Complimentary Drinks for Sleeper Car passengers?

[caravanman]

This may seem insignificant at first but Amtrak does not promise free hot water in coach (with or without a tip) and when a new or infrequent passenger boards expecting free hot water they're likely to be disappointed and blaming Amtrak staff. Better to be upfront on something like this rather than implying one thing while meaning another.

I see that you have altered your own avatar tag description to "sarcastic misanthrope". Hmmm...

The hot water has always been given free to me, I do not speak for anyone else. I am happy to give a tip of 50 cents or so by my own choice. I do not feel that is misleading, or confusing the issue... It is in my view fairly insignificant that I can obtain a cardboard tea cup of hot water without charge.

 

[caravanman]

There are no extra charges here for customers in the UK to pay by using contactless cards, no idea if the merchants do pay any extra themselves to process the payments, over and above their usual card service fees to the banks. (I have never seen any signs or been discouraged from paying by contactless card...)
I don't think most folk worry too much about their contactless card details getting cloned, but I can see the potential via R.F.
I always wear my cooking foil tin hat when paying, just to be on the safe side!

As for the Amtrak hot water temperature, it is seldom hot enough for a "proper" cup of well brewed tea, but better than nothing. I have my own multi voltage travel kettle with me on most trips anyway...
The cups provided by Amtrak are a waxed card cup, with a corrugated slip over handle. A plastic lid tops it off.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I see that you have altered your own avatar tag description to "sarcastic misanthrope". Hmmm...The hot water has always been given free to me, I do not speak for anyone else. I am happy to give a tip of 50 cents or so by my own choice. I do not feel that is misleading, or confusing the issue... It is in my view fairly insignificant that I can obtain a cardboard tea cup of hot water without charge.

I worked a job where coworkers were fired for giving away paper cups because that's how the management tracked sales. When people who received a free cup on prior visits asked me for one I had to refuse, only to have them become enraged and berate me because in their mind I was going out of my way to cause them trouble. They didn't know giving away a paper cup risked my job at a time when I didn't have many options. That's where I was coming from.

Actually their service standards say they do, but I don't think they have it on website.
8. Hot Water Customers are entitled to hot water in café/lounge cars by request. Hot water requests using revenue cups are captured Complimentary Service.

That's good to know but I've yet to see a customer-facing promise to provide hot water for free in coach. What I have seen are Amtrak staff refusing to do so. If they're ignoring their own internal rules that's really unfortunate.

 

[PVD]

First job I had I worked in a roller skating rink, and on some busy nights I helped out behind the counter in the snackbar. The owner was a fanatical cup counter. He was also a penny pincher, and to save money we would buy big cases of soda cups (9 oz and 24 oz) that were seconds or rejects. Usually that meant the printing was off, but once in a while it meant lots of them leaked. It was fun to watch him dig through a giant plastic bag filled with all of the leaky cups we tossed into the reject bin. Especially when the ice melted!

 

[me_little_me]

A credit card transaction involves you and one other person, who if not wearing gloves, can contaminate your card.

Uh, only if the other person changes gloves for each transaction. Otherwise, the gloves that touched "filthy lucre" or filthy credit cards of previous users has now put zillions of germs on your credit card. Of course, you can clean your credit card but once you've handed over the "filthy lucre", it's someone else's problem to deal with the germs.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Unless a contaminate is secreted or absorbed through the skin, gloves alone will do little or nothing to prevent infection. They certainly do nothing to address cross contamination when casually reused in the most typical manner.

 

[jiml]

A lot of fast food establishments use cup counts. That's why McDonald's, for example, have special "uncounted" small cups when someone requests water or an extra cup.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

A lot of fast food establishments use cup counts. That's why McDonald's, for example, have special "uncounted" small cups when someone requests water or an extra cup.

When I was working snack bars, the coke cups came from coke and were part of the agreement with the coke company. The machine and servicing were free as long as cups and syrup were purchased from coke.

If someone wanted a cup of ice, a cup of water, etc., we were supposed to give them a regular styrofoam cup since they were cheaper than the coke cups.

That being said, nobody ever counted the cups where I worked.

 

[Bob Dylan]

When I was working snack bars, the coke cups came from coke and were part of the agreement with the coke company. The machine and servicing were free as long as cups and syrup were purchased from coke.

If someone wanted a cup of ice, a cup of water, etc., we were supposed to give them a regular styrofoam cup since they were cheaper than the coke cups.

That being said, nobody ever counted the cups where I worked.

Where I work @ a Major University, the Food Service People that are University Employees, have to account for every cup, product item etc @ the start of and end of their shift.( sort of like an Amtrak LSA I'd imagine??)

They will sell you a cup for 10 cents if you ask for ice and or water!

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Where I work @ a Major University, the Food Service People that are University Employees, have to account for every cup, product item etc @ the start of and end of their shift.( sort of like an Amtrak LSA I'd imagimne??)

They will sell you a cup for 10 cents if you ask for ice and or water!

I’m not sure if it was a state law or national but where I worked it was a legal requirement to provide a cup of water for free. But if they wanted a coke cup of ice water I was supposed to charge them 25 cents.

Now that I’ve studied business management it’s so silly, counting cups is a waste of time and money for all involved, and charging customers for a cup of water is just bad customer service.

The customer is unhappy, the employee asked to enforce the rule is unhappy which encourages bad word of mouth from the customer and the employees will not be happy with the job and leave as soon as something better comes along which increases turnover which increases costs by way more than 10 cents for a cup of water.

 

[PVD]

Many businesses have a separate stack of small plain cups for water for customer. Often, customers buying a meal need to take pills with food, and need a glass of water, or another valid reason.
They don't want to give up inventory control, but still want to provide for a customer need.

 

[Dakota 400]

When I was working snack bars, the coke cups came from coke and were part of the agreement with the coke company. The machine and servicing were free as long as cups and syrup were purchased from coke.

When I was in charge of a snack bar that we operated for when my school had a dance, that was our agreement with the soft drink vendor. If I recall correctly, we were charged by the cups sold.

 

[CTANut]

I saw a video on the auto train showing that there was still self service, but I am not sure about the auto chief. Also, what drinks are included? I would think that it would be coffee, tea, juice, soft drinks, but what about hot chocolate?

Oops, I meant to say Southwest Chief.

 

[Palmetto]

Oops, I meant to say Southwest Chief.

Read upthread for my quote from Amtrak on this topic.

 

[CTANut]

A lot of fast food establishments use cup counts. That's why McDonald's, for example, have special "uncounted" small cups when someone requests water or an extra cup.,,

The Wendy's I work at does not count cups. We will give customers a medium or large glass for water if they ask. Surprisingly, very few people get cups of water. Most people just get combos. I sell a lot of coffee in the mornings, but after that, most of my drinks are soft drinks. Most fast food places are more flexible than you think.

 

[bratkinson]

Back in my high school days in the early '60s, as I worked 4PM-close during the summer at Burger King, the manager would count all the cups to determine what had been sold. Back in those days, we didn't have cash registers or computers. We had order blanks with items & quantity to fill in and did the math in our head to get the total for each order. On weekends during the school year, I saw the franchisee, an accountant with some investor friends, re-tally every order sheet to make sure we were doing the math correctly. To this day, I never saw anyones' fingers move so fast on an adding machine! I got pretty good at it during a summer job in college, though. Oh yea...for the first few weeks we were open, a Whopper was $.39! It went up to $.45 and everyone had to relearn prices for Whopper-fries-coke + tax = $.68 or $.72...I don't remember which.