Checked baggage on multi-city ticket

[Gp30sieb]

On two occasions I have had a hassle out west from baggage clerks since the last stop (Poughkeepsie POU) on my multi-city ticket did not have checked baggage. On both occasions I was ending my trip taking the Lake Shore (LSL) from Chicago. On both occasions I purposely got off of LSL at Albany (that does have checked baggage) and took a later train to POU, which gave me plenty of time to retrieve my baggage. I was told in both San Diego (2017) and Everett (2018) that I could not check my baggage at all since the non-checked baggage stop was on the same ticket.

Before the second trip (Everett 2018) I had explained the San Diego (2017) situation on three occasions, first with a baggage clerk in Boston, then on USA-Rail, and lastly brought the ticket to Penn Station when there for another reason. On all three occasions I was told that I should have no trouble checking my baggage in Everett since I was getting off LSL and could retrieve my bags.

Yet Everett finally after an argument made a "special exception" and checked my bag. San Diego had modified my multi-city ticket and then sold me a new ticket from ALB to POU. Next time I will have my multi-city trip end at ALB and have the last leg, ALB to POU, on a separate one-way ticket.

 

[Amtrakfflyer]

It’s hit or miss and depends on the agent. Two weeks ago I was on the Zephyr ticketed to Emeryville I told the agent in Galesburg if the trains relatively on time I’m going to get off in Sacramento so please check my bag there. Sure no problem was the response, just tell the conductor if your staying on to EMY.

It shouldn’t be as big a problem as it is especially with manually written bag tags as opposed to the airlines computer generated ones.