Fare Buckets - and when do they increase/decrease?

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The typical sale the last few years on Sleepers has been “buy one, get one free” on the rail fare portion only. The sale draws a few articles from travel publications in addition to the mass emails Amtrak sends out, that all drums up some interest. Realistically it comes out to 5-10 percent off+/- however. Nothing to get excited about.
 
The typical sale the last few years on Sleepers has been “buy one, get one free” on the rail fare portion only. The sale draws a few articles from travel publications in addition to the mass emails Amtrak sends out, that all drums up some interest. Realistically it comes out to 5-10 percent off+/- however. Nothing to get excited about.
Yeah, I have never, ever seen any discount or sale on the accommodation charge, which is by far the greater part of the fare. The only thing you can do is try for a lower yield management bucket.
 
Since the supply of sleeping accommodations is very limited and inadequate to demand, and that situation is likely to persist for a long time yet, how do you propose to ration the supply if not by price?
Balancing supply and demand with some yield management is certainly appropriate, up to a point. But, if you are a for-profit enterprise you stop before you get to the point of price gouging. And if you are a quasi-governmental agency that requires a public subsidy like Amtrak you stop before you reach pricing levels that make you appear to be a plaything for the rich.

I completely agree with your suggestions to get sidelined equipment back in service and improve onboard service levels, and to add supply with fleet acquisition. I'd like to see an immediate Superliner rebuild program in addition to acquisition of new equipment.
 
Spent a few minutes looking for the new increased fares on the EB to find that there are now 7 individual buckets offered (instead of the customary 5) for Bedrooms and the high bucket has increased 42% from $2376 to $3375 (on 18 April for travel from SEA to CHI). Tried to check this one a third time, but Arrow stymied the effort. Will try later.

FWIW, I've now found a total of 6 Roomette buckets. If there's an unfound bucket it's probably the high bucket which should be around $1273 for a 19% increase. [Edit: just found it - $1277}

Here's that #3375 Bedroom fare:
View attachment 31924
Sorta brings a tear to the eye, don't it?
$3375 for a bedroom? You have to be insane to pay that. Thing is, if one person will buy it Amtrak will continue to charge it. Totally outrageous

At $3375 for a one way I would expect my own personal attendant,unlimited alcoholic drinks,lobster, filet mignon, etc. That’s what I would expect for that price.
 
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Im pretty sure the family bedrooms I talked about earlier are going out empty the majority of the time next week. They aren’t even an upgradable room option. My opinion is Amtrak is fine with sleepers going out unsold. I’ve talked to attendants on many different trips who’ve said it’s not uncommon for sleeprs to go unsold for the entire trip. Our 12/21/22 trip from EMY to GBB my daughter and I only had one other customer in our entire car, granted it was the transition sleeper but it had its own staffed attendant. The attendant was loving life, half the time he was in sweats. This was 4 days before Christmas!
 
Im pretty sure the family bedrooms I talked about earlier are going out empty the majority of the time next week. They aren’t even an upgradable room option. My opinion is Amtrak is fine with sleepers going out unsold. I’ve talked to attendants on many different trips who’ve said it’s not uncommon for sleeprs to go unsold for the entire trip. Our 12/21/22 trip from EMY to GBB my daughter and I only had one other customer in our entire car, granted it was the transition sleeper but it had its own staffed attendant. The attendant was loving life, half the time he was in sweats. This was 4 days before Christmas!
If that is true, that is very, very bad news. It reminds me of SP, which would say a train with plenty of empty seats was sold out rather than sell a ticket on it, so they could force down ridership numbers to bolster ICC discontinuance cases. Not revisiting yield management allocations when significant inventory goes unsold is not proper yield management in my book and more closely resembles an attempt at driving away business.

It should not surprise me, current Amtrak management really does appear to be borrowing from SP's playbook periodically with regard to long distance services. They do not want to provide the service and attempt to drive passengers away in order to provide a rationale for killing it. The ghost of Ben Biaggini must be pleased.
 
To this day I never understood why Amtrak won’t cut prices to low bucket on sleepers that remain unoccupied for an entire trip. Can you imagine Coach passengers who would jump at the chance to upgrade to a sleeper? Isn’t some revenue better than no revenue?

A couple of years ago I was on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland. My SCA had a chart showing how many sleepers were occupied during the trips. All but three Roomettes were occupied and only two bedrooms were occupied the entire trip. I asked her why there were so few bedrooms sold. She said they were too expensive, Duh..,lower prices on the bedrooms could have gained revenue, but instead they remained empty. A head scratcher for sure.
 
Instead of expanding local Tempo type partnerships to maximize yield, they fired Tempo. That speaks volumes. The Eagle has not been the same since. I have to agree with Zephyr17 above. Gardner learned a lot on what not to do from Anderson. The three stooges act Gardner is allowing to take place so far isn’t getting any noticeable push back from Congress.
 
I agree with the basic concept that when sleeper rooms are in short supply, they should command higher prices. But Amtrak's current application of yield management seems much more focused on maximizing revenue per room sold, rather than on selling every space and maximizing the number of customers served. They don't seem to mind leaving rooms unsold, which strikes me as a tremendous waste of a scarce resource.

This winter my family considered taking a cross-country train trip, something we used to do nearly every year, for the first time since the pandemic. We wanted to go west from Chicago on the Zephyr and return east on the Chief. Our dates were flexible within a period of about two weeks plus a few days each way in February. We needed two rooms each way. I began checking the prices in mid-November. There were some dates with decent fares on the CZ, but for every eastbound run of the Chief in our two-week window, the lowest available roomette price was more than $1,000 per room, with some dates approaching $1,150. This remained the case until sometime around Feb. 1, when a price under $900 appeared on one date.

By the first week of February, suddenly roomettes on the Chief became available at a bit less than $700 on some dates, even at less than $600 on one date. By about Feb. 6, I had found a westbound date on the CZ and an eastbound on the Chief that would work for us and make the total price tolerable. But we would have to have been leaving Chicago barely a week later. By then it would have been a scramble to make all the other arrangements -- transportation from the Northeast to Chicago and back, hotel reservations, local travel in CA -- to make the whole trip work. And by then, we had been discussing a Plan B vacation that had begun to gain momentum.

We wound up going to Virginia instead of California. We still went by train, but we spent about $300 and change for NER coach tickets. We might have spent up to $3K on a CA trip had we been able to find rooms at middle bucket or less anytime between November and late January, but there were none. And I am quite sure, because I checked, that the departures of the CZ and Chief that we ultimately were considering had unsold rooms available from end to end through the date of departure.
 
I agree with the basic concept that when sleeper rooms are in short supply, they should command higher prices. But Amtrak's current application of yield management seems much more focused on maximizing revenue per room sold, rather than on selling every space and maximizing the number of customers served. They don't seem to mind leaving rooms unsold, which strikes me as a tremendous waste of a scarce resource.

This winter my family considered taking a cross-country train trip, something we used to do nearly every year, for the first time since the pandemic. We wanted to go west from Chicago on the Zephyr and return east on the Chief. Our dates were flexible within a period of about two weeks plus a few days each way in February. We needed two rooms each way. I began checking the prices in mid-November. There were some dates with decent fares on the CZ, but for every eastbound run of the Chief in our two-week window, the lowest available roomette price was more than $1,000 per room, with some dates approaching $1,150. This remained the case until sometime around Feb. 1, when a price under $900 appeared on one date.

By the first week of February, suddenly roomettes on the Chief became available at a bit less than $700 on some dates, even at less than $600 on one date. By about Feb. 6, I had found a westbound date on the CZ and an eastbound on the Chief that would work for us and make the total price tolerable. But we would have to have been leaving Chicago barely a week later. By then it would have been a scramble to make all the other arrangements -- transportation from the Northeast to Chicago and back, hotel reservations, local travel in CA -- to make the whole trip work. And by then, we had been discussing a Plan B vacation that had begun to gain momentum.

We wound up going to Virginia instead of California. We still went by train, but we spent about $300 and change for NER coach tickets. We might have spent up to $3K on a CA trip had we been able to find rooms at middle bucket or less anytime between November and late January, but there were none. And I am quite sure, because I checked, that the departures of the CZ and Chief that we ultimately were considering had unsold rooms available from end to end through the date of departure.
Another frustrating aspect of Amtrak’s pricing. Many people would like to make plans months in advance for sleepers. By pricing sleepers in the highest buckets nine to eleven months out,that makes it impossible for me and many others who will not pay those outrageous prices. I’m sure there is a solution..how about reasonable pricing?
 
Another frustrating aspect of Amtrak’s pricing. Many people would like to make plans months in advance for sleepers. By pricing sleepers in the highest buckets nine to eleven months out,that makes it impossible for me and many others who will not pay those outrageous prices. I’m sure there is a solution..how about reasonable pricing?
Well, assuming they are executing yield management properly, which recent posts in this thread cast significant doubt on, it actually makes sense to price high very far out. Those who must purchase that far out likely have inflexible travel plans and thus represent somewhat inelastic demand. Further, what actual demand will be overall is somewhat unclear almost a year in advance, so why sell it cheaply almost a year in advance and block space that you could generate more revenue from if good demand develops? You can always put open inventory in lower buckets to move it, but if you sold it, you cannot resell it.

You'll find that airfares tend to be on the high side for really early bookings, too and tend to drop in the same 4-6 month range Amtrak’s often do.

Yield management properly done ought to reflect the iron laws of supply and demand. If executed properly, I have no issue with it, even though those fares negatively impact me personally. What would enrage me is if yield management were being done incompetently, or even malevolently to drive away passengers, resulting in both high fares for passengers and lost revenue for Amtrak. Recent posts provide anecdotal evidence that may be the case.
 
If I should decide to take a "Land Cruise" on Amtrak I would buy sleeper tickets in advance and if I saw a drop in ticket prices I would then cancel the expensive tickets and get a refund but prior to that I would call Amtrak and request a partial refund (just to the new lower price) If I could not get such a refund, I would purchase new lower price tickers PRIOR to returning the OLD High price ducats.. Would that work??
 
If I should decide to take a "Land Cruise" on Amtrak I would buy sleeper tickets in advance and if I saw a drop in ticket prices I would then cancel the expensive tickets and get a refund but prior to that I would call Amtrak and request a partial refund (just to the new lower price) If I could not get such a refund, I would purchase new lower price tickers PRIOR to returning the OLD High price ducats.. Would that work??
Yes, that would work, with two caveats.
1. Amtrak has traditionally been willing to refund the difference if you find a lower fare for the same itinerary. With them adopting more and more airline style practices, I an not sure how long that's going to last.
2. Holding two reservations for the same itinerary is an "impossible booking" and ultimately Amtrak’s system will auto-cancel one or both. However, I do not think that is a real-time function. You could probably do it as long as you cancelled the old one immediately after successfully booking the new one.
 
FWIW, that $3375 Bedroom fare on the EB is now gone from 18 April - it's now offered on 30 April for SEA to CHI travel.

I am, however, beginning to think that $3375 is a fluke. With it, 8 different Bedroom fares have been found but only 7 different Roomette fares. But maybe there's an 8th Roomette fare that has yet to be offered or found.
 
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FWIW, that $3375 Bedroom fare on the EB is now gone from 18 April - it's now offered on 30 April for SEA to CHI travel.

I am, however, beginning to think that $3375 is a fluke. With it, 8 different Bedroom fares have been found but only 7 different Roomette fares. But maybe there's an 8th Roomette fare that has yet to be offered or found.
What have you found so far? I’ve been looking at booking a trip on the EB this summer so I have been looking at fares for a bunch of dates…

Was shocked to see roomette fares as high as $1500 one way
 
The 7 Roomette fares found so far are $588, 653, 732, 829, 949, 1096 and $1277 for an average of $875. That's 11% above last years average of $790. The average Bedroom fare (excluding that $3375 one) has risen 5%. If the $3375 fare is included in the total, the average Bedroom fare has risen 17%.

So far have only 4 different Family Bedroom fares. FYI, sleeper fares for the EB to PDX are customarily $2 more than those to SEA.
 
If I should decide to take a "Land Cruise" on Amtrak I would buy sleeper tickets in advance and if I saw a drop in ticket prices I would then cancel the expensive tickets and get a refund but prior to that I would call Amtrak and request a partial refund (just to the new lower price) If I could not get such a refund, I would purchase new lower price tickers PRIOR to returning the OLD High price ducats.. Would that work??
There is a 25% cancellation fee on sleeper tickets canceled within 4 months of scheduled departure. There is no change fee.
 



I'd really start checking regularly and systematically sooner than that (like at the 6 month mark, not 5).

Don't hold out for lowest bucket. Grab it on the drop, it might go lower, but chances aren't great. And if you decide to wait and see if there's another drop, you are running the chance that the couple of rooms allocated to a lower bucket will get grabbed and you'll just be in higher buckets again. They really don't allocate inventory to low bucket on anything but travel days with very weak demand.

If you are flexible in your travel days, check other days that work, especially after you see a drop. As part of the review they seem to pay more attention to day to day variations than initially, where they just seem to shove everything into the same buckets for weeks at a time. So after you see a drop, shop around, you might find a low bucket within a few days of your target date.

Thanks for the advice. So I checked a date six months out for today and we are at highest bucket.

I checked 4 months and 29 days out, and we are at lowest bucket. I think checked exactly 5 months out, still lowest. Went 5 months and a day, it's middle bucket. Finally went 5 months and 2 days out, jumped to highest bucket. 5 months and 3 days out, still highest bucket.

Very interesting to see what happens over the next couple of days to those highest bucket fares.
 
The 7 Roomette fares found so far are $588, 653, 732, 829, 949, 1096 and $1277 for an average of $875. That's 11% above last years average of $790. The average Bedroom fare (excluding that $3375 one) has risen 5%. If the $3375 fare is included in the total, the average Bedroom fare has risen 17%.

So far have only 4 different Family Bedroom fares. FYI, sleeper fares for the EB to PDX are customarily $2 more than those to SEA.
(admins please move if irrelevant).

28(9/05) has 4 Roomettes at the $1502 bucket, and 2 Bedrooms at the $3337 bucket.
 
Out of curiosity I checked sleeper fares exactly six months from today October 9
from endpoints. Senior fare one person
NY to Chi LS roomette $726 bedroom $1483
NY to Chi Card(day before) roomette $470 no bedroom available
Was to Chi CL $630 $973
NY to NOL $456 $1268
NY to Mia Star $536 $1598
NY to Mia Meteor $471 $1415
NOL to Lax SL $942 $1971
Chi to Sea EB $1066 $2273
Chi to Pdx EB $1068 $2274
Chi to EMY CZ $1069 $2180
Chi to LAX SW Chief $1162 $2210
Chi to LAX TE(day before) $876 $1910
Chi to NOL CONO $456 $1268
Sea to LAX CS $827 $1383

Only low buckets seem to be the Meteor and the Star. Every other fare seems to be the two highest buckets .

Notice all bedrooms on the EB CZ and the SW Chief are over $2000. Again this is one person. Add another passenger it’s $200 more.

No way I would pay any of these prices with the possible exception of the Cardinal,Crescent and the Meteor,but that’s me.
 
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