fozziedoggie

Sure, I'll try to be somewhat brief

Like many of the folks here on FT, I carefully read all of the rules/T&C's associated with loyalty programs. At the time prior to and during our cruise, Uniworld has published in writing on their website the promise of one-cabin upgrade for their River Heritage members. I read up on the process employed by Uniworld for awarding cabin upgrades, made a couple of calls expressing my interest in an upgrade just to make sure I was on the "list." Come the day of the cruise, inquired with the on-board hotel manager about the one-cabin upgrade, she looked at me like I was from outer-space; no clue about what the home office website published. However, there was an empty cabin available to upgrade to, we were taken to the cabin and shown it. My bad, at this point I wrongly assumed that she was offering this cabin as an complimentary upgrade for a valued River Heritage member

Of course I said "yes, we would love the upgrade," to which the hotel manager replied, "great, that will be $400USD per pax." Since my husband was really looking forward to this nicer cabin, I felt somewhat boxed in and didn't want to disappoint. So in the short-run, Uniworld received an extra $800 from us, but in the long-run, they have now lost out on MANY more river cruises. Our next cruise is on Scenic (I have linked their website in post #2 ).

Since around the 1st of this year, I noticed Uniworld is no longer touting a one-cabin upgrade on their website; consistent now with all other luxury operators. Simply bad form on their part for not honoring my upgrade request when I followed all of their published guidelines.

From an objective point of view, I also note the following regarding Uniworld:
1. They seem like a company in disarray, recently replaced their president, but when I emailed her regarding this incident, I was basically brushed-off. Kind of got the impression that wanting a complimentary upgrade as outlined on their website made me common riff-raff.
2. Their on-line booking engine/software is crap, while waiting for this Rhine cruise, I was also trying to book their Mekong River cruise, but the exact date we wanted would not allow booking (404 error message). I passed this along to their customer service for follow-up, never heard back; two months later, still could not book that date on-line, all other dates were fully bookable
3. They seem to rely on their past accolades from years gone by and don't fully understand that today, there are quite a few more luxury river cruise lines out there that want your business. I like Scenic due to the fact that their fleet is newer (many of the Uniworld boats are quite dated, but well maintained).

So there you have it, hope it wasn't too long

Sorry OP for temporarily hijacking your post.