Booking accommodations with a railpass

[Zevzec]

My brother and his family will travel cross-country with me and my family in July. Specifically, we will go from PGH to SLC, and then, a few days later, from Whitefish to Seattle. The complicating factor is that for him this is part of a month-long trip with railpasses.

His family takes 2 roomettes. In order to save the roomettes adjacent to ours, when I booked my tickets, I also booked (as a separate reservation) the 2 roomettes that he wants.

I seem to recall having read somewhere on this forum that cancellations made during a given day take effect in the system at 2:00 a.m. (I hope I’m remembering correctly, and that I didn’t dream that up.)

My idea is to cancel my reservation for his rooms late one evening, thus freeing them up; then early the next morning he can buy his railpasses and reserve the same rooms; hence it will only be a few hours that they will be unreserved in the system and at risk of being taken by someone else.

Generally, if anyone sees any problems with this plan, any advice would be appreciated.

More specifically, one thing I would like to confirm is: when he calls to reserve the rooms with the railpasses, will he be able to request a particular car # and room #, like you can when not booking with a railpass?

 

[Tumbleweed]

Would it be possible for all of you to be on the phone at the same time, so when you cancel, he could reserve with the same agent?

 

[abcnews]

I had a recent weird experience in trying to secure a particular roomette - by requesting that room number, but I feel it was the agent . She seemed to be lacking... Anyway, I was trying to grab a low bucket roomette on the Crescent, and we already had a bedroom and Roomette #3 in the same car. I wanted to get Roomette #4 (across from #3), and the Amtrak website still had a low bucket showing for a roomette (same train/same-day).

So I picked up the phone and called Amtrak to book the room - After we booked the room she quoted me a rather high rate - I said, that I found the rate hard to believe, since I had just checked prior to calling, and it was unimaginable that several people had called and booked roomettes on that same train (Crescent in April). She said it was because I asked for a particular roomette, and you only get the lower rate (low bucket in this case), if the computer randomly picks the room. So I said - just put it back, and we can start over. But nothing worked - all of the roomettes were now showing higher rates, probably since the one we had taken was still off the availability chart in the system.

So I gave up - hung up, checked the rate on Amtrak.com - and it was now $50 higher than when I had called 10 mins earlier.

I was sure if I left it alone, the low bucket would return. Sure enough - about 30 mins later I checked, and it was back at the low bucket rate. So I called Amtrak again, never mentioned a room number, I just grabbed the rate ASAP. The girl this time was a pro too. So after she had the roomette all taken care of, I mentioned our trip, and how we already had a BR and a roomette in another car. She looked in the system and said "I can get you in Roomette #4 - right across from #3 in the same car." So we are al set...

But I found the first call to be a little strange.

 

[Zevzec]

Would it be possible for all of you to be on the phone at the same time, so when you cancel, he could reserve with the same agent?

This gets to one of the points I mentioned above: I seem to recall reading on this forum that cancelled rooms become available again not immediately after you cancel, but at 2:00 a.m. the next day. If that's so, then what you mentioned would not work. However, I'd love to be wrong about this...can anyone confirm when cancelled rooms become available again?

 

[Guest]

I believe that unpaid reservations cancel at 2:00 a.m. if their hold time has expired.

When you cancel a reservation, the room should immediately go back into availability. Keep in mind that the room goes back into inventory at CURRENT price which may or may not be what you paid at the time you purchased it. I doubt what you pay now would be the same on the day of departure during peak summer travel time.

 

[Zevzec]

I believe that unpaid reservations cancel at 2:00 a.m. if their hold time has expired.

When you cancel a reservation, the room should immediately go back into availability. Keep in mind that the room goes back into inventory at CURRENT price which may or may not be what you paid at the time you purchased it. I doubt what you pay now would be the same on the day of departure during peak summer travel time.

OK, that must be the thing that I read. That's good news, then--thanks.

 

[AlanB]

Would it be possible for all of you to be on the phone at the same time, so when you cancel, he could reserve with the same agent?

I agree, if at all possible either get together or do a conference call so that the agent can cancel and then immediately try to grab those same rooms back for the railpass reservation.

Do understand that there is a slight element of risk, as the agent must cancel first and then while they refresh their screen there is the slight, very slight, chance that someone else grabs those room(s). But it is your best bet.

 

[AlanB]

I had a recent weird experience in trying to secure a particular roomette - by requesting that room number, but I feel it was the agent . She seemed to be lacking... Anyway, I was trying to grab a low bucket roomette on the Crescent, and we already had a bedroom and Roomette #3 in the same car. I wanted to get Roomette #4 (across from #3), and the Amtrak website still had a low bucket showing for a roomette (same train/same-day).

So I picked up the phone and called Amtrak to book the room - After we booked the room she quoted me a rather high rate - I said, that I found the rate hard to believe, since I had just checked prior to calling, and it was unimaginable that several people had called and booked roomettes on that same train (Crescent in April). She said it was because I asked for a particular roomette, and you only get the lower rate (low bucket in this case), if the computer randomly picks the room. So I said - just put it back, and we can start over. But nothing worked - all of the roomettes were now showing higher rates, probably since the one we had taken was still off the availability chart in the system.

........

But I found the first call to be a little strange.

Not weird or strange; it was either a brand new agent that didn't know better or one that never bothered to learn how to do things.

Basically there are two ways to request a specific room from the computer, the right way and the wrong way. The wrong way is that the agent just requests a room, much like happens when you book online, and the computer picks the room. When they don't get the one they want, they leave that first room on hold and request another. And they keep requesting room after room until they get the one that they want/you asked for. This has two consequences; 1) it of course runs through the buckets forcing the price ever higher unless they get lucky and get the room you need in one of the first picks, 2) the revenue management software thinks that a run on sales of rooms for that train is happening, so it bumps more rooms up into the higher buckets to maximize revenue. This is no doubt what happened to you with the first agent, although there is no way for us to know if the agent was new or just bad.

The second agent handled things properly, or the correct way. I'm not sure exactly what the procedure is, and even if I knew I would probably get in trouble for describing it, but I do know that there is a way to request a specific room. When the agent follows the proper steps, it's really very simple for them and it takes far less work than the first/wrong way, then you get what you want and generally at the price you want unless by some misfortune someone grabbed the very last room in that bucket while you were calling.

One other thought on all of this, always make sure that you leave the booking screen on your computer prior to calling. If you just checked to see what the price is and you call the agent while still on that screen you could very well be holding the last room in that bucket and preventing the agent from getting you the room you want at the price you want.