Amtrak changes website look

[BeckysBarn]

I was able to login and purchase tickets, the new option for room selection is nice. It includes how many rooms left, thats helpful info.

I don't see where it shows how many rooms are left. Is this different than the old site?

I've noticed that somethings don't work in FireFox 3.x. For example, clicking on the room details (on the schedule) does nothing in FireFox, but when I try it in Internet Explorer, it gives the dimensions, etc.

 

[leemell]

I was able to login and purchase tickets, the new option for room selection is nice. It includes how many rooms left, thats helpful info.

I don't see where it shows how many rooms are left. Is this different than the old site?

I've noticed that somethings don't work in FireFox 3.x. For example, clicking on the room details (on the schedule) does nothing in FireFox, but when I try it in Internet Explorer, it gives the dimensions, etc.

Open the site in an IE tab. It is available as an add on to Firefox.

 

[PaulM]

Four pet peeves with old system:

1. Reservation page was not "sticky", i.e., if you wanted to try another date because your first choice was too expensive, it didn't remember that you wanted a roomette or that you had selected Senior for both travelers (it did remember you entered two travelers). In general, a lot of work was required to vary the day of travel.

2. Would not show all existing reservations. I never understood why the source of a reservation (internet, phone agent, station agent, quicktrak, AGR, ...) made a difference when it comes to displaying them. Same goes for changes made to a reservation. They all have to be stored in the same database. I can't picture the database command: "SELECT blah, blah, blah FROM RESERVATIONS WHERE TYPE = INTERNET AND CHANGE = NO AND ....

3. Could not make a realistic, non-NEC AGR reservation. I.e., couldn't change trains nor book a sleeper.

4. Results of a reservation search seemed to be random. It has been explained that this was due to the fact that only the first N (N being random) results appeared; and the route you may have wanted had been sent to the bit bucket.

New System:

1. No change. I thought now that you enter sleeping accommodations into a cart, it might remember; but no.

2. The MY ACCOUNT - TRAVEL HISTORY shows two of my paid reservations, doesn't show two of my paid reservations, doesn't show two of my AGR reservations, shows one of my canceled reservations as canceled (with a cancellation number), and shows another canceled reservations not canceled. When I click VIEW/EDIT for the latter, I get [Error ID: 522S] (can't cancel because it's already canceled). NOT an improvement.

3. No change.

4. This one seems to have been PARTIALLY fixed. E.g., CHI - SLO gave me what I wanted, namely EB & CS, even though it was way down the list of options, below multiple bus options. However, for GBB - SLO, it won't give me IZ, EB, CS, which arrives before several of the bus itineraries that do show up.

One-half out of four is not good. How much did Amtrak pay for what amounts to eye candy? I never complained about the look of the website, only the substance.

 

[MrFSS]

You have to ask, too, did they even bother to ask for customer ideas and input on what was wrong, what needed to be fixed, added, changed, etc?

Its as if the using public didn't have anything to say about the process at all.

 

[GoldenSpike]

One nice feature, for example:

Did a test rezzie DEN - MSP.

As in the past it brings up all three segments. But now you can can hit all three 'BUY ROOMS' tabs and see the availability of all accomodations at once - not like in the past where one had to wade thru each segment.

This speeds up moving to another date if one segment is sold out.

 

[profwebs]

I was able to login and purchase tickets, the new option for room selection is nice. It includes how many rooms left, thats helpful info.

I don't see where it shows how many rooms are left. Is this different than the old site?

I've noticed that somethings don't work in FireFox 3.x. For example, clicking on the room details (on the schedule) does nothing in FireFox, but when I try it in Internet Explorer, it gives the dimensions, etc.

Open the site in an IE tab. It is available as an add on to Firefox.

Works fine with Firefox 3.5.3 here... No IE tab needed..

 

[MattW]

One thing that irritates me is when you enter a station code or name in the departure box, unless you wait a moment, you'll end up clicking on the "suggested name" list instead of the arrival box.

Also, it doesn't seem to be handling complex trips that well. For instance I did ATL-NOR and on the old system, depending on my departure it would give me Crescent-SL-TE-HF, but now unless I do a multi-city, it wants to bring me through Chicago.

 

[PetalumaLoco]

I was able to login and purchase tickets, the new option for room selection is nice. It includes how many rooms left, thats helpful info.

I don't see where it shows how many rooms are left. Is this different than the old site?

I've noticed that somethings don't work in FireFox 3.x. For example, clicking on the room details (on the schedule) does nothing in FireFox, but when I try it in Internet Explorer, it gives the dimensions, etc.

Works with my Firefox 3.5.

 

[BeckysBarn]

Works with my Firefox 3.5.

Must've been a hiccup - it's working for me now.

 

[the_traveler]

I noticed how you can sort possible itineraries by duration time now. I am sure that will be a big hit with some folks on here...the_traveler comes to mind!

That depends ... do they allow you to reverse-sort, so the longest itinerary is at the top of the list? :lol:

LOL Good point - you have to click to get to the last page if there are many trains. But still, if there's a will there's a way!

Or even a Dave!

 

[the_traveler]

I thought we were supposed to see all the choices - even obscure ones for you know who? I did a test booking for KIN-PDX in January.

When I left the time as "anytime", I get just 2 choices:

1. KIN-BBY-ALB-CHI-PDX (on 27)
   
2. KIN-NYP-CHI-PDX (on the LSL and 27)
   

Before, I also got a choice of going via SEA on #7 and coming down on a Cascades.

When I change to "afternoon", I get the above 2 choices plus:

1. KIN-WAS-CHI-LAX-PDX (via the Cardinal, SWC and CS )
   
2. KIN-WAS-CHI-SAC-PDX (via the Cardinal, CZ and CS )
   

However, at no time did I get a choice that included the CL!

 

[The Metropolitan]

Anyone know if there is a plan to allow a user to book a specific room in a sleeper? It would certainly be nice to be able to select the room you wish rather than take what they give you.

I'm not so sure I agree, as it would probably reduce availablilty and potentially increase prices.

Lets use the SWC as an example. Let's say 2 roomettes are left: 7 and 8.

Passenger A comes along and books a trip from LA to Flagstaff and chooses roomette 7.

Passenger B then comes along and books a trip from Albuquerque to Chicago and chooses roomette 8.

Now when Passenger C comes along and tries to book a trip from LA all the way to Chicago, they are told that there is no availability of accomodations for that trip as a result even though there is unused roomette space across the entire length of the line.

The current system to use (and re-use wherever possible) the next available space works well in that regard. The only customers who could realistically choose their accomodation space without disrupting availability would be those travelling the full route or nearly so, since the space does not have the chance for reuse on that trip.

 

[Kramerica]

Anyone know if there is a plan to allow a user to book a specific room in a sleeper? It would certainly be nice to be able to select the room you wish rather than take what they give you.

I'm not so sure I agree, as it would probably reduce availablilty and potentially increase prices.

Lets use the SWC as an example. Let's say 2 roomettes are left: 7 and 8.

Passenger A comes along and books a trip from LA to Flagstaff and chooses roomette 7.

Passenger B then comes along and books a trip from Albuquerque to Chicago and chooses roomette 8.

Now when Passenger C comes along and tries to book a trip from LA all the way to Chicago, they are told that there is no availability of accomodations for that trip as a result even though there is unused roomette space across the entire length of the line.

The current system to use (and re-use wherever possible) the next available space works well in that regard. The only customers who could realistically choose their accomodation space without disrupting availability would be those travelling the full route or nearly so, since the space does not have the chance for reuse on that trip.

Surely the reservation system can be made smart enough so when your passenger B comes along, the website only gives roomette 7 as a choice. An algorithm should be able to decide when to give room choices to the customer. Obviously a full-route passenger would get the choice of all available roomettes. But a partial-route passenger would only get the choice of all roomettes if there are no other partial-route roomettes available.

 

[rrdude]

You have to ask, too, did they even bother to ask for customer ideas and input on what was wrong, what needed to be fixed, added, changed, etc?
Its as if the using public didn't have anything to say about the process at all.

I HIGHLY doubt that. It is inconceivable that they would spend ANY effort, time, or $$$ without a GREAT deal of passenger input, either direct (surveys, focus groups, etc.) or indirect (customer suggestions, complaints)

 

[Trogdor]

Surely the reservation system can be made smart enough so when your passenger B comes along, the website only gives roomette 7 as a choice. An algorithm should be able to decide when to give room choices to the customer. Obviously a full-route passenger would get the choice of all available roomettes. But a partial-route passenger would only get the choice of all roomettes if there are no other partial-route roomettes available.

I think such a practice would be more confusing to the customer and cause more trouble than it's worth.

"But it let me pick my own room last time! Why won't it let me pick my own room now?"

 

[AlanB]

Anyone know if there is a plan to allow a user to book a specific room in a sleeper? It would certainly be nice to be able to select the room you wish rather than take what they give you.

I'm not so sure I agree, as it would probably reduce availablilty and potentially increase prices.

Lets use the SWC as an example. Let's say 2 roomettes are left: 7 and 8.

Passenger A comes along and books a trip from LA to Flagstaff and chooses roomette 7.

Passenger B then comes along and books a trip from Albuquerque to Chicago and chooses roomette 8.

Now when Passenger C comes along and tries to book a trip from LA all the way to Chicago, they are told that there is no availability of accomodations for that trip as a result even though there is unused roomette space across the entire length of the line.

The current system to use (and re-use wherever possible) the next available space works well in that regard. The only customers who could realistically choose their accomodation space without disrupting availability would be those travelling the full route or nearly so, since the space does not have the chance for reuse on that trip.

One has to consider however that your example only applies under pristine conditions.

For example, now without being able to select a room online, I can still select a room. If I visit with an agent and/or call one, I can still choose roomette #8 and the agent won't deny me.

Additionally if the above scenario is all setup, and then someone cancels room #5 at a lower bucket, when I go online to book that ABQ to CHI trip, I'm going to get roomette #5 assigned to my by Amtrak.com; not #7. So Amtrak will still be left with 2 half sold rooms as it were.

Finally, I'm not even sure that ARROW can actually make such a determination as is being suggested. In other words, I'm not sure that ARROW would even look to see and figure out that "oh, #7 is only sold halfway, so let me put this new person in #7 for the other half. Yes, if #7 is now the only roomette left, then it would sell it to the second person for such a trip. But I don't know that it would go out of its way to sell the other half if other rooms are indeed open.

 

[the_traveler]

Also, using Alan's example, would it say

Roomette #5 in car 0331 - add $159Roomette #7 in car 0331 - add $273

Roomette #7 in car 0330 - add $359

Roomette #8 in car 0330 - add $284

Roomette #14 in car 0330 - add $342

I think that will be much more confusing to the average rider!

 

[Rumpled]

First impression for me is that the conductor image blocks the tops of the Status, Schedule, and My Trip tabs.

I'm using IE 7.0

Bad karma there. Most used browser has a problem.

The other negatives above I agree with

No saved trips, no putting mulitple trips in a cart, no manual date entry,

I do like the upgrades right there w/o going to another page and the numbers of rooms left

At the moment, I only see until 10-30 availaable, this may be part of the systemwide problems today

 

[JackieTakestheTrain]

I have problems downloading the .pdfs. When I select one and choose "Open" verus "Save," it doesn't open (I get a blank .pdf.) But if I click Save, it downloads...

Oh well.

 

[AAARGH!]

Anyone find the fall system-wide timetable on the site? I can't find it. The old link doesn't work of course.

 

[acelafan]

Anyone find the fall system-wide timetable on the site? I can't find it. The old link doesn't work of course.

I've asked for the system-wide PDF timetable, what was the old link?

 

[Tony]

Wow, Amtrak new website really sucks! :angry:

It doesn't work!

I can enter (type) text into the "From" box, and the "To" box. but I cannot enter anything into the "Departs" box! It has today's date, and I can't change it. If I click on the calendar icon, nothing happens. However, the "Time" pull down works.

What do I do, if I don't want to travel today? :huh:

Doesn't Amtrak bother to test this first? If anyone is interested, I am running IE8.

Boy this really sucks. The old website didn't look as pretty, but it worked.

 

[AAARGH!]

Anyone find the fall system-wide timetable on the site? I can't find it. The old link doesn't work of course.

I've asked for the system-wide PDF timetable, what was the old link?

I could look it up, but being that it doesn't work, what is the point?

 

[Ryan]

Wow, Amtrak new website really sucks! :angry:
It doesn't work!

I can enter (type) text into the "From" box, and the "To" box. but I cannot enter anything into the "Departs" box! It has today's date, and I can't change it. If I click on the calendar icon, nothing happens. However, the "Time" pull down works.

What do I do, if I don't want to travel today? :huh:

Doesn't Amtrak bother to test this first? If anyone is interested, I am running IE8.

Boy this really sucks. The old website didn't look as pretty, but it worked.

Works fine for me in IE7, Firefox 3.5.3 and Safari 4.x.x.

 

[Phila 30th St]

It feels a lot like Amazon.com to me with phrases like "add to cart" and "apply discount". I'm sure I'll get used to it soon but in the meantime, I hate change.