A Virgin Voyages upgrade bid usually opens around three months before you sail, though it can land a month out or not at all, and the number shown under each cabin is the minimum you are allowed to offer rather than the amount that wins.
Bid in the middle of the range and you have a decent shot. Bid at the bottom and you are mostly donating your time.
That is the short version. The longer version is that almost everything about this process is decided by how well your specific sailing is selling, which nobody tells you, so below is the whole flow screen by screen plus what the numbers actually mean.
What a Virgin Voyages Upgrade Bid Actually Is
You book a cabin. Some time later Virgin Voyages invites you to offer money to move into a better one, and if they accept your offer you sail in the nicer room.
It is an auction on whatever the ship has not sold, which is the detail that explains every strange thing about it.
You cannot bid on a cabin that does not exist, so a sailing that has genuinely sold out will not offer you much. And because the whole thing depends on unsold inventory, the timing, the prices, and your odds change from sailing to sailing rather than following a rule.
When You Can Bid on an Upgrade
There is no fixed date, and anyone who gives you one is guessing.
As a general shape, expect the invitation somewhere around three months before you sail. It can come earlier. It can also come much later.
One of my own sailings got booked in December for a January 8th departure, so roughly a month out, and the option to bid appeared immediately. Every room type was on the list, even though when I actually looked at the ship it was sold out except for a single cabin.
That is worth sitting with for a second, because it tells you something the screen does not. Being shown a cabin category does not mean there are cabins in it.
How to Place an Upgrade Bid, Step by Step
The flow itself is short. Four screens and you are done.
One. Open the upgrade offer from the email or your booking and you get the list of cabin categories you are allowed to bid on, each with a number underneath it.
Read the next section before you type anything into that box, because that number is the single most misread thing in this whole process.
Two. Enter your amount and move to the review screen. This is your last look at the figure before it goes live, so check it here rather than after.
Three. Submit it. Nothing is charged at this point. You are only charged if the bid is accepted.
Four. Wait, which is the part of the process that needs the most explaining and gets the least.
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How Much Should You Bid?
This is the question we get more than any other, so here is the honest answer rather than the comfortable one.
The number printed under each cabin is the starting point. It is the floor. It is the smallest offer the system will accept from you, and it sits a long way below the top of the range.
Almost everybody reads it as a price. It is not a price. Offering the minimum is not a clever low bid, it is the bid everyone else also thought of.
JC, the travel agent I make the podcast with, puts it simply and he gets asked this constantly. Bid in the middle of the range and you have a pretty good chance. Bid above the middle and you have a really good chance.
For scale on what real numbers look like: moving from an inside cabin up to a Sea Terrace is the sort of jump where sailors bid a few hundred dollars, somewhere in the $400 to $500 region.
Going after a RockStar suite is a completely different conversation, and I will get to why below.
One more thing, and it is the part I would want a friend to tell me. Bid an amount you would be happy to pay if it lands, not an amount you are hoping is enough. Because if it lands, you are paying it.
What Happens After You Submit It
Your bid goes to pending, and pending is a place with no clock on it.
Some sailors hear the day before they sail. I know someone who found out one day out on a sailing I was on.
Others never hear anything at all. You place a bid, nothing arrives, and you work out at check in that the answer was no. There is no rejection message coming to tell you.
So plan your sailing around the cabin you actually booked. Treat the upgrade as a thing that might happen, not a thing you are waiting on, and you will enjoy the run up to your cruise a great deal more.
A Pending Bid Is Not Locked In
While your offer is still pending, you can go back into it and change it. Raise it, lower it, or pull it out entirely.
That is genuinely useful if your plans shift, or if you find out closer to the date that the sailing is filling up and you want to strengthen your position.
What you cannot do is undo an accepted bid. Once Virgin Voyages takes your offer, that is the room you are in and the money is spent. There is no changing your mind afterward and no swapping into something else.
Which is exactly why the number you type matters more than it feels like it does at the time.
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Should You Bid on RockStar, or on a Regular Cabin?
These are two different bets, and they deserve to be thought about separately.
Bidding within the regular cabins is a straight trade for a better room. Sea Terrace to Central Sea Terrace, or up to an XL. You are buying space and position, and that is the whole transaction.
Bidding into RockStar is not just a room change. You are buying a different sailing.
RockStar comes with an earlier boarding time, access to Richard’s Rooftop, and depending on which RockStar room you land in, things like an in-room bar. The room is the smallest part of what changes.
Here is the problem with that bet, and it is a math problem. Around 86% of the cabins on these ships have a balcony, so the ship is overwhelmingly Sea Terrace and Central Sea Terrace sailors. That is thousands of people, and a huge share of them are all bidding on the same small number of RockStar suites.
If you want RockStar, you have to go big. There is no clever angle on it.
I can tell you from personal experience that going big is not a guarantee either. I bid $4,000 for a Mega RockStar suite on one sailing and did not get the room.
What Your Actual Chances Are
There is no trick here, and I would rather say that than sell you one.
Nothing you do outside of the amount changes your odds. There is no timing strategy, no bidding window that works better, no way to check where you sit in the queue.
Your chances come down to two things: how much of the ship is unsold, and how much you offered. The first one is out of your hands and invisible to you. The second one is the only lever you have.
The nearest thing to inside information is a travel agent who is watching how your specific sailing is selling, which is a real advantage and also not a guarantee of anything.
Not sure if we can get you the best deal? Learn more about us in Virgin Voyages Facebook group by clicking here!
If the Bid Does Not Land
Losing a bid is not the end of the upgrade.
You can still pay to move rooms once you are on board, if there is anything left to move into. Same rule as everything else here, it depends on how full the ship is, but sailors do this, and it works.
You can also just skip the auction and upgrade outright before you sail. Plenty of the sailors we book say the same thing: they put a bid in, then decided they did not want to spend weeks wondering, and asked us to move them instead. That option is always on the table, and it takes one message.
And if none of that happens, you are still sailing. The cabins on these ships are genuinely nice, including the standard Sea Terrace, which has a hammock on the balcony and is a very pleasant place to lose an afternoon.
Nobody sails Virgin Voyages once. There is always the next one, and you can do it differently then.
Virgin Voyages Upgrade Bid FAQ
When can I bid on a Virgin Voyages upgrade?
There is no fixed date. Roughly three months before sailing is the usual shape, but it can arrive a month out, earlier, or not at all, because it depends entirely on what your sailing has left unsold.
What does the number under each cabin mean?
It is the minimum you are allowed to offer, not the amount that wins. It sits well below the top of the range.
How much should I bid to actually get it?
The middle of the range gives you a pretty good chance and above the middle gives you a really good chance. The minimum gives you very little.
When will I find out if my bid was accepted?
Whenever Virgin Voyages decides. Some sailors hear the day before they sail, and some never hear at all and work it out at check-in.
Can I change or cancel my bid?
Yes, while it is still pending. Once it has been accepted, it cannot be changed, and you are in that room.
Am I charged when I place the bid?
No. You pay only if the offer is accepted.
Is it better to bid on RockStar or on a regular cabin?
A regular cabin bid is far more winnable, because most of the ship is balcony cabins and almost all of those sailors are chasing the same handful of RockStar suites. Bid RockStar if you want the perks and are ready to offer real money for them.
Can I upgrade if my bid does not win?
Often, yes. You can pay to move once you are on board if anything is available, or arrange an upgrade through your travel agent before you sail instead of bidding at all.
So, Should You Bid?
Bid if there is a number you would genuinely be glad to pay, and put that number in. Not the minimum, not a hopeful number, the real one.
Then forget about it, because the waiting is the worst part of this whole process, and it is entirely optional to spend it refreshing your email.
And if you would rather not gamble at all, tell us what room you want, and we will look at what your sailing actually has and price it properly. That is a two-minute conversation, and it beats guessing at an auction you cannot see.
