Detraining one stop early, then reboarding

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T

TrainTrav13

Joined
Jul 15, 2023
Messages
3
Location
Washington DC
Hi! I'm a new member and found your posts about "breaking tickets" very helpful, but I wanted to take it one step further by breaking by exiting 1 stop early and then reboarding 30-45 minutes later.

Details: I am taking the Acela 1st Class from NYP to WAS Union Station and have a friend whose flight arrives into BWI airport 20 minutes before my BWI stop. If I exit the Acela at BWI, wait for him at the Amtrak/MARC BWI station, then reboard on the next train to DC with available seats, have I violated my ticket? Will I have to buy a new ticket from BWI to WAS? (I know he will have to buy his ticket.)
Thanks!!
 
Your ticket will have been marked as having been used when scanned on the first train. Gettting off before your destination does not change that, it will have been used, with no remaining value, and would not be valid for further transportation.

That would apply even if tickets were unreserved (not limited to one train), no Amtrak tickets are "hop on/hop off". However, all service on the Northeast Corridor, Acela, NE Regionals, and Long Distance are only valid for the specific train ticketed.

If you have already have a ticket, and you get off before your destination, you will need to buy a new ticket, that ticket will be at current "bucket" at time of sale and may well be more expensive than if bought earlier.

If you have not already bought ticket, book two segments, NYP-BWI, and BWI-WAS on a later departure. Make sure to allow time for the plane being delayed and baggage pickup. Or just get NYP-BWI and take MARC from BWI to WAS. MARC trains are both unreserved and cheaper.
 
jis said:
It would be quite hard to buy a ticket to BWI on an Acela that does not stop there though.
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I am inferring that the OP may already have a NYP-WAS ticket and was asking if the could hop off at BWI and hop back on a later train, which of course, he can't (or at least not without being scolded by the conductor and standing to WAS, since no Acelas stop at New Carrolton for him to be put off). He'd find it challenging to "hop off" at BWI if his train didn't stop there, though😁.
 
pennyk said:
Welcome to Amtrak Unlimited.

Your ticket is specific to the first train you will be taking. Although you should be able to detrain (assuming the door opens), you will have to purchase another ticket to board the next train.
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Dumb question maybe, and I have never tried this myself, but doesn't the Amtrak website have a "multi-city" option? Not sure what that is, but i always imagined it was for precisely this type of thing, having a ticket that allowed you to get off somewhere and then proceed by a later train on the same ticket?

Bit like in the screenshot?

amtr-test.jpg
 
cirdan said:
Dumb question maybe, and I have never tried this myself, but doesn't the Amtrak website have a "multi-city" option? Not sure what that is, but i always imagined it was for precisely this type of thing, having a ticket that allowed you to get off somewhere and then proceed by a later train on the same ticket?

Bit like in the screenshot?

View attachment 33134
Click to expand...
I believe the member asking the question was already ticketed to WAS and wanted to know if it was possible to hop off and then hop on another train without being re-ticketed. Yes, multi-city tickets are quite common.
 
cirdan said:
Dumb question maybe, and I have never tried this myself, but doesn't the Amtrak website have a "multi-city" option? Not sure what that is, but i always imagined it was for precisely this type of thing, having a ticket that allowed you to get off somewhere and then proceed by a later train on the same ticket?

Bit like in the screenshot?

View attachment 33134
Click to expand...
Yes, it has a Multi-City option and it can be used to book stopovers as separate segments. But you have to ticket it that way. You can book NYP-BWI and BWI-WAS (or any other segment combination), but if you book NYP-WAS, get off at BWI, and want to continue to WAS later, that ticket won't be valid.
 
If the ticket's already purchased for NYP-WAS this may mean getting off in Baltimore, going then to BWI, and then with the friend to WAS. (Rather than Amtrak, MARC may be required for either or both of these last two segments if I understand the situation correctly.)
 
zephyr17 said:
Yes, it has a Multi-City option and it can be used to book stopovers as separate segments. But you have to ticket it that way. You can book NYP-BWI and BWI-WAS (or any other segment combination), but if you book NYP-WAS, get off at BWI, and want to continue to WAS later, that ticket won't be valid.
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Thanks for the explanation.

Sorry if this comes across as a dumb question. But what then is the advantage of a multi-city booking versus booking this as two separate tickets? Does it come cheaper?
 
cirdan said:
Sorry if this comes across as a dumb question. But what then is the advantage of a multi-city booking versus booking this as two separate tickets? Does it come cheaper?
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It often used to be cheaper (as long as the right buckets were available, you could often get the stopover at no additional cost) however that has gone away and I am not aware of any advantage of booking multi-city at this point.
 
River in Sight said:
It often used to be cheaper (as long as the right buckets were available, you could often get the stopover at no additional cost) however that has gone away and I am not aware of any advantage of booking multi-city at this point.
Click to expand...
Mostly its actual utility is if you need to book a city pair between smaller stations, as a workaround to Amtrak's very manual way of setting up connections. Amtrak's very old underlying legacy systems apparently require that connections be set up on a city pair by city pair basis, not even train to train. Not all are. So if a city pair entry returns no service, you can check between major stops on the same lines. If those show up, you can book the connection using Multi-City and be assured that the connection is still guaranteed. If booked on two separate reservations, it wouldn't be.

For stopovers, no real advantage. It would be a bit quicker to book than two separate reservations, though. Less entry.
 
Last edited:
Thank you so much to everyone who offered their advice on my question. Many of your replies even came in time for me to not go for trying to hop back on a later train once my friend arrived. Those who surmised that I'd already bought the NYP-WAS ticket were right. I wrote the post as I boarded the train! But now I know next time to book a multi-city. Makes complete sense. Thanks again everyone!
 

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