Zeg Posted September 23 #1 Share Posted September 23 (edited) Interested in upgrading cabins so looked online and there were an assortment of different categories and options showing as available. However on phoning Cunard they tell me that all but a couple of cabins are sold out. So it seems customers can book a variety of cabins and grades online, but not upgrade to one (that is showing as available online) direct with Cunard. Curious. Edited September 23 by Zeg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PORT ROYAL Posted September 23 #2 Share Posted September 23 59 minutes ago, Zeg said: Interested in upgrading cabins so looked online and there were an assortment of different categories and options showing as available. However on phoning Cunard they tell me that all but a couple of cabins are sold out. So it seems customers can book a variety of cabins and grades online, but not upgrade to one (that is showing as available online) direct with Cunard. Curious. Try calling again… Explain one’s confusion… Ask for their help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeg Posted September 23 Author #3 Share Posted September 23 55 minutes ago, PORT ROYAL said: Try calling again… Explain one’s confusion… Ask for their help. Yes. Good idea. That’s why I rang them a second time. Was told that’s all they have. Clearly isn’t. Told me that’s all that comes up on their system. Puzzled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exlondoner Posted September 23 #4 Share Posted September 23 8 minutes ago, Zeg said: Yes. Good idea. That’s why I rang them a second time. Was told that’s all they have. Clearly isn’t. Told me that’s all that comes up on their system. Puzzled. I’m afraid that tells you all you need to know about Cunard’s IT. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare WantedOnVoyage Posted September 23 #5 Share Posted September 23 At the considerable risk of bringing up the topic of using a travel agent, or indeed, talking to any vaguely real person vs. booking on the "website", this is why one might consider the former two options over the latter. I use the Cunard website (or try to) sometimes to get a vague idea what is available cabin grade wise but found it so often at odds with "real" availability that my agent or Cunard direct can actually confirm, to never once entertain the idea of booking on line. Cunard "IT" has never been much good... even before the public had to navigate it. I remember when Cunard went from "berthing books" to computers in the 1970s and it was a mess for agents, passengers and staff alike. One could book and pay for a First Class cabin and wind up in Tourist collecting tickets in London, and on embarkation be back in First and then in Tourist all in the space of one day aboard ship. And I did, too. But at least they could say "oh, it was the computer don't you know." 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare 3rdGenCunarder Posted September 23 #6 Share Posted September 23 4 hours ago, Zeg said: Interested in upgrading cabins so looked online and there were an assortment of different categories and options showing as available. However on phoning Cunard they tell me that all but a couple of cabins are sold out. So it seems customers can book a variety of cabins and grades online, but not upgrade to one (that is showing as available online) direct with Cunard. Curious. Did you try to do a booking? You can go through several steps without committing to purchase anything. Sometimes the first page you see shows a lot of categories and then when you continue on to make your selection, it will say "sold out." Or was the website offering only guarantees, in which case you can't investigate what's available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeg Posted September 24 Author #7 Share Posted September 24 9 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said: Did you try to do a booking? You can go through several steps without committing to purchase anything. Sometimes the first page you see shows a lot of categories and then when you continue on to make your selection, it will say "sold out." Or was the website offering only guarantees, in which case you can't investigate what's available. Yes I did all you suggested. Loads of availability online. Restricted availability on the Cunard’s Agent’s systems! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeg Posted September 24 Author #8 Share Posted September 24 11 hours ago, WantedOnVoyage said: At the considerable risk of bringing up the topic of using a travel agent, or indeed, talking to any vaguely real person vs. booking on the "website", this is why one might consider the former two options over the latter. I use the Cunard website (or try to) sometimes to get a vague idea what is available cabin grade wise but found it so often at odds with "real" availability that my agent or Cunard direct can actually confirm, to never once entertain the idea of booking on line. Cunard "IT" has never been much good... even before the public had to navigate it. I remember when Cunard went from "berthing books" to computers in the 1970s and it was a mess for agents, passengers and staff alike. One could book and pay for a First Class cabin and wind up in Tourist collecting tickets in London, and on embarkation be back in First and then in Tourist all in the space of one day aboard ship. And I did, too. But at least they could say "oh, it was the computer don't you know." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeg Posted September 24 Author #9 Share Posted September 24 (edited) Very good points. So following your idea, I actually looked on a Travel Agents website online that showed a similar selection of cabins available as per the Cunard website. I did a dummy booking on the TA site followed up by a phone call. Indeed the TA could offer me cabins that the Cunard direct telephone consultant wouldn’t/couldn’t. The plot thickens! Edited September 24 by Zeg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeg Posted September 24 Author #10 Share Posted September 24 13 hours ago, exlondoner said: I’m afraid that tells you all you need to know about Cunard’s IT. Not only IT but their disinclination to earn more money! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen@stoneyard.co.uk Posted September 24 #11 Share Posted September 24 Perhaps they manage cabin inventory through an allocation system. Certain cabins and number of cabins could be allocated to different types of sale. For example travel agent, website, direct phone, upgrade and not yet for sale. They could move cabins between allocations to maximise the potential revenue. This can be particularly useful when parts of different voyages are combined to make a longer trip and better sale for Cunard. Who knows really? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planning to cruise Posted September 24 #12 Share Posted September 24 I think the larger TA companies take block booking options. Hence (in the UK) their ubiquitous advertising in the weekend press. What is unsold sometimes comes on stream later. We once came across the "booked" scenario. When trying to book our favourite / regular area of cabin for a long cruise we were constantly told that it was unavailable, a whole run of rooms. We ended up elsewhere in what turned out for a number of reasons to be an unsatisfactory room. Our preferred rooms changed occupancy weekly with groups. We have found that another situation with availability ambiguity is when trying to book an advertised itinerary it is reported as unavailable because of someone booking just one sector. For example, a Med cruise may be Southampton to Southampton but there may be advertised cruises within that changing over say at Rome, Barcelona. We gave up trying when booking opened for a round trip as the cabin class was taken for the odd shorter run. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winifred 22 Posted September 24 #13 Share Posted September 24 I couldn’t get a cabin I wanted as they were blocked out to a T A . Nearer to sailing they were put back into Cunard’s inventory to sell and I booked with no further issues. I suspect that has what has happened here. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeg Posted September 24 Author #14 Share Posted September 24 3 hours ago, Winifred 22 said: I couldn’t get a cabin I wanted as they were blocked out to a T A . Nearer to sailing they were put back into Cunard’s inventory to sell and I booked with no further issues. I suspect that has what has happened here. Yes. Sounds like it. Except in this case Cunard blocked out it’s availability to itself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toffeegirl68 Posted September 25 #15 Share Posted September 25 19 hours ago, Zeg said: Yes. Sounds like it. Except in this case Cunard blocked out it’s availability to itself! If a cabin is allocated to a TA then it wouldn't be available to Cunard itself until the time at which it is returned, unsold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCC retired Posted September 25 #16 Share Posted September 25 Travel Agents block category inventory not actual cabins until names and payments are assigned to a cabin #. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caipi Posted September 26 #17 Share Posted September 26 I wanted to book 5048* for our upcoming QM2-cruise (next November), but it was only available if I looked at the cruise starting and ending in Southampton. In the variation starting in Southampton and ending in Hamburg you could not book it... 😞 Strange, isn't it? (*=We spent months preparing ourselves for our cruise in August in 5048, and were upgraded in the last few days before the cruise....) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sucramdi Posted September 26 #18 Share Posted September 26 I'm following a voyage I'm booked on, and Cunard shows the cabin type I booked as available, but on clicking in to a mock booking the website only allows guaranteed cabins even if you choose the full price Cunard Fare. If you try to change your cabin, then it says no staterooms are available. I'm curious what that means since my booking was a guaranteed cabin. I'd love to see how Cunard manages bookings because this all seems very convoluted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemarble Posted September 26 #19 Share Posted September 26 2 hours ago, Caipi said: I wanted to book 5048* for our upcoming QM2-cruise (next November), but it was only available if I looked at the cruise starting and ending in Southampton. In the variation starting in Southampton and ending in Hamburg you could not book it... 😞 Strange, isn't it? (*=We spent months preparing ourselves for our cruise in August in 5048, and were upgraded in the last few days before the cruise....) It may seem strange but what you are seeing happens to be the way Cunard manages their cabin inventory. Any given cabin can only be assigned to one specific voyage within a set of overlapping voyages at any given time. The 10-night voyage from Southampton to Hamburg for 7 Nov-17 Nov 2025 is a component of this set of four overlapping voyages. 31 Oct-17 Nov 2025 = New York-Hamburg (M534B) 31 Oct-26 Nov 2025 = New York-New York (M534A) 7 Nov-17 Nov 2025 = Southampton-Hamburg (M535A) 7 Nov-19 Nov 2025 = Southampton-Southampton (M535) It looks like you found cabin 5048 assigned to voyage M535 which means it cannot be assigned to any of the other of three of these voyages at the same time even though it logically means that it could also be assigned to voyage M535A. Unfortunately that's the way it works. I often see many of the same cabins assigned to each of a pair of 7-night crossings between New York and Southampton. Those cabins cannot be booked on the corresponding 14-night roundtrip crossing. It is not uncommon to see a category of cabins listed as sold out on a roundtrip crossing when there are many cabins in that category that can be booked on both of the individual 7-night crossings (with some of the same cabins available for booking on both crossings). I've booked such a roundtrip crossing on occasion as two separate crossings in the same cabin for that reason. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare D&N Posted September 26 #20 Share Posted September 26 16 minutes ago, bluemarble said: I often see many of the same cabins assigned to each of a pair of 7-night crossings between New York and Southampton. Those cabins cannot be booked on the corresponding 14-night roundtrip crossing. It is not uncommon to see a category of cabins listed as sold out on a roundtrip crossing when there are many cabins in that category that can be booked on both of the individual 7-night crossings (with some of the same cabins available for booking on both crossings). I've booked such a roundtrip crossing on occasion as two separate crossings in the same cabin for that reason. @Caipi This has been the case on the two B2B crossings we have booked for 2025 and 2026. For 2025 our agent managed to persuade "The Berthing Team" to release the cabin we wanted to our round trip itinerary. For 2026 the agent was experiencing more resistance to that. I sent an email to executive correspondence, which received a sympathetic but non committal response. Subsequently the person our agent was dealing with appeared to have been told to release the cabin, but didn't seem to be very pleased about having to doing so. In both cases we paid the lower fare for the fourteen night sailing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemarble Posted September 26 #21 Share Posted September 26 (edited) 3 hours ago, sucramdi said: I'm following a voyage I'm booked on, and Cunard shows the cabin type I booked as available, but on clicking in to a mock booking the website only allows guaranteed cabins even if you choose the full price Cunard Fare. If you try to change your cabin, then it says no staterooms are available. I'm curious what that means since my booking was a guaranteed cabin. I'd love to see how Cunard manages bookings because this all seems very convoluted. In this case the category of cabin you have booked is indeed guarantee-only regardless of which fare you select. That's typically because there aren't currently any cabins available in that category, but there will be once Cunard upgrades some of those in that category either through the upgrade bidding process or through complimentary upgrades. You just might be the beneficiary of an upgrade to a higher category. Cabins in the category you have booked may also become available because of cancellations. Edited September 26 by bluemarble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare *Miss G* Posted September 27 #22 Share Posted September 27 I don’t know if it works the same on Cunard, but on HAL you can call your PCC and ask them to release a cabin from inventory in order to book it. From all reports, most have been successful with their request. Not sure if it works when you are using a TA though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caipi Posted September 27 #23 Share Posted September 27 10 hours ago, bluemarble said: It may seem strange but what you are seeing happens to be the way Cunard manages their cabin inventory. Any given cabin can only be assigned to one specific voyage within a set of overlapping voyages at any given time. The 10-night voyage from Southampton to Hamburg for 7 Nov-17 Nov 2025 is a component of this set of four overlapping voyages. 31 Oct-17 Nov 2025 = New York-Hamburg (M534B) 31 Oct-26 Nov 2025 = New York-New York (M534A) 7 Nov-17 Nov 2025 = Southampton-Hamburg (M535A) 7 Nov-19 Nov 2025 = Southampton-Southampton (M535) It looks like you found cabin 5048 assigned to voyage M535 which means it cannot be assigned to any of the other of three of these voyages at the same time even though it logically means that it could also be assigned to voyage M535A. Unfortunately that's the way it works. I often see many of the same cabins assigned to each of a pair of 7-night crossings between New York and Southampton. Those cabins cannot be booked on the corresponding 14-night roundtrip crossing. It is not uncommon to see a category of cabins listed as sold out on a roundtrip crossing when there are many cabins in that category that can be booked on both of the individual 7-night crossings (with some of the same cabins available for booking on both crossings). I've booked such a roundtrip crossing on occasion as two separate crossings in the same cabin for that reason. I see, thank you for the explanation. One would think that system could cause them some financial loss, I mean in the case you wrote someone sees the 2-way-crossing is sold out and does not check the separate legs. Unless they always sell out everything anyway. 🙂 But maybe sometimes they reassign as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Victoria2 Posted September 27 #24 Share Posted September 27 We have had long cruises booked with segments available for shorter itineraries. The whole cruise still had QG accommodation available but two of the segments showed none. This has happened a couple of times and is still happening. A cruise we have booked gave us no alternative for the cabin as the other cabin was reserved for segments. No problem as we liked both but interesting and a good job our TA was on the ball to book the only cabin available to us when bookings went live for past passengers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare 3rdGenCunarder Posted September 27 #25 Share Posted September 27 7 hours ago, Caipi said: I see, thank you for the explanation. One would think that system could cause them some financial loss, I mean in the case you wrote someone sees the 2-way-crossing is sold out and does not check the separate legs. Unless they always sell out everything anyway. 🙂 But maybe sometimes they reassign as well. They probably do adjust allocation to the different segments if one is selling better than others. HAL does a similar allocation and they do shift cabins from one segment to another. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now