fredevad
Lead Service Attendant
Has anyone ever gotten a "DENIED" error when trying to book travel for someone else from Amtrak's web site? I received this error message this morning when trying to make payment. I was finally able to get 1 reservation to work, but not a second and ended up using the mobile app to get it.
Here's how it unfolded:
This morning I needed to book my sister in law SYR-MKE, then CHI-SYR for the Thanksgiving holiday week. She is strapped with student loans, so my wife and I are happy to provide her travel to come see us. I've done this several times in recent years where I log into the web site as myself, book travel for her, and pay using my credit card. This has always gone smoothly... until today.
I needed to book 2 one-ways because my wife wants to drive her to Chicago for her return trip (kind of a tradition so they get a mini-road trip together and get to spend a few more hours with each other).
I put in the travel dates for the SYR-MKE trip, selected the trains, and added to cart. In passenger information, I changed my name to her name and deleted the AGR number, selected no insurance and went on to the payment screen. I put in my credit card info and clicked to buy the tickets - the processing screen came up and took a bit longer than is usually does - OK, the site may be busy. After a while, the payment screen came back up and a red message said simply "DENIED". No reason given, just the word denied. I tried again and reentered my credit card number (thinking I may have finger-boned it), still same thing. So I called my bank - they checked with the CC processor and nothing from Amtrak was trying to hit - obviously this message was generated by Amtrak.
I then went back to the passenger information screen and saw that my AGR number was back even though my her name was listed - once again I removed the AGR number, reselected no travel insurance, went to the payment screen and it worked! I got the confirmation emails and the reservation was showing under my account.
OK, so I tried the same steps with the second CHI-SYR reservation that worked with the first, but now I'm getting a zip code error. What??? It's the same zip code that I've been using for years. I re-entered the zip code, still same error.
Frustrated by the web site, I tried the mobile app. I did get a "Your credit card was declined" message at first. Logging into the bank showed that I didn't have enough available to make the purchase. OK, no problem - I transferred money and then was able to complete the purchase in the mobile app.
Anybody else experiencing these weird issues, or did I just hit in on a "bad" day?
Here's how it unfolded:
This morning I needed to book my sister in law SYR-MKE, then CHI-SYR for the Thanksgiving holiday week. She is strapped with student loans, so my wife and I are happy to provide her travel to come see us. I've done this several times in recent years where I log into the web site as myself, book travel for her, and pay using my credit card. This has always gone smoothly... until today.
I needed to book 2 one-ways because my wife wants to drive her to Chicago for her return trip (kind of a tradition so they get a mini-road trip together and get to spend a few more hours with each other).
I put in the travel dates for the SYR-MKE trip, selected the trains, and added to cart. In passenger information, I changed my name to her name and deleted the AGR number, selected no insurance and went on to the payment screen. I put in my credit card info and clicked to buy the tickets - the processing screen came up and took a bit longer than is usually does - OK, the site may be busy. After a while, the payment screen came back up and a red message said simply "DENIED". No reason given, just the word denied. I tried again and reentered my credit card number (thinking I may have finger-boned it), still same thing. So I called my bank - they checked with the CC processor and nothing from Amtrak was trying to hit - obviously this message was generated by Amtrak.
I then went back to the passenger information screen and saw that my AGR number was back even though my her name was listed - once again I removed the AGR number, reselected no travel insurance, went to the payment screen and it worked! I got the confirmation emails and the reservation was showing under my account.
OK, so I tried the same steps with the second CHI-SYR reservation that worked with the first, but now I'm getting a zip code error. What??? It's the same zip code that I've been using for years. I re-entered the zip code, still same error.
Frustrated by the web site, I tried the mobile app. I did get a "Your credit card was declined" message at first. Logging into the bank showed that I didn't have enough available to make the purchase. OK, no problem - I transferred money and then was able to complete the purchase in the mobile app.
Anybody else experiencing these weird issues, or did I just hit in on a "bad" day?