NCL to offer clients ability to bid for an upgrade

I have been reading an interesting article about NCL (Norwegian Cruise Line) and a new system they are operating which will allow guests to bid for a cabin upgrade (if eligible).

This new system has already been tested on some of their ships previously and now NCL say that this will roll out fleet wide by March 2017.

The alerts will be email based and sent to qualifying guests based on a number of factors including how much they have already paid and how many cabins are remaining on sale.

The system will only allow guests to bid for a category type of cabin such as Balcony or Mini-Suite as opposed to a particular sub-category or cabin number but I am guessing for guests wanting to pick these this could be achieved by upgrading in the traditional way.

I do believe this is an interesting concept and time will tell how popular it is and how well it works, although initial trials must have gone well for NCL to announce the fleet wide roll out.

I personally think that this could be beneficial to many guests as  it may well get them an upgrade for a lower price than they would have previously paid.

It is certainly better than the upgrade policies of other well known American cruise lines that I deal with who have very awkward upgrade policies that don’t work very well at all.

What do you think ? This has often been an awkward subject with many of my clients as many of them ask for an upgrade price and get given a ridiculous response from the cruise line in question which wastes everyone’s time and is of no benefit to anyone. Maybe other cruise lines should look at ways that things can be tweaked to benefit more people and themselves.