Cascadia
OBS Chief
In September there was a special running, I got an email about it, "Book now, in September, for 25% off January Travel on the Empire Builder (&Texas Eagle)".
I made reservations on the last day of the sale, Sept. 30th, for PDX to MSP and return, with a stopover in Fargo.
It was all in compliance with the terms of the sale.
I got a cheap price - 155.00 each way - but then a few days later I was looking and saw the same price offered, and started wondering if I had really gotten the sale price.
Took me a while to check up on it, in the meantime started a new job and was busy adjusting to that.
Finally this week I did call to ask if I had really gotten the 25% discount, of course they didn't know what I was talking about, they didn't have any record of their having been that promotion, it wasn't a code you entered, it was just book it now and save.
She told me to go to the station and they would sort it out for me. I thought that sounded okay since I know everyone who works down there. And it was an excuse to go down to the station
The ticket agent thought it was strange that they sent me to her to fix it, really I guess it was kind of strange for the customer service people to send me to her, BUT she came through, she got on the phone and sorted it out, I had a printed copy of the email, I had my reservations printed out and I had the activity page from my AGR Chase Mastercard printed out that showed I paid for all the tickets on Sept. 30th.
Honestly if I hadn't had a copy of the email I don't know quite how this would have gone, since basically no one knew what I was talking about, that there had been this month long sale for January bookings on the EB PDX-MSP.
The good news is they applied the discount and so my coach tickets came out, 117.00 PDX-MSP, 30.00 MSP-FAR, and 116.25 FAR-PDX. I used AGR points for the BEL-PDX portion on the Cascades, in business class.
It's going to be a haul in coach, but I was joking that came out to about 20.00 per state, and that I would be doubly enjoying Montana for only 20.00, but that Idaho would be kind of a ripoff
Now that I have this straightened out I can start getting excited about this trip and planning it and thinking about what to pack and who I will see when I get there, etc. I have wanted to go back home in the winter for a long time and have wanted to take the train across the frozen Northern Plains, can't wait.
Keep a copy of those promotions you register for etc. I remember when I signed up for the AGR Mastercard, I was sure I was supposed to get more points than I ended up getting, but I didn't have anything to back it up. Now that I've had this experience with not getting the discount automatically, I will always document the transaction as fully as possible.
I made reservations on the last day of the sale, Sept. 30th, for PDX to MSP and return, with a stopover in Fargo.
It was all in compliance with the terms of the sale.
I got a cheap price - 155.00 each way - but then a few days later I was looking and saw the same price offered, and started wondering if I had really gotten the sale price.
Took me a while to check up on it, in the meantime started a new job and was busy adjusting to that.
Finally this week I did call to ask if I had really gotten the 25% discount, of course they didn't know what I was talking about, they didn't have any record of their having been that promotion, it wasn't a code you entered, it was just book it now and save.
She told me to go to the station and they would sort it out for me. I thought that sounded okay since I know everyone who works down there. And it was an excuse to go down to the station
The ticket agent thought it was strange that they sent me to her to fix it, really I guess it was kind of strange for the customer service people to send me to her, BUT she came through, she got on the phone and sorted it out, I had a printed copy of the email, I had my reservations printed out and I had the activity page from my AGR Chase Mastercard printed out that showed I paid for all the tickets on Sept. 30th.
Honestly if I hadn't had a copy of the email I don't know quite how this would have gone, since basically no one knew what I was talking about, that there had been this month long sale for January bookings on the EB PDX-MSP.
The good news is they applied the discount and so my coach tickets came out, 117.00 PDX-MSP, 30.00 MSP-FAR, and 116.25 FAR-PDX. I used AGR points for the BEL-PDX portion on the Cascades, in business class.
It's going to be a haul in coach, but I was joking that came out to about 20.00 per state, and that I would be doubly enjoying Montana for only 20.00, but that Idaho would be kind of a ripoff
Now that I have this straightened out I can start getting excited about this trip and planning it and thinking about what to pack and who I will see when I get there, etc. I have wanted to go back home in the winter for a long time and have wanted to take the train across the frozen Northern Plains, can't wait.
Keep a copy of those promotions you register for etc. I remember when I signed up for the AGR Mastercard, I was sure I was supposed to get more points than I ended up getting, but I didn't have anything to back it up. Now that I've had this experience with not getting the discount automatically, I will always document the transaction as fully as possible.
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