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No I haven't, at least not yet.I have a suspicion about the CZ. Have you tried looking at the buckets for Denver-Chicago? I'd like to see that separately.
I've been very suspicious that the CZ is expensive Denver-Chicago and cheap Salt Lake - Reno.
Are the discounts such that there would be a "hidden city" like situation? So if you want to go Chicago-Reno, it would be cheaper to buy a ticket all the way through to Emreyville and just get off at Reno?The really odd thing is the massive discount for riding all the way through. CHI-DEN + DEN-EMY is much more expensive than CHI-EMY. I can see having some discount, but I don't think it's profit-maximizing to offer a discount as large as Amtrak does for riding end to end. Particularly since this discourages stopovers for no-good-reason.
FWIW, today there were no Hidden City discounts for Coach on the CZ for a travel date of 15 Feb 2017. There are some pairs of consecutive stops having the same fare, however, when the starting point is CHI. But there were no "reversals" of fares. GSC is essentially the half-way point with a low bucket coach fare of $133 and the fare to EMY is $167.I have never experienced a hidden city discount myself on Amtrak, but I believe others can report purchasing two tickets with an intermediate "non-stopping" point to acquire a lower fare than buying one ticket for the entire journey on a dingle train.
This has happened on certain trains (notably the Crescent). Not sure whether there's one on the Zephyr.Are the discounts such that there would be a "hidden city" like situation? So if you want to go Chicago-Reno, it would be cheaper to buy a ticket all the way through to Emreyville and just get off at Reno?The really odd thing is the massive discount for riding all the way through. CHI-DEN + DEN-EMY is much more expensive than CHI-EMY. I can see having some discount, but I don't think it's profit-maximizing to offer a discount as large as Amtrak does for riding end to end. Particularly since this discourages stopovers for no-good-reason.
Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!! It's $14 or 10.7% cheaper doing that on these dates (and probably others):On the Silver Star tickets are often cheaper if you book one ticket on each side of RGH, for example TPA-RGH and RGH-WAS rather than TPA-WAS. I believe the Saver fare is only $62 from TPA-RGH.
Not that I've noticed, but I've only really looked at a tiny fraction of all the search possibilities. With 17 different LD routes, each having (as a wild guess) 25 stops, I think the combinations are in the vicinity of 17 X 25! which works out to about 2.6 E 25 or 26,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. But it's been 55 years since I had Probability & Statistics, so take that number with a grain or three of salt.So, at no point is the cost of the next stop less than the cost of the proceeding stop. This is what would be necessary for a "hidden city" fare.
That's cool. Thanks for finding that but how does this compare to other WAS-PHL trains? The Vermonter is spendy on this route but the Notheast Regional costs less than even the "hidden city" fare above and takes about the same time. In fact the Acela does not save much time on this stretch but costs more than either the Vermonter or NE Regional.Got a hidden city for you. Try the northbound Vermonter on a random September day, WAS-PHL. That's $89. Now book to the next station of Trenton (TRE) for $49.
What's going on is that the northbound Vermonter is locked at high bucket for "local" travelers between WAS and PHL. Travel beyond PHL and regular bucket pricing applies.
I've seen this sort of thing between NYP and Richmond, VA on the Silvers. Amtrak wants local travelers on the Regional trains, saving seats on the longer runs for through passengers.
Other NER trains are priced normally. The only reasons to use the hidden city trick on the Vermonter are if no other departure times will do...or you really want those 2-1 biz class seats.That's cool. Thanks for finding that but how does this compare to other WAS-PHL trains? The Vermonter is spendy on this route but the Notheast Regional costs less than even the "hidden city" fare above and takes about the same time. In fact the Acela does not save much time on this stretch but costs more than either the Vermonter or NE Regional.Got a hidden city for you. Try the northbound Vermonter on a random September day, WAS-PHL. That's $89. Now book to the next station of Trenton (TRE) for $49.
What's going on is that the northbound Vermonter is locked at high bucket for "local" travelers between WAS and PHL. Travel beyond PHL and regular bucket pricing applies.
I've seen this sort of thing between NYP and Richmond, VA on the Silvers. Amtrak wants local travelers on the Regional trains, saving seats on the longer runs for through passengers.
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