Error? Not charged for one of my segments?

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KeepItGoing

Joined
Mar 31, 2015
Messages
14
Location
San Antonio
Last night I bought a three-segment ticket for a long-distance trip starting tomorrow. When I checked the ticket in my email, I noticed that for the third segment, it says I was charged $0. If that's the case, no wonder it was the cheapest of the good options I had!

I am now worried. Do I have a valid ticket, or not?

When I consider just calling and asking, I worry that they will want to charge me for the third segment—but I made this reservation in good faith, making decisions partially based on cost. (I'm in sleepers, so we're talking a fair amount of money.) Last night I could have selected a different option (more expensive than this one, but much less expensive than now paying for the third segment), but that option is no longer available.

It doesn't seem like they should be able to charge me for the third segment, or deny me boarding—I just accepted the deal that was offered to me, with no knowledge of this. (Especially since they don't even tell you what each segment is costing—you just get the total.) In my understanding, businesses have to honor a purchase even if they've made an error. But saying that "they should honor it" doesn't mean they would actually have a roomette for me—and I hate to rely on it when I could end up stuck 1500 miles from home!

Does anyone have any wisdom for me?
 
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If you price your fare on line, does it coincide with what you were charged? Is it possible that the fare of two of your segments is combined on your ticket (I have seen that)?
 
My ticket says I paid $715 for a roomette on Segment 2, and $0 for a roomette on Segment 3.

Currently, roomettes on Segment 2 are going for $586, and roomettes on Segment 3 are going for $460. I'm not sure how to interpret that.

I feel uneasy about posting particulars of my whole journey at this point.

Fortunately, there will be no disaster if I don't have a seat; I can fly. At this point I'm sort of inclined to just trust the ticket and, if there's a problem, cross that bridge when I come to it.
 
The prices on the booking page include the rail fare. You don’t see the breakdown until you get the email (invoice). So it’s hard to compare the prices if you’re only looking at the roomette price on your invoice.
 
When I said I paid that for the roomette, I actually included the rail fare as well, so (I think) it is apples to apples.

Yes, I have a room number for all segments.

I think I'm just going to assume all is well. The worst case scenario (if I don't have a roomette) isn't too bad.
 
I've seen this before, multiple-times too on multi-segment Reservations. You definately don't have to worry about it!

I think it's basically telling you that if you use the first or earlier segmenst and decide not to use or ride the second segment you won't get a refund because all the value's been used with the first segment. I noticed this on multi-city tickets in particuarly when I've taken advataged of Amtrak's free-stopover if less than 24 hours policy. Here's an example I pulled up from my e-mail on a trip I sucsessfully went on back in 2018 when I was traveling from Portland to Vancouver, BC and stopped in Seattle for a few hours to go for a ride on the Sound Transit Extensions (I actually got off the first train in Tuckwilla and took a bus over to the light rail because I wanted to photograph the renovated station and ride down to Angle Lake), notice the $0.00 for the Seattle to Vancouver, BC segment:

Train 504: PORTLAND (AMTRAK - UNION STATION), OR - SEATTLE (KING ST. STATION), WA Depart 12:00 PM, Thursday, March 8, 2018
1 RESERVED COACH SEAT
$49.00
Ticket Terms & ConditionsNOT VALID ON OTHER DATES/TRAINSNON-REFUNDABLE, EXCHANGES PERMITTED FOR OTHER RAIL FARE PURCHASES
Subtotal
$49.00
Train 518: SEATTLE (KING ST. STATION), WA - VANCOUVER, BC Depart 7:00 PM, Thursday, March 8, 2018
1 RESERVED COACH SEAT
$0.00
Ticket Terms & ConditionsNOT VALID ON OTHER DATES/TRAINSNON-REFUNDABLE, EXCHANGES PERMITTED FOR OTHER RAIL FARE PURCHASES
Subtotal
$0.00
Total Charged by Amtrak
$49.00
 
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Okay, this is great, thanks! If they actually do this for their own purposes, I will worry less.

The free-stopover thing confused me for a minute, but having done a quick Google search to find out what you're talking about, I think you're right on. I did select an itinerary that gave me a few more hours than necessary at the stop in question.

Thanks so much!
 
KeepItGoing said:
Okay, this is great, thanks! If they actually do this for their own purposes, I will worry less.

The free-stopover thing confused me for a minute, but having done a quick Google search to find out what you're talking about, I think you're right on. I did select an itinerary that gave me a few more hours than necessary at the stop in question.

Thanks so much!
Click to expand...
I'm guessing your third leg is one of the many "commuter" trains (on the NEC, mid-west out of Chicago or in California)
 
KeepItGoing said:
Okay, this is great, thanks! If they actually do this for their own purposes, I will worry less.

The free-stopover thing confused me for a minute, but having done a quick Google search to find out what you're talking about, I think you're right on. I did select an itinerary that gave me a few more hours than necessary at the stop in question.

Thanks so much!
Click to expand...

Your welcome I remember it confused me the first time I bought a multi-city ticket but that was back in 2011 before eTickets and I wasn't at all worried about it since the Amtrak agent or Quick Track machine would always print out a ticket successfully for each segment of my trip. I used to do it extensively back before the 2016 AGR earning changes when every segment even if it was very short always earned you 100 AGR points. It's also why I have so many stations on the major corridors on my website.
 
My invoice for my "2 segment booking" from Emeryville to Chicago using the San Joaquin to Bakersfield and Thruway bus to Los Angeles to connect to the Southwest Chief shows $ price only against "Rail Fare" and "Thruway Seat".

The Bedroom (on the Chief) is shown as $0.00 - the fare showing against the Thruway Seat is a lot of dollars for a 2 hour 30 minute bus ride !!!
 

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