Amtrak on Ebay is ending

[Anthony]

Check ebay - Amtrak has no more ticket auctions. The word is, yesterday was the last day of these auctions. From what I can tell, all auctions that were successfully completed and won by ebay bidders will be honored; just new ones will not be posted.

 

[coachseats]

From the Amtrak ebay site: "We have closed our Amtrak Auctions store and will not be listing any new auctions. For discounted coach tickets, please view our weekly RailSale specials at http://tickets.amtrak.com/Amtrak/railsale; alternatively you can call 1-800-USA-RAIL or visit http://www.amtrak.com for information."

This is sad, sad news for my travel prospects. More than half of my trips have been made affordable with ebay tickets. I would have thought that it would have helped revenue by filling up empty seats. Hopefully they will offset this somewhat by increasing the number of trains and dates offered on railsale. Plus- it was always kind of fun to do the auction thing.

 

[gyuri_ft]

from one point of view this is sad news - I used (almost abused) this possibility for a while. However, let's face it, eBay is NOT the way to sell train tickets. The train tickets must be reasonably-priced, almost a no-brainer, with either fixed $/Mile rate or with a somewhat degressive one. Same applies to sleepers.

In the US the price of a train ticket (and esp. sleeper) can be easily calculated only by a Sith Lord or Jedi using proper knowledge of Force. To know the actual distance between the Planet Naboo and Planet Tatoine is helpful as well.

As long as prediction of a ticket+sleeper price between EMY and DEN is part of Sith entry test conducted by Sen. Palpatine and Darth Vader in person - we need the eBay tickets.

I like train travel (actually, it is the only travel I do enjoy) and I was using this transporation very extensively. But even despite Gunn's very positive actions IMHO it is still short of what could be done. Even with hostile Congress and President this is NOT the way a railroad should be run - sorry.

The eBay auctions were quite often somewhat *** puzzling ***

1) For instance, I did see numerous times a ticket between Nowhereville and Timbuku via EMY and DEN being auctioned at the same time as EMY <--> DEN. Of course, the price of the first one did not reach the half of the second... And this just did not made any sense.

2) The "non-upgradability" of the eBay tickets was also a puzzle. We are speaking about roughly two(!) sales at best each week on a certain destination. What harm would be if the buyer would be allowed to upgrade? Besides, as I was clarified by Amtrak actually the conductor WAS allowed to upgrade. I had several times very good experience with upgrades but recently on my EMY <--> DEN r/t I had very bad one:

- from EMY to DEN I was upgraded for $93, but the conductor did wait long enough (obviously by intent) that I did miss some meals. It was obvious, he had a lot of free space. I boarded the train in EMY but I got into sleeper only after Colfax and a trip into crew car(!)

- from DEN to EMY I got an SOB conductor. The train was empty and the office in DEN did offer me the upgrade at the station at the amtrak counter for 145. I told them, only conductor can upgrade my ticket (obviously I made a mistake telling then that). The conductor first refused to upgrade the eBay ticket. Than he wanted nearly $300. An other gentleman with regular ticket came to help and asked for upgrade so we could share the room. Conductor told that it's OK, but he won't allow me into Diner, at least not for free meals. I agreed. The conductor told me, "after G. Junction". Well, after G. Junction there was a crew change. The next conductor changed the rules: he would sell the sleeper for the "full price". I was curious, what would develop, so I agreed. The gentleman with the "regular" ticket asked again for upgrade - and he was - surprize - ignored. At the end I stood in the couch because the conductor never came.

I am curious, what would Mr. Gunn say to such practices... And yes, the train (it was March 17) from DEN to EMY had a lot of empty sleepers... I am (on paper) an American but I do speak with very heavy Hungarian accent and once in a while I did notice the train's "highmost autority" (=conductor) does enjoy to intimidate me. I had a few nice conductors in the past who went through the train and tried to fill up the sleeper. I remember last year (also on eBay ticket) we started at EMY and I moved into sleeper in Martinez(!) - but once in a while not too pleasant things do happen.

Why the Amtrak offices do not sell remaining sleepers the last day for the same price as the upgrade?

And finally about the tips. It has nothing to do with the orig. topic but I feel I should mention it here. A few times I was asked by the dining car crew for excessive tips and also in quite intimidating way. Ultimately I gave around 10-15% (and did notice some people give less), but it left some unpleasant aftertaste.

Generally I use Amtrak instead of airlines as much as I can. It is evident, the airlines do have a huge mismanagement in this country. Too bad, trains are not managed any better. Hope it won't happen with the US what did happen with Mexico where after privatization the UP took some shares and pushed to close the entire passenger system for good. At the same time the ticket price of the single remaining line (Coper Canyon) became about the same ($100) as Rail Sale r/t between EMY and DEN (!) :angry:

 

[gyuri_ft]

Forgot to write - since usually late April tends to bring some changes the fact that eBay auctions did stoped could be a sign of (perhaps welcome?) tarif changes. Just my thougt. As eBay auctions did start I discussd with my wife that if I would be Gunn, I would do the same to establish the fares people actually want to pay. Again, this is just a pure thougt of mine.

As I mention earlier, using eBay to sell train tickets is temporarily OK, but I never can imagine that, say, RZD or SNCF or DB (to name a few big and seriously looking companies) would sell tickets on eBay or similar forum.

Also I never really understood, why the #$%& does Amtrak act like an airline (in other word, a certain ticket is valid only on a certain day and for reservation change there could be a penalty almost as big as the ticket itself). In a normal world there is a ticket wich is valid on EVERY SINGLE DAY for a reasonable perio of time. Now if you use a "good enough train" (express/IC/EC/sleeper, etc) you have to purchse a separate reservation. This reservation is usually around $5 for the coach and $10-$40 for the bed (depending on sleeper quality and company; more expensive is not necessarily better). This also can be changed but if there are only few hours left until departure penalty could apply. For "no-show" the ticket is still OK, but the seat/bed reservation has to be purchased again. That works reasonably well in free market economy (France, Germany), in semi-free market economy (Russia, China, VietNam) and in strict communist economy (N. Korea). Cannot say about Japan I do not know. So why this would not work in the USA? We know how much the airlines are hated for price manipulating. Why the rail should mimic thr airlines where they are failing? To the contrary, the airlines who tend to manipulate the price the least (Southwest, etc.) tend to get better attention from the customers.

Perhaps a lession for Amtrak to learn: an average American needs a predictable, logical and fixed every day-low price based on mileage and not on constellation of stars or other nonsense. At certain times when the trains tend to have lower ridership special tickets could be issued. Like in Germany: if you are flexible you can buy a fixed price ticket which is valid on some days and has a fixed price, independently on mileage. and yes, anyone can upgrade such ticket to a sleeper without fuss, without being humilitated by conductor or other self-made local mini-Mussolini. And surprize: to buy, say a sleeper from Berlin (Germany) to Novosibirsk (Russia, Siberia) is the same extra roughly $40 at the DB counter or RZD counter or from the conductor. Duh. And neither the price ($40) nor the train (yes, there is a through 4-bed sleeper like that) was made up. Same applies if I'd go from Berlin to Rome or from Budapest to Munich.

<_<

 

[Big Merl]

Crazy, I was on that exact same train the day before, getting off in Omaha. The initial conductor, who got off with us, was a nice guy. He was offering upgrades at the lowest cost he was allowed to, telling us that there would probably still be empty rooms all the way to California.