Edited March 12 by TAW1963

[POA1]

I may have misunderstood you, @TAW1963

 

1 thought you were talking about a price reduction + upgrade. They will allow you to do a paid upgrade and keep CO. We received two upgrade offers on our upcoming Rotterdam sailing. We originally booked VH (obstructed verandah) and used CO to upgrade to a category V (one of the pointy ones on the bump out.)

 

We got two offers from the PLUS upgrade department. Both were to vista suites. The second offer was at a lower price.

 

We declined both offers because we really like our cabin location and you don't get double Mariner credit days on an upgrade.

 

If we had taken the upgrade, Club Orange would have followed us.

[TAW1963]

1 minute ago, POA1 said:

I may have misunderstood you, @TAW1963

 

1 thought you were talking about a price reduction + upgrade. They will allow you to do a paid upgrade and keep CO. We received two upgrade offers on our upcoming Rotterdam sailing. We originally booked VH (obstructed verandah) and used CO to upgrade to a category V (one of the pointy ones on the bump out.)

 

We got two offers from the PLUS upgrade department. Both were to vista suites. The second offer was at a lower price.

 

We declined both offers because we really like our cabin location and you don't get double Mariner credit days on an upgrade.

 

If we had taken the upgrade, Club Orange would have followed us.

We are now on the same page.  Thanks!

[Haljo1935]

2 hours ago, TAW1963 said:

...Just recently a higher level cabin became available on my upcoming Hawaii cruise on Princess that is also within final payment.  In fact we sail this Saturday.  I called Princess, whose phone agents are like HALs --nice but sometimes clueless, and asked if I could upgrade my cabin.  I ended up upgrading and just paying a difference in the fare.  I did not have to cancel and rebook.  I thought, perhaps, that HAL's process may be about the same but with CO as an extra twist.

This has been my experience on HAL.

[pirate cruiser]

I was told we could add CO to our Rotterdam cruise in Dec. but since we are in the cabin we want (aft deck 6) we would not get anything in place of an upgrade. 

[terrydtx]

14 minutes ago, pirate cruiser said:

I was told we could add CO to our Rotterdam cruise in Dec. but since we are in the cabin we want (aft deck 6) we would not get anything in place of an upgrade. 

When we added CO to our Koningsdam cruise last year, we already had the aft facing verandah cabin we wanted with no higher category available we got $100 OBC instead of the upgrade.

[cattman]

On 3/11/2024 at 7:25 AM, TAW1963 said:

  If I were to call HAL and try and purchase the lowest category Signature suite as an upsell, would they apply my, already purchased, Club Orange and allow me to then upgrade to my choice of Signature suite?  In this case, Club Orange pays for itself and then some, if this is allowed..

We do upsells all the time, and sometimes purchase CO.. but each time the upsell was to our choice of any available cabins within the suite class, I believe with or without CO. Our experience with upsells was they are based on availability rather than category based, and were one price for whatever was available regardless of category.

 

Some of our upsells were from VB balconies to Neptune Suites, and as CO is included in a NS, our original CO payments were deducted from - or applied to - the upsell price. Choice of Signature Suites in various categories were always available also, at a lower upsell price, but I do not believe CO made a difference there either and the upsell price was the same for all categories, whatever was available.

 

 

[KAKcruiser]

I think in this case the person was asking about buying a better cabin but did not have an official offer for an upsell.  She wanted to upgrade to the lowest available category and then get upgraded with CO.  

[3rdGenCunarder]

8 hours ago, KAKcruiser said:

I think in this case the person was asking about buying a better cabin but did not have an official offer for an upsell.  She wanted to upgrade to the lowest available category and then get upgraded with CO.  

Right. The big question is can you play the "CO game" twice on the same booking.

[TAW1963]

1 hour ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

Right. The big question is can you play the "CO game" twice on the same booking.

Yes, that is a great way of putting it!  I've done CO on a veranda to go from lowest to near highest level cabin.  If you then, without an upsell offer and within final payment period, upgrade to the lowest level signature suite, can you use CO again ("CO game") to move you to the highest level signature suite?   I think I am staying put regardless, but it would be good to know that answer to that for future reference.

[POA1]

21 minutes ago, TAW1963 said:

Yes, that is a great way of putting it!  I've done CO on a veranda to go from lowest to near highest level cabin.  If you then, without an upsell offer and within final payment period, upgrade to the lowest level signature suite, can you use CO again ("CO game") to move you to the highest level signature suite?   I think I am staying put regardless, but it would be good to know that answer to that for future reference.

 Probably not. The upsell is going to be to a specific room. (Unless you are paying full price for the upsell. Remember that a paid upsell, initiated by you, is going to use your original fare basis as the starting point.) If HAL sends you an offer, you'll be picking the room.

 

The only time I've seen anything that impacts CO is an upsell to a Neptune. The NS category includes CO. Someone reported that their CO fee was refunded on a Neptune upgrade. I kinda think it was @DaveOKC 

 

But I could be wrong.

[TAW1963]

6 minutes ago, POA1 said:

 Probably not. The upsell is going to be to a specific room. (Unless you are paying full price for the upsell. Remember that a paid upsell, initiated by you, is going to use your original fare basis as the starting point.) If HAL sends you an offer, you'll be picking the room.

 

The only time I've seen anything that impacts CO is an upsell to a Neptune. The NS category includes CO. Someone reported that their CO fee was refunded on a Neptune upgrade. I kinda think it was @DaveOKC 

 

But I could be wrong.

I agree that the answer is "probably not."

[*Miss G*]

2 minutes ago, POA1 said:

The only time I've seen anything that impacts CO is an upsell to a Neptune. The NS category includes CO. Someone reported that their CO fee was refunded on a Neptune upgrade. I kinda think it was @DaveOKC 

 

Yes, I have been able to have my CO purchase applied to the offer a couple of times. 

[POA1]

5 minutes ago, *Miss G* said:

 

Yes, I have been able to have my CO purchase applied to the offer a couple of times. 

Did they just credit the $X you pad for CO toward the upgrade cost?  In other words, if the uprade cost $500, you only paid $500-$X?