Upgrade Fairy Needed His Palm Greased

[Marc]

We leave in a week for twenty-five nights on Seven Seas Voyager; Sydney to Beijing. We have a Cat H guarantee; cheapest rate on ship. I was sort of hopeful for an upgrade but although upgraded many times; always to another deluxe suite; no real upgrade. Today, TA emailed to say that Regent was offering upgrades to Penthouse Suites (A or B) for just $750 per person. We jumped at it. $1500 over twenty-five nights is not that much money to experience a Penthouse Suite for first time.

I guess Regent figured out that they have a perishable commodity so might as well see how much money they could get for it.

[Paul Motter]

Isn't that just the way these days?

Its actually kind of funny that Regent (another piece of the Apollo Group) would steal a play from the NCL playbook - the old upsell.

NCLs been doing that one for a long time now.

It does make sense for a business - if you can sell the upgrade at any price why give it away?

[Marc]

Paul, Regent has always had a "deal" for upgrade once onboard - you pay half the difference. I never found that to be worthwhile. I always thought that if they did more market research, for those cruises that are definitely not selling out, they could "maximise" their income by finding a sweet spot. Here, it was a flat amount for an A or B whether you were booked in H, G, F, E, or D. This offer was given to lots of people. I am checking inventory on their site to see if the "A" and "B" penthouse suites do, in fact sell out. This leg of the World Cruise is not very crowded due to long air and lots of sea days while the current Auckland to Sydney segment is sold out.