Buying a room for overnight only on a long trip. Possible?

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We are planning a long trip from Denver to Sacramento to Portland to St. Paul. Getting a room for the whole trip seems expensive, so I am wondering if it would be feasible to purchase separate tickets for each segment of the trip? Some tickets would be for just coach and others for a sleeping room. Sleeping room in the dark, coach in daylight.
 
Definitely possible, though the savings might be more significant if you're able to use something like a USA Rail Pass to lock in the rail (coach) fare for the whole trip at a set price, rather than paying for a series of point-to-point coach fares, which tend to be higher than through fares. Then you could upgrade to sleeper and pay the appropriate charges on the portions where you want that.

It's also worth playing around with Amtrak's reservation system to price sleeper rooms between several sets of stations and also on different days if your plans are flexible. The prices can vary in ways that are surprising. Years ago I was traveling from Portland to St. Paul on the Empire Builder and wanted to save money by going in coach for the first night. For the second night, I priced a room from Minot to St. Paul, but I found I could switch to the room several hours sooner at Glasgow, MT, for hardly any additional cost.
 
A somewhat similar situation, I was thinking if my wife and I were ever to do Grand Junction to Chicago on the CZ again I would get one roomette for the duration and a second roomette for the night only say from Denver to somewhere in Iowa so that we could both sleep in a lower berth but have a roomette together for the daytime portions.
 
Oh, contrary to my earlier post, I see Amtrak has changed the rules so that people traveling on the USA Rail Pass can't upgrade to sleeper. Even so, you should still be able to book a through rail fare from, say, Portland to St. Paul and upgrade to sleeper for only a portion of that.
 
Thanks for the information. If I were to book this online for the trough rail fare then when and how do I upgrade to a sleeper for a few segments? And when I have the sleeper booked for a segment can I come out and sit in coach or an observation car when I want to?
 
Try pricing it out before you get too far. For example, it costs $651 on January 11 to go from Chicago to Seattle in a Roomette all the way, and $688 to spend the days in coach and the nights in a Roomette (CHI-MSP coach, MSP-Minot sleeper, Minot-Whitefish coach, Whitefish-SEA sleeper).
 
You might need to get a ticket agent or someone at Amtrak's toll-free reservation line to book it for you, rather than trying to book it on the website. If you're in the sleeper, you're free to wander the train and sit in the lounge car, but you're technically not supposed to take a coach seat, as these might be reserved for coach travelers.
 
Is a roomette for 2 twice the price as it would be for one?
Sorry for the basic questions but I'm still not familiar with looking this up on the Amtrak website.
Some day I"ll schedule several hours to learn how to use their pricing system. :)
 
Is a roomette for 2 twice the price as it would be for one?
Sorry for the basic questions but I'm still not familiar with looking this up on the Amtrak website.
Some day I"ll schedule several hours to learn how to use their pricing system. :)

It will cost more for two people to share a room than for one person to occupy it, but it shouldn't be anywhere close to double. If you're using the website, make sure the "number of rooms" field is set to one, otherwise it will be double because it will be giving you the price for two people in two rooms.
 
Is a roomette for 2 twice the price as it would be for one?
Sorry for the basic questions but I'm still not familiar with looking this up on the Amtrak website.
Some day I"ll schedule several hours to learn how to use their pricing system. :)
Sleeper fare is comprised of 2 components added together: rail fair (based on some form of coach fare) and accommodations charge. The rail fare component will double for 2 travelers, but the accommodations charge will be the same. So the total sleeper fare will be more for 2 travelers, but not doubled.
 
Try pricing it out before you get too far. For example, it costs $651 on January 11 to go from Chicago to Seattle in a Roomette all the way, and $688 to spend the days in coach and the nights in a Roomette (CHI-MSP coach, MSP-Minot sleeper, Minot-Whitefish coach, Whitefish-SEA sleeper).
This kind of thing is what I found on a few trips where it seemed feasible. Amtrak is going to find it difficult to sell those rooms for daytime use only for the segments not occupied so I think that's the reason why the cost difference is not what one would expect. Another reason is that because the rail portion of the charge is low bucket (now second low), it may be that the coach portions would be in higher buckets and therefore the total cost could be higher doing the day-coach/night-roomette than all roomette.

It was never worth my while to do the day-coach/night-roomette and these days I don't even try looking at it especially on trains with traditional dining when one considers the value of the food.
 
Ideally coach by day and roomette by night. Unfortunately,you really don't save any money breaking up a three day trip,especially with sleeper prices so high. I remember the days when you could get a roomette for an overnight that included dinner and breakfast for $100 to $200 more. These days it might be upwards of $500 of more.

I recall years ago I bought a roomette on board the Cardinal from Dyer to Chicago for $95 with four traditional meals from a conductor.

As many people have stated nothing is more uncomfortable than sleeping next to a stranger on an overnight. In my just completed railpass out of seven overnights I only spent one night with a seatmate. One night my seatmate spent the night in the SSL and on the CZ after a Nevada stop,the next stop Salt Lake City I moved my seatcheck to a pair of empty seats and the seat remained vacant the rest of my trip
 
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