Guarantee might mean cruise upgrade

BY remembering three letters -- GTY -- when you phone a cruise broker or cruise line, you may end up in a big outside cabin with a balcony instead of a little inside cabin without even a porthole. It’s a tactic known to few cruise passengers, but those who are aware of it are often able to cruise in luxury at rock-bottom cost.

GTY means “guaranteed” -- a guaranteed cabin category at a guaranteed price. Often, when you phone to request a low-ball price that you’ve seen advertised in the newspaper for a particular sailing, the cruise line will advise that all such minimum-rate cabins are sold out.

But because the cruise line often wants to continue taking bookings at the low price (in anticipation of cancellations or in cases where the ship still has space), it will sometimes offer you a price-and-category guarantee, like a quote of $499 for an unspecified inside cabin.

It will not guarantee you a specific inside cabin (for example, No. 782 in the middle of the ship), but it will guarantee that you’ll pay $499 for some cabin, even if you must later be upgraded to a bigger outside cabin that costs more.

How often do such upgrades occur?

In more than half of all cases, according to half a dozen experienced cruise brokers to whom I put that question. That’s because the guarantee mechanism is used mainly when the minimum-rate cabins are sold out. Chances are then overwhelming (but not certain) that the cabins later used for guarantees will be upgraded ones. Must the traveler wait for the cruise line to suggest a rate guarantee, or is it helpful for passengers themselves to broach the subject? Surprisingly, say my informants, the latter procedure works best; passengers shouldn’t hold back or be shy.

Do passengers who accept a rate-and-category guarantee run any risks? Only if they are determined to snare an identified cabin in the center of the ship -- the kind that many think is subject to less motion. Some people think a minimum-rate cabin in the center of the vessel is preferable to an upgraded cabin at either end of the ship and certainly preferable to another minimum-rate cabin at either end of the ship.

Others (including myself) disagree.

The only other risk from accepting such a nonspecific guarantee is encountered by groups of passengers who want cabins next to one another (families, for instance). A GTY can’t guarantee the eventual assignment to same-floor or adjoining cabins.

If you’re among those who don’t require a center-ship cabin or adjoining cabins, you run no risk by accepting the rate-and-category guarantee. You will never be placed in a lower category.

Numerous cruise websites are filled with message-board reports by passengers who accepted a guarantee, paid for a minimum-rate inside cabin and were then upgraded to an outside cabin with balcony-veranda.

When do they learn whether they’ve hit the jackpot? Shortly before sailing. And why does this possibility exist? Only a few cabins usually sell for minimum prices; yet often, the cruise line wants to continue accepting minimum-rate bookings on a sailing it fears will not be sold out.

To later place the “overbooked” passengers in an unsold luxury suite, if that becomes necessary, involves no extra expense to the cruise line.

So now the cat is out of the bag. Have I destroyed the secret by revealing it? I don’t think so. No matter how many savvy readers request a GTY, in a cabin whose number is TBA (to be assigned), it is the cruise line alone that decides how often this gamble will be offered.

And one last thing: Never request a minimum-rate category guarantee unless you’re willing to occupy a minimum-rate inside cabin. You might be in the 50% that gets what it requests.