how to do group booking?

[cstar239]

Hi,

I finally convinced a group of my friends (about 20 people) to take a train from Oakland to New York this August, with stops at Chicago and Washington D.C.

I did some search by myself, if I take train number 6, 30, and 86, with one night stop each at Chicago and Washington, the price comes down to about $169 for one person (with 15% student discount). THis is using the Multi City Reservation page.

Then I called Amtrak group booking service, they can only book this trip as three separate one way trip, and it ends up like $235, and this is even with 20% group discount.

I was thinking maybe we just should book 4 persons at a time, using the online booking page to get the lower fare. What do you guys think? Are there any travel agencies out there that can give me a good price for group booking?

thanks

Xing Chen

 

[battalion51]

I would just make the seperate reservations myself.

 

[amtrakmichigan]

Well I can see only one potential problem with booking over the internet, however it should not be that huge of a deal.

Amtrak bases there fares on supply and demand. Meaning the more tickets sold for a train, the more expensive the fares can get. The Airline industry has practiced this for years, and Amtrak started this a few years ago.

The problem with booking on the internet with such a large party is that you can only book 5 people at one time, so you can't see what a total price may be for 20 people at 1 click of a button. What you will have to do is book 5 people at a time, then go back and do another 5 and so on... But beware that each time you book a group of 5 the price may increase slightly. I have booked many trips for medium sized groups of people and have ran into this at least half the time. If I were you I would warn your friends that it may be slightly higer. If each booking you make does get higher and higher in fares, what I personelly do is just take the grand total for everything and divide it by the number of people. This way nobody is stuck paying the higher fare. You may get lucky though and be booking on trains that are pretty empty so far, and may find the price doesn't increase.

This is very importent ! .... minutes before you start the booking process on the internet, call Amtrak. Give them the dates and train numbers you wish to travel on. Ask them to verify if there is 20 seats available on each one of your trains. If you don't, you may find yourself booking 10 people with no problems then finding out one of the trains is then sold out because you purchased the last tickets...this wouldn't be good !

 

[railman]

There are several advantages to booking your party as a group through Amtrak's group desk.

First, you'll all be handled together by the train and station staff. That could mean such things as sitting together on one car on the train, pre-boarding ahead of the individual passengers, and eating together at one sitting in the dining car.

Second, your payment options are generally more liberal. You'll be able to make a deposit or several deposits spread out over a period of time, with final payment due prior to ticket issuance. If finances are such that spreading out the payment of your fares is desirable this could be a plus.

Lastly, you can get favorable rates on hotels, tours, transfers and other extras that you may not find if you do all the legwork yourself.

I'd recommend giving the group desk a try....