A friend (whom I am envious of!) is flying into ORD and staying with family. He wants to keep his AGR account active and check out Indianapolis, so he's looking at making a trip on the Cardinal from DYE to IND.
DYE is an unstaffed station with no QT machine. He'd be departing DYE on 8/1, so the only option Amtrak gives him online is the express delivery option with the $15 fee. He has two reasons to avoid the fee: one, it's a fee , and two, even with express delivery, it may not make it up to Alaska before he leaves for Chicago.
If he books the ticket by phone, I can think of two workarounds: one, have them hold the ticket for pick-up at another station, or two, have them schedule the ticket for pick-up on-board.
The problem with option one is that he's with family and he doesn't really want to inconvenience them by having them drive by CUS so he can get his ticket. The problem with option two is that I'm not sure they'll offer that option given that he's still 8 days out (they offer the express delivery option up to 4 days before travel). He could wait until three days before travel to book to force the option to get the ticket on-board, but then he risks the $19 bucket getting sold out and the fare going up to $30 or higher, negating most (or all) of the $15 delivery fee.
Will he be able to have an Amtrak phone agent schedule the ticket for pick-up on-board even though he's more than three days out from travel?
Anyone have any other ideas?
DYE is an unstaffed station with no QT machine. He'd be departing DYE on 8/1, so the only option Amtrak gives him online is the express delivery option with the $15 fee. He has two reasons to avoid the fee: one, it's a fee , and two, even with express delivery, it may not make it up to Alaska before he leaves for Chicago.
If he books the ticket by phone, I can think of two workarounds: one, have them hold the ticket for pick-up at another station, or two, have them schedule the ticket for pick-up on-board.
The problem with option one is that he's with family and he doesn't really want to inconvenience them by having them drive by CUS so he can get his ticket. The problem with option two is that I'm not sure they'll offer that option given that he's still 8 days out (they offer the express delivery option up to 4 days before travel). He could wait until three days before travel to book to force the option to get the ticket on-board, but then he risks the $19 bucket getting sold out and the fare going up to $30 or higher, negating most (or all) of the $15 delivery fee.
Will he be able to have an Amtrak phone agent schedule the ticket for pick-up on-board even though he's more than three days out from travel?
Anyone have any other ideas?
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