Hilarious Reservation Glitch

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AMTRAK-P42

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Jun 21, 2003
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Well I was really really bored tonight so I was fooling around on Amtrak.com to see about the cost of some random trips. I put in a trip from ATL-LAX tomorrow (a day when the sunset doesn’t start in NOL) to see what the price would be. 2 Options came up. The first was of course ATL-WAS-CHI-LAX (Crescent, Capital Limited, Southwest Chief). The second was ATL-WAS-CHI-PDX-LAX (Crescent, Capital Limited, Builder, Starlight). I looked at the upgrade list and I almost fell out of seat laughing. Check this out:

---->Lower Level Coach Seat 1 seat 1 person per seat (infant shares seat with adult) $495.00 for 1 seat*

The funniest thing is that for every leg of the trip on a Superliner, the lower level coach seat was nearly 500 dollars while the roomette on every leg is cheaper...haha. Just thought id point out this glitch, this is ridiculous. It is even funnier because if you type in any of these legs by themselves, such as WAS-CHI, the cost of the lower level coach seat is normal, about 100 dollars.
 
AmtrakFan said:
The Coach Seats must be in a Higher Bucket then the Sleepers.
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That doesnt explain it though, because if you isolate each trip section, the lower level coach seats are the price they should be, around 100 dollars extra. Only when you put all the destinations in one trip do they rocket to 500 dollars.

For instance, by itself, for Washington-Chicago on May 9th, the lower level coach seat is 91 dollars. However if you type in (leaving May 8th from ATL) ATL-WAS-CHI-PDX-LAX, its 450 dollars, same trip, same date, same train, same everything.
 
Why exactly are lower level seats more pricey than regular? Are they better/more luxurious seats? I'm from the east coast so I've only ridden Viewliner sleeps and Amfleets and don't know much about west coast trains.
 
quadrock said:
Why exactly are lower level seats more pricey than regular? Are they better/more luxurious seats? I'm from the east coast so I've only ridden Viewliner sleeps and Amfleets and don't know much about west coast trains.
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Normally lower level seats are the same price as seats on the upper level. It would appear that someone screwed something up with the computer. :)
 
Now speaking of reservation oddities, here's one that I hit a few days ago.

Want to go from Boston to NY, no problem. There are dozens of trains that will do it, but the best one is the train that goes to Philly first, so that you can then double back to NY. As an added bonus, you get to pay more.

Check it out, the last choice on the list. :lol:

Booking.JPG


Note that you can also just ride train #135 direct to NY, without the Philly detour.
 
While we're on the topic of reservation oddities, why is the Texas Eagle almost twice as much as the Sunset Limited when traveling from LAX to SAS? It's the same train until after SAS where it splits. That just makes no sense at all.
 
What scared me was recenty making some reservations and the Amtrak agent did not know they had changed sleeper terminology to be bedrooms and roomettes.

It ws a late March turn-around trip ATL to NYC to do things not rail-related.

It was Guest Rewards for the northbound trip and they said they could not give me room numbers at the moment, to call back.

Come to find out, they had me in a roomette(which they still called standard bedroom) when I wanted to be in a bedroom(which they still called deluxe bedroom).

It was Guest Rewards so there was no price differential to tip me off. I got it corrected soon enough, of course. There screwd-upness included not picking up on the different points needed between a bedroom and a roomette. It made no sense at all.

Scarey. The agent the second time I called had me on hold a long time while she was verifying the "new"terminology.
 
Jamie said:
While we're on the topic of reservation oddities, why is the Texas Eagle almost twice as much as the Sunset Limited when traveling from LAX to SAS? It's the same train until after SAS where it splits. That just makes no sense at all.
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Perhaps they have sold more more of the Texas Eagle seats so the fares went up for those.
 
How similar...When I recently booked a trip on the Crescent (also from Atlanta to NYC, also bedroom in Guest Rewards one way and a roomette on me the other), I had the exact same experience. The agent (Amtrak reservationist, not Guest Rewards) did not know about the terminology that was adopted a year or more ago. Guest Rewards agent knew all about it.
 
Jamie said:
While we're on the topic of reservation oddities, why is the Texas Eagle almost twice as much as the Sunset Limited when traveling from LAX to SAS? It's the same train until after SAS where it splits. That just makes no sense at all.
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Since there is only one coach that rusn through on the Texas Eagle, as opposed to at least two on the Sunset, Amtrak would prefer to have local passengers book on the Sunset, thus preserving the Texas Eagle's seats for those who are actually traveling to/from points on the Texas Eagle route.

Ultimately, if you are traveling in coach between SAS and LAX (or intermediate points), it matters not whether your ticket says train 1 or train 421, you'll sit where they tell you, but the reservation system, for some reason, has to make that distinction in advance.
 
Per the previous comment, I just checked fares for a single passenger in a standard sleeper on both the Eagle and the Chief, departing Wednesday of this week - the price for the Chief was exactly $500, the price for the Eagle was $698...makes sense to me! An extra night on the train, and 3 extra meals...(it used to be the prices were reversed, which was counterintuitive, though a great deal for those with plenty of time on their hands)
 
The online reservation system sells lower level seats on the Capitol Limited. Even though they do not exist. The lower level seating on that derelict train was turned into a smoking lounge years ago. Of course now that all the trains are smoke free it just sits empty.

I reserved lower level seating on the east and west bound Empire Builder from PDX to CHI on a trip I took last year. I requested those particular seast as I am prone to motion sickness and those seats are close to the bathroom. However sitting down there the swaying motion was not as bad and I did not get sick and had a very enjoyable trip. However I both trips the conductor tried to move me upstairs. Even though I had reserved those seats. Apparently they like to use those seats for the overbooked passengers. As only 3 of us had requested seating down there. I hope that doesn't happen again this year. I'm looking forward to my trip but not to dealing with some of those conductors ;)
 
EmpireBuilderFan1976 said:
The online reservation system sells lower level seats on the Capitol Limited. Even though they do not exist. The lower level seating on that derelict train was turned into a smoking lounge years ago. Of course now that all the trains are smoke free it just sits empty.
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When I rode the Capitol Limited last July there was still lowerlevel seating. The Capitol was running with 3 coaches that day and none of them was an ex-smoker.
 
Those smoking rooms don't "just sit empty." They have all been converted back into baggage rooms, and on some trains, the coach-baggage is the only baggage car in the consist.
 
Must have just been the equipment they were running with that day. Because there was an ex-smoking room and it was "just sitting empty". Well not totally empty, it did have some of those old plastic laundry mat type chairs bolted to the floor. There was no luggage in it and there was no lower level seating offered on that day.
 
How long ago was "that day?" Amtrak started converting the smoking rooms back into baggage rooms shortly after smoking was abolished on the Superliner trains. The last conversions were done either late last year or earlier this year, so there are no more "Smoking coach" cars left.
 
It would have been about the first week of July, 2005. Apparently some people just couldn't stand not having a cigarette, the bathrooms I used were full of cigarette butts. On the bathroom floor, in the toilet and in the sink!
 
I rode the Capitol Limited from Chi-Was in late March and there was lower level seating on all three of the coaches.
 
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