Bidding for upgrades on NCL

NCL has introduced a upgrade system.  The system works on a bidding system, and they have a fancy dial telling you ‘how good your offer is’.  

There were lots of really amazing suites on offer through the bidding process. Interestingly, they all had a minimum and maximum range, so the most exclusive was a minimum of $1500 per person, whereas the entry level suite was ‘only’ $500.

From the averagely fancy

To the really fancy

There’s a lot of stuff to think about with bidding for upgrades.  The first one I think about is whether I care what the company thinks about the quality of my offer. My feelings on this is that if they offer a minimum amount, then they could, technically, accept the minimum offer. Next, I figure that other people might put out the minimum, so the old ‘and a penny’ approach to the bid will reduce a lot of competition.

For me, that meant bidding $520 for a $500 min, and $40 for a $25 min. The next level up, at $800 per person was too rich for my blood.

Our next NCL cruise is the Breakaway from New York, we’re currently in a Balcony Stateroom for the first time, as we typically use Mini-suites.  The mini suite appears to be a slightly bigger stateroom, but with no true suite perks, despite the narrow difference, I was quoted $400 upgrade per person to get the room at the time of booking.

The new bidding system has that as the maximum bid, I decided to go in at $40.  Important to note that it is based on first two pax, so each bid is doubled.

Not knowing what the heck I’m doing, I put in bids for 3 different cabins.  I’m hoping for the Haven for $520, but if everything goes wrong, and I get stuck with a mini suite for $80 I won’t grumble. 

There were two Haven options at the $500 minimum, forward facing Penthouses, which are not located in the Haven, and Haven Courtyards.  The aft facing one looks great too, with a 236 sqft balcony, but I couldn’t bring myself to bid on it at $800. Yolo.

They’re at the front

Time will tell how well regarded our ‘poor’ offers were, and I’ll be OK if we lose all bids and stay with our original room, but if we do get the upgrade, I’m also happy to pay the price for that.  This particular cruise is very ‘ship’ orientated as it involves just one port, so having a ‘Haven’ is more appealing than a cruise where we would be constantly out and about visiting ports and crashing to bed exhausted each day.

https://youtu.be/NUHS3HqzmZE