Expensive upgrade

[readinglady]

We are on the July 4 Rotterdam Vikings and Czars cruise. Our TA called me today and we were offered an upgrade from Verandah Suite A to a Deluxe Verandah Suite (equivalent room location) for $1000 per person. We are a family of 5 so we were offered two rooms costing us an additional $5000. My husband and I and our TA don't think that it's worth spending that much for the upgrade. What does anybody else think?

[cruznon]

I agree with your TA. $5000 for an upgrade seems a lot to me. Just curious--how long's the cruise?

[readinglady]

It's a 12 day cruise.

[KAYEF]

They seem to be doing that a lot. My friend just had the same thing happen. She got to thinking, if they offered her the upgrade for $1,000. they really wanted her cabin (someone did). She called them back and said she'd do it for $500. and they jumped at it.

She was thrilled.

[Starbright]

That was the same with us earlier in the week. They wanted £2000 ($3,500) dollars to upgrade us from a verandah to a deluxe verandah suite. I don't call that an upgrade - I call it buying a much more expensive cabin.

 

If we could have afforded that kind of money we would have booked a suite in the first place!

[grannynurse]

I agree. $5000 is not a deal. Bargain if you feel it's worth the effort. We have several friends who have bargained successfully but we have never been able to do this and have turned down several "so-called" deals.

Obviously HAL wants your cabins because they probably feel they'd be easier to sell than the cabins they're trying to sell you. If you picked your cabin for its location who knows what you'd end up with if you accepted their terms. Be careful, you don't want to suffer "buyers' remorse".

Good luck.

GN

[MBeamTX]

One thought occurs to me - if you're a family of 5 with 2 staterooms, then one of the cabins has 3 people in it. The third person typically doesn't cost any more in an S suite than in an A balcony! So why would there be an upgrade charge for that third person?

 

I'd check the current going rate for S suites on your sailing compared to what you paid for your cabins, and try to negotiate something less than that difference in price, if you're really interested in an S suite.

 

Happy sailing,

Susan

[Randyk47]

I don't think that $1,000 per person to upgrade from an A to an S is really a bargain and hardly, or just barely, really qualifies as a reduction. I know for our 14-day Veendam cruise the cost to between an A and an S is around $1,500 per person and that's using TA discounted prices, not HAL brochure fares. Adjusting the per diem rate between a 14 and 12 day cruise and then looking at the HAL offer I'd say they're "offering" a couple of hundred per person.....not much of an incentive. The price notwithstanding is not like there's a bad S location so that's not much of a consideration but for $5,000....I don't think so. :( If they want the A's bad enough and nobody else bites on their offer they'll be back.

[readinglady]

Thank you all for your opinions. We really appreciate them. I am going to call our TA this morning to see if she can bargain. I will check the HAL website now to check the price difference between an A and an S suite. I will keep you posted. Thanks again for all of your help.

[Spender Nui]

We are on the July 4 Rotterdam Vikings and Czars cruise. Our TA called me today and we were offered an upgrade from Verandah Suite A to a Deluxe Verandah Suite (equivalent room location) for $1000 per person. We are a family of 5 so we were offered two rooms costing us an additional $5000. My husband and I and our TA don't think that it's worth spending that much for the upgrade. What does anybody else think?

 

Seems more of a rip off than an upgrade.

[readinglady]

Well, I talked to our TA and HAL is not bargaining on the upgrade, so we turned it down. We are very happy with our cabins. Grannynurse, you gave me good advice on our cabins (A6172 & A6174) in a previous post. Thanks again everyone.

[gizmo]

I have to disagree with all those that think this is not a bargain nor do I think it is a rip off.

 

After looking at some prices I came to the conclusion that 1000.00 PP is a good deal. On Hal's site the same cruises, but different dates, are over 2000.00 PP to go from an A to an S.

 

I agree 5,000.00 is a lot of money to spend for many of us.

 

Is spending that kind of money for an S worth it ? All depends on someone's view point. Some people think a balcony isn't worth the extra money either. So, IMO, looking at this from purely a dollar view point and pricing, it is a bargain. ;)

[Tricia724]

This may be a little sidestep from the topic.....but every time I read a post where the cruiseline "wants someone's cabin(s)" and offers them either a free or "bargain" upgrade......I wonder who in the world is the cruiseline trying to appease by obtaining certain cabins for them???

 

It's really close to sailing for OP, and I can understand if the cruiseline has a few suites in inventory and is trying to fill them and get a few extra bucks in the bargain. But when they say they "want your cabin" or want a cabin in your category, what's the deal here? Who is important enough that the cruiseline will try to satisfy them.

 

If we want to book a cruise and would like to have an A or B balcony cabin when they are sold out, we're told....Sorry, choose an available stateroom or book another cruise. No one ever says, hold on a minute, we'll see if we can free up a few more balcony cabins for you. We've had difficulty getting the cruiseline to release a certain cabin to us that we knew was still in their inventory.

 

Has anyone had the cruiseline (any cruiseline) go out of their way for them to secure certain stateroom categories and, if so, what were the circumstances?

[MBeamTX]

Tricia -

This is just my supposition, but I think that the cruise line "wants your cabin" usually when they have sold too many guarantees in your category. Cruise lines oversell categories, just like airlines oversell flights, figuring there will be a certain percentage of cancellations. If fewer people cancel than expected in, say, category A, then HAL has to either give the A guarantee an S suite (or an SS on the Vista ships) or upgrade someone in an assigned A. They'd rather get someone in the assigned A to pay to upgrade to an S (or SS) even if it's a discounted rate.

 

I suspect that such offers occur less often in the inside and outside categories. It's no big deal (price- or amenity-wise) to assign a guarantee reservation to a cabin one or two categories higher.

 

The cruise line might also try to get you to give up your specific cabin if they are trying to accommodate a group, but I bet it's usually a guarantee oversell situation, especially when it happens close to sailing.

 

If I'm completely off-base on this, I'm sure someone else will chime in. :)

 

Happy cruising,

Susan

[gizmo]

MBeamTx, Those are my same thoughts. Agree 100%. :)

[sail7seas]

It could also be a case of someone who wishes to cruise back-to-backs and would like to be able to stay in the same cabin.

 

It could be a case where someone was booked on a different ship but they need their cabin from that ship and are trying hard to accomodate their wishes in moving to another ship so they'll agree to giving up their cabin.

 

I'm sure there are many 'speculative' situations we could all 'dream up'.

 

.......Or maybe it's a Res Agent's mother for whom they want your cabin :) ??? :)

 

[RedmondCruiser]

I'd tell HAL to forget it. Its insulting to be offered an upgrade for money when they are giving complementary upgrades every day. Last Sunday they had three listed upgrades on this site and realizing that only 5% of the HAL sailing public uses the boards - means that they upgrade many people each day than show up on these threads. Why get gouged by HAL - save the money and enjoy your cruise. Remember - you get the same food as the suite occupants do.

[gizmo]

I don't think it is insulting at all. It is good business practice. Why should a business give everything away ?

 

I see nothing wrong with making an offer to upgrade to a higher cabin for a price that is lower than what it normally sells for.

[sail7seas]

While I know there genuinely are some upgrades.....I think it fewer than we are sometimes led to believe. ;) As with everything on the Internet, we sometimes read things that are exaggerated or flatly untrue.

[krewzin]

I'll agree w/Gizmo here...I don't find it insulting in the least. They're in business to make money, and if one does not like what is offered as an upgrade, then simply turn it down.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

As far as offering changes an interesting thing happened to some friends of ours that the the Canal Transit on the Zaandam in late April to early May. They had booked cabin 7002 and about 2 months before final payment their TA contacted them that HAL needed that cabin and they offered the $700 ship board credit to move to 7004 which they had no problem doing. They figured may be it was due to a B2B or something. Well, to the amazement they talked with the guested in the cabin next to them and they had onky found out about their complimentary up grade from a Verandah catagory the week before their cruise and they too embarked when our friends did.:confused: My guess is someone did request that cabin but then backed out.

 

As far as upgrade yes for 5 people that is a lot of money and I would have passed but when I waited for 9 months on a wait list to go from a BA to a S Suite on the Maasdam last year I was willing and ready to pay that or a little more but the opportunity never happened:(

[Jim Gallup]

Cruise Line economics is a very convoluted subject. Most people - even in the cruise industry - just cannot understand the acrobatics that cruise lines go through to fill ALL staterooms and turn a profit.

 

On average, EVERY stateroom is sold 8 times on EVERY cruise. The eighth buyer is the one who actually occupies that stateroom for that cruise. The other 7 changed their minds, cancelled, upgraded, downgraded, moved, or otherwise didn't take their original choice.

 

On EVERY cruise, a certain demographic dominates. A majority of the passengers on EVERY cruise tend to go for one or two cabin categories that of course sell out almost immediately. Sometimes it is high end cabins; sometimes it is steerage cabins. The trends are somewhat predictable by season. Families with children (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter), and retirees (just before and after Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter) tend to like cheaper cabins. Seasoned travelers tend to go for better cabins during non-family non-holiday sailings.

Whatever the trend, as soon as the Cruise Line determines which way it is going, they begin to offer deals for upgrades to less popular cabin categories in order to free up the popular categories in order to sell them again. If they are really desperate to move people, they offer upgrades for lower rates or sometimes even free.

But these days, demand for cabins is so high that the cruise line knows they will sell all cabins nearly every time. They are sometimes forced to offer incredible deals if they are close to the end of a budget period where they need to show the boss a high occupancy rate, or if the itinerary is an unusual one without a proven sales history.

Many people who claim to have received a "free upgrade" are just plain lying. On my ship we can trace the history of every single cabin transaction from the first time it was sold. I hear many very imaginative stories every week.

 

1. You can consider Cruise Line Senior Managers as a bunch of idiots who seem to pluck numbers out of the sky and come up with incredibly stupid ideas and stories.

 

OR

 

2. You can think of them as incredibly well educated businessmen who use state of the art software and multi-million dollar consumer research programs to maximize their yield and do things that you will never be smart enough or educated enough to understand.

 

I vote for option 2.

[gizmo]

Jim,

 

Great post. I always thought the cruise lines did more shifting and shuffleling then one could ever imagine.

[iceman93]

Thanks, Jim. You authoritatively stated what I figured HAD to be the case.

 

As to the folks who thought the $5K was exorbitant and insulting... Why do you think that? It was clearly a discount off of the normal price difference between the cabin categories. And no one was forcing the OP to take the paid upgrade; "no" was a perfectly acceptable answer. And anyone can wait for a free upgrade, but there are of course no guarantees. This way, for a little more dough, someone will KNOW they're sailing in style.