Last year, I surprised my husband with a Virgin Voyages Caribbean cruise for his 30th birthday.
It was difficult to keep the trip a secret from him at first, but saving up to foot the bill for this vacation solo might have been even tougher. To keep costs manageable, I booked us an interior room.
Although I really wanted to get us a sea-view room, I couldn’t justify spending an extra $1,100 for slightly bigger space with a window.
However, months later, I got an email from Virgin’s Level Upgrade program offering me a chance to bid on a sea-view room (and other higher-tier cabins) for far less.
With a little bit of research and luck, I scored the room upgrade I originally wanted for just $80.
I bid above the minimum — but not by too little or too much
The window for bidding on upgrades varies from voyage to voyage, and closes as soon as any remaining cabin inventory fills up. In my case, the system opened two months in advance, and I placed my bids a few weeks later.
I knew I didn’t want to leave the minimum bids, since I imagine a lot of travelers do just that when the “Level Upgrade” email arrives just to see what happens.
In those cases, you can beat out the competition by only bidding a few bucks. However, leaving too small of a margin can be risky .
After reading about other bidders’ experiences on various cruise forums, I also felt confident I wouldn’t need to offer hundreds above the minimum bid threshold just to be successful.
For our voyage, I successfully offered $80 on a sea-view cabin with a minimum bid of $45. I also placed an unsuccessful bid of $280 on a limited-view sea-terrace room, which had a minimum of $275.
I was happy with sea-view room, which had a large porthole and the lowest minimum bid prices by over $200.
Looking back, I had good odds of getting that room since we were in the lowest cabin tier and the majority of Virgin Voyages’ rooms are sea terraces with balconies.
This means most of my fellow travelers — bidders I was competing with — weren’t even trying for a sea-view cabin. For them, it would’ve been a downgrade.
Above all, I stayed patient and ready to enjoy our trip even without an upgrade
Although there’s a chance of hearing back earlier, we found out about our upgrade just a day before our voyage’s departure.
From the start, though, I knew we’d have an amazing time on board no matter what room we ended up in. After all, the bidding upgrade system is a gamble.
Fortunately, one of the best things about a cruise, is that your trip is what you make of it — and you can spend as much (or as little) time in your accommodation as you’d like.
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