Is Amtrak Limiting Queries On Arrow?

[niemi24s]

Over the past several days found that after making about 30 dummy bookings using Arrow (to gather data for partial route bucket charts) that the process would be halted by this:

Continuing the fare search required either opening a new tab on the browser, using different browser or simply waiting a while but then the renewed search would again be interrupted. Looks to me like Amtrak has begun treating customers searching for low fares a little bit like our dearly departed AmSnag.

Q: Anybody else notice these interruptions?

 

[Sidney]

I wish the Amtrak site would give you fares for the whole week or month you want to travel,like Southwest for example. I know the low bucket fares,but it is cumbersome to manually go from date to date to find out what the fares are. Just another annoyance.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I wish the Amtrak site would give you fares for the whole week or month you want to travel,like Southwest for example. I know the low bucket fares,but it is cumbersome to manually go from date to date to find out what the fares are. Just another annoyance.

Does anyone know if the RPA has ever pushed for easy access to a dynamic fare calendar like airlines provide? Seems like a relatively minor fix that could pay meaningful dividends on both sides.

 

[me_little_me]

Over the past several days found that after making about 30 dummy bookings using Arrow (to gather data for partial route bucket charts) that the process would be halted by this:
View attachment 20476
Continuing the fare search required either opening a new tab on the browser, using different browser or simply waiting a while but then the renewed search would again be interrupted. Looks to me like Amtrak has begun treating customers searching for low fares a little bit like our dearly departed AmSnag.

Q: Anybody else notice these interruptions?

Sounds like clearing cookies between attempts might be all that is required.

 

[niemi24s]

In addition to dynamic calendars used by the airlines I've seen a similar one on the website of the Hotel Pennsylvania in NYC that had lowest rates for each day on a calendar covering a period of many, many months.

Almost seems like Amtrak wants to make it as difficult as possible for the traveler to find the cheapest travel dates. Maybe they think if the traveler doesn't know the fare for cheapest travel date then a more expensive ticket will get sold. Does Amtrak's lack of direct competition lead to this sort of thing?

 

[Qapla]

Megabus and Greyhound both have sites that give costs on both sides of the departure day

 

[acelafan]

Over the past several days found that after making about 30 dummy bookings using Arrow (to gather data for partial route bucket charts) that the process would be halted by this:
View attachment 20476
Continuing the fare search required either opening a new tab on the browser, using different browser or simply waiting a while but then the renewed search would again be interrupted. Looks to me like Amtrak has begun treating customers searching for low fares a little bit like our dearly departed AmSnag.

Q: Anybody else notice these interruptions?

When I looked at coding automated fare searches to resurrect Amsnag, I got that message, too. So I suspect their system is flagging too many queries in a certain amount of time.

 

[niemi24s]

When I looked at coding automated fare searches to resurrect Amsnag, I got that message, too. So I suspect their system is flagging too many queries in a certain amount of time.

Would too many queries in a certain amount of time realistically cause Arrow problems?

I recall seeing some 30 day queries on AmSnag returned within a second or two - I think.

 

[Barb Stout]

I have gotten that message also from time to time, but not all of them have occurred when looking for fares. Sometimes it has occurred in the routing map and other aspects of the Amtrak website. So perhaps it is indeed a cookie issue.

 

[acelafan]

Would too many queries in a certain amount of time realistically cause Arrow problems?

I recall seeing some 30 day queries on AmSnag returned within a second or two - I think.

Not a problem for ARROW, no. But they may limit what they consider too many queries to their website fare lookups, which could indicate some kind of auto scraping.

 

[niemi24s]

Which begs the question . . . . what's so bad about auto scraping?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Which begs the question . . . . what's so bad about auto scraping?

Scripted queries that give genuine customers helpful information can also be used to interfere with legitimate business by scalping products and services, confusing demand prediction analysis, and overwhelming available resources.

 

[niemi24s]

Since AmSnag quit working last year due to Amtrak's anti-scraping campaign, things must have improved for Amtrak since then. Somewhere. Somehow. Like maybe putting out of business that shifty little character outside the station scalping Amtrak tickets?