End of full refunds

[bretton88]

Well, I notice that Amtrak made a slight amendment to their refund policy. They didn't change their voucher policy, but for people who want non voucher refunds, a new 10% fee applies. Bummer. Its a lot easier for me to deal with refunds than vouchers, especially if I made a mistake in my initial reservation. Quote:

Refund: Passengers may receive the calculated refund value, less a 10% refund service charge, in the form of cash, check or credit to credit card, depending on the form of payment that was used for the ticket(s) being refunded. The maximum amount imposed by Amtrak on this 10% refund service charge will be $100 per refund transaction on any single reservation.

And thus begin the fees on Amtrak.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

That been there for a while. If you pay by credit card, the credit card company takes up to 10% in transaction fees, when you get a refund the credit card company keeps the 10% fees, it does not return it. So if you get a 100% refund, Amtrak would have to give you more money then they got.

Losing money on ever transaction, not smart.

Ever notice some place don't take certain credit cards, if you ask the owner/manger it is normal the transaction fee is too high. I know AMEX, and Discovery can get very high for small business.

 

[roomette]

Also, Amtrak Guest Reward Points are not free. The merchant pays the price of those points when you make your AGR Card purchase.

 

[Acela150]

Where have you been?? :blink: :giggle: This policy has been this way for a long time.. Possibly years! This is mentioned on the forum quite frequently. At least three times a month. Just a guess.

 

[Pat Harper]

The only time Amtrak will give you a full refund is when THEY have to cancel your trip or for some reason downgrade your reservation on their own.

 

[rrdude]

The only time Amtrak will give you a full refund is when THEY have to cancel your trip or for some reason downgrade your reservation on their own.

I'm sorry Pat, I think you may be mistaken. I book dozens of business trips per year on Amtrak, and pay with my AMEX card.
As long I cancel the trip within the time frame stated by Amtrak, (one week prior, if holding sleepers I think) I am issued a 100% refund.

The cancellation time-frame is even less for coach travel, and it is still 100%, if done in advance.

Of course, this DEPENDS upon whether or not you have ACTUALLY PRINTED YOUR TICKET. If you have, and you want a refund THEN there IS a 10% penalty, if you want your "cash" back. (or the funds credited back to your debit card/CC) If not, Amtrak will issue you 100% travel voucher, good for ONE YEAR. Again, that's only IF you have already printed your ticket....

And Just-Thinking-51, while I don't claim to be anything close to an expert on card-issuer / merchant relations, it is my understanding that the card issuers do not keep anything close to the 10% that you wrote about. Each relationship between a card issuer and the merchant is unique, based upon the volume of dollars spent, degree of risk, etc.

Those merchants (in this case Amtrak) with high volumes of CC (in my case AMEX) pay very, very, very, low "discount rates" or fees to the issuer. AMEX makes up for the low fee in the incredible volume that they do.

Rates in the 1% to 1.5% are the norm for independent restaurants, with CC sales of $500,000 to a $1M. So I would guess the discount rate that Amtrak pays to AMEX, is substantially lower.

Anyway, Amtrak STILL HAS the most generous refund policy of any national carrier, followed closely by Southwest Airlines.

I think they should change it, to "vouchers for travel only". But hope they don't.

 

[Eric308]

From the Amtrak site....

1. Refund: Passengers may receive the calculated refund value, less a 10% refund service charge, in the form of cash, check or credit to credit card, depending on the form of payment that was used for the ticket(s) being refunded. The maximum amount imposed by Amtrak on this 10% refund service charge will be $100 per refund transaction on any single reservation.

 

[transit54]

I think they should change it, to "vouchers for travel only". But hope they don't.

I agree with you, except for one caveat. Right now, vouchers are paper-based and you are out of luck trying to deal with them in an area without a staffed station. When e-vouchers are implemented, I think this policy makes sense from a business perspective. But vouchers are too much of a hassle at the moment and it would upset me tremendously as a customer if I had to jump through a ton of hoops to deal with my voucher. The four stations I most frequently travel out of aren't staffed: ESX, PRK, CRT and BRP. The latter have QT machines, but that won't help with vouchers. As it is, I'd prefer vouchers to the 10% fee, but I always get refunds because vouchers are way too much of a hassle.

 

[rrdude]

From the Amtrak site....

1. Refund: Passengers may receive the calculated refund value, less a 10% refund service charge, in the form of cash, check or credit to credit card, depending on the form of payment that was used for the ticket(s) being refunded. The maximum amount imposed by Amtrak on this 10% refund service charge will be $100 per refund transaction on any single reservation.

IF it is the "Ticket" that is being refunded. IF the ticket was actually printed.

I may have confused things here.......... It may be a matter of semantics, but if you have a RESERVATION, (but no printed ticket) you are entitled to a 100% refund. (as long as you cancel far enough in advance)

Yes I agree, once a ticket is printed, it's either 10% penalty if you want the "cash" back, or 100% refund if you will accept a travel voucher.

 

[jis]

Well, I notice that Amtrak made a slight amendment to their refund policy. They didn't change their voucher policy, but for people who want non voucher refunds, a new 10% fee applies. Bummer. Its a lot easier for me to deal with refunds than vouchers, especially if I made a mistake in my initial reservation. Quote:

Refund: Passengers may receive the calculated refund value, less a 10% refund service charge, in the form of cash, check or credit to credit card, depending on the form of payment that was used for the ticket(s) being refunded. The maximum amount imposed by Amtrak on this 10% refund service charge will be $100 per refund transaction on any single reservation.

And thus begin the fees on Amtrak.

I don't believe the policy has changed since I just cancelled a paid up reservation and was refunded 100% to my Credit Card. The policy has been that if a ticket had been printed before canceling then a 10% fee is assessed to refund the amount to the instrument that was used to pay for the ticket.

But then again, I may have just got lucky and the policy has actually change. Who knows? I guess I will know the next time

 

[printman2000]

I agree with you, except for one caveat. Right now, vouchers are paper-based and you are out of luck trying to deal with them in an area without a staffed station. When e-vouchers are implemented, I think this policy makes sense from a business perspective. But vouchers are too much of a hassle at the moment and it would upset me tremendously as a customer if I had to jump through a ton of hoops to deal with my voucher. The four stations I most frequently travel out of aren't staffed: ESX, PRK, CRT and BRP. The latter have QT machines, but that won't help with vouchers. As it is, I'd prefer vouchers to the 10% fee, but I always get refunds because vouchers are way too much of a hassle.

Actually, I think they have implemented some form of "e-vouchers". I was given $100 voucher for my last trip. I was told I could call in to customer service, reference my case number and they would then apply it.

Course, I forgot to use it on my recent purchase. I may call and see if they can apply it and refund me $100.

 

[printman2000]

Well, I notice that Amtrak made a slight amendment to their refund policy. They didn't change their voucher policy, but for people who want non voucher refunds, a new 10% fee applies. Bummer. Its a lot easier for me to deal with refunds than vouchers, especially if I made a mistake in my initial reservation. Quote:

Refund: Passengers may receive the calculated refund value, less a 10% refund service charge, in the form of cash, check or credit to credit card, depending on the form of payment that was used for the ticket(s) being refunded. The maximum amount imposed by Amtrak on this 10% refund service charge will be $100 per refund transaction on any single reservation.

And thus begin the fees on Amtrak.

The policy has been written that way for years. They just have not implemented it the way it was written. Of course, that means at any time they could implement it, but as far as I have seen, they have not.

 

[rrdude]

"Ticket" (printed by Amtrak)

"Paid Reservation" (CC charged, ticket not yet printed)

Two different things to Amtrak.

Refunds are different for each. Done.

 

[tim49424]

I was scheduled to take Amtrak from Tomah, WI to Holland, MI last month (July 14-19) and discovered that I had forgotten to bring my tickets. I had to call Amtrak and replace the tickets. They did tell me on the phone about the fee, however, when I got my refund no fee was taken out. This ticket was paid by credit card and preprinted, so I suppose it depends upon who processes the refund.

 

[BaltimoreZ71]

Refund policies also vary with corporate agreements. For example we have a 100% refund due to our agreement with Amtrak if booked using our corporate Amex card. We also have negotiated rates on NER and Acela fares. I have not tried other fares so I do not know if we have a discount system wide.

 

[AlanB]

I was scheduled to take Amtrak from Tomah, WI to Holland, MI last month (July 14-19) and discovered that I had forgotten to bring my tickets. I had to call Amtrak and replace the tickets. They did tell me on the phone about the fee, however, when I got my refund no fee was taken out. This ticket was paid by credit card and preprinted, so I suppose it depends upon who processes the refund.

They waived the penalty since you had taken the trip by buying new tickets.

 

[AlecL]

When refunding coach seats, as long as the tickets have not yet been printed, you can call for a full 100% refund even after you no-show for a train that has already departed. Coach seats have no 10% cancellation fee prior to ticketing... period.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

It is my understanding that the card issuers do not keep anything close to the 10% that you wrote about. Rates in the 1% to 1.5% are the norm for independent restaurants, with CC sales of $500,000 to a $1M. So I would guess the discount rate that Amtrak pays to AMEX, is substantially lower. Amtrak STILL HAS the most generous refund policy of any national carrier, followed closely by Southwest Airlines.

It is not at all inconceivable that a given merchant may have to pay up to 5% of the purchase price in transaction and processing fees for a given purchase. Refunding that purchase can also incur an additional set of charges and penalties depending on how it was issued and/or contested. It is very hard to know with any certainty what the total cost of all those fess will reach and this is by design on behalf of the credit issuers and merchant banks. As a result a refund penalty of 10-15% is used in an attempt to anticipate and recover the entire basket of fees that may be charged to them. Sometimes they'll come out ahead and sometimes they'll take a hit even at 15%.

If you look at the average credit and debit processing fees they've all been rising continuously for many years now and even businesses like Walmart and Best Buy are feeling the pain and spending many millions on lobbying politicians to finally regulate our ever increasing transaction fees. I'm not normally in agreement with big box mega-retailers but in the case of credit and debit processing fees it's hard to see the banks side of the story. The banks are providing the same laughable security they were already providing back in the 1990's while charging rates more in line with state-of-the-art security technology. Oddly enough in countries that do provide better credit/debit security than the US does the processing rates are generally lower than what we're now paying, probably because there is a lot less unnecessary fraud to blame for all the increases in fees.

As for Southwest, while they are indeed still better than most about allowing reuse of funds without penalty they do not offer actual refunds unless you've purchased a full fare ticket. That means unless your round trip ticket cost something on the order of $750-$1,000 or so you can generally forget any sort of refund. In addition Southwest has been doing a lot to clamp down on funding flexibility such that you cannot use funds originally ticketed for one person to buy a replacement ticket for someone else. They've also completely gutted their rewards program to the point that I don't even bother giving them my account number anymore.

 

[jacorbett70]

When refunding coach seats, as long as the tickets have not yet been printed, you can call for a full 100% refund even after you no-show for a train that has already departed. Coach seats have no 10% cancellation fee prior to ticketing... period.

When I saw this thread title I was wondering if that policy had changed. I would not be surprised if Amtrak does change this sometime during the transition to e-tickets.

 

[jis]

When refunding coach seats, as long as the tickets have not yet been printed, you can call for a full 100% refund even after you no-show for a train that has already departed. Coach seats have no 10% cancellation fee prior to ticketing... period.

When I saw this thread title I was wondering if that policy had changed. I would not be surprised if Amtrak does change this sometime during the transition to e-tickets.

That would be most unfortunate because that would make Amtrak worse than airlines who do continue to have albeit much more expensive, but fully refundable fares. Amtrak could institute a cheap fares refund/change fee or truly non-refundable cheap fares and that would be fine. But to put a 10% or whatever charge ad-velorum for refunding any fare irrespective of how huge the fare is would potentially put Amtrak at a competitive disadvantage with airlines at least on the NEC.

 

[printman2000]

That would be most unfortunate because that would make Amtrak worse than airlines who do continue to have albeit much more expensive, but fully refundable fares. Amtrak could institute a cheap fares refund/change fee or truly non-refundable cheap fares and that would be fine. But to put a 10% or whatever charge ad-velorum for refunding any fare irrespective of how huge the fare is would potentially put Amtrak at a competitive disadvantage with airlines at least on the NEC.

Remember, though, the max fee is $100.

 

[Eric308]

Question about printing a ticket...I booked online and only have my e-mail confirmation with reservation number. It also states up top "THIS IS NOT A TICKET". Must I print something or am I fine just showing up at the station with my confirmation?

 

[jis]

Question about printing a ticket...I booked online and only have my e-mail confirmation with reservation number. It also states up top "THIS IS NOT A TICKET". Must I print something or am I fine just showing up at the station with my confirmation?

You must have a printed ticket except in certain extenuating circumstances.

 

[afigg]

Question about printing a ticket...I booked online and only have my e-mail confirmation with reservation number. It also states up top "THIS IS NOT A TICKET". Must I print something or am I fine just showing up at the station with my confirmation?

If the station you are boarding from has a Quik Trak machine, all you have to do is wave the bar code by the scanner or enter your reservation and the machine will print out your ticket. Do NOT lose the ticket and keep the ticket stub after the ticket is taken on the train.

If the station has a agent or ticket window, go to the window to get the ticket. If you are boarding at a small station that does have a Quik Trak or agent and can't get to a station that does not have a Quik Trak or agent, you should call Amtrak to get a ticket mailed to you.

Amtrak is working towards e-ticketing and are currently testing it on the AutoTrain and Downeaster, but it will be a while before e-tickets are a widely available options.

As for end of full refunds, I'm not surprised. Amtrak is obviously under the gun to improve revenue and cost recovery percentage. But they might have been smarter to cap the max fee at $60 to $75 because that does not sound as bad as $100 and accomplishes the goal of cutting costs of last minute changes or people not using their ticket for a sold-out train and getting a refund later. Amtrak's goal should be to be more accommodating and flexible than the airlines, which should not be that difficult to achieve.