Outbound Marketing Group ?

[Joe]

Anybody ever hear of these people ? Supposidly each train's revenue manager will release a block of rooms less than a week in advance to the Outbound Marketing Group, who will then call already ticketed coach passengers at random to offer them a sleeper at a discount.

Anybody know about this ? Anybody ever get a call from them ?

Joe P.

 

[AlanB]

Joe,

I've never heard of the group, "Outbound Marketing", however I've heard many stories from various people having been called by Amtrak or someone purporting to be from Amtrak, offering them a heavily discounted room.

This seems to happen most when sleeper sales are under normal targets for a particular train. Amtrak doesn't actually holdout sleepers for this, it only happens when sales are down. Better to get some monies for the sleepers, than run them empty.

 

[Trogdor]

On my first ever long-distance train ride, back in April 2001, I was booked in coach on the Capitol Limited (and Heritage sleeper on the Three Rivers). Someone from Amtrak called and offered a sleeper upgrade on the Cap. for $100, which I accepted.

 

[Guest]

Last year I took a trip from Syr to Bos and "got the call", accepted, a upgrade to sleeper for $100. Over kill but interesting.

A co-worker and her husband "got the call" before a recent trip to Chi.

 

[whistler]

Last year I took a trip from Syr to Bos and "got the call", accepted, a upgrade to sleeper for $100. Over kill but interesting.
A co-worker and her husband "got the call" before a recent trip to Chi.

Blast forgot to sign in.

 

[Steve4031]

I almost always book a sleeper when I first make the reservation, but getting THE CALL would be cool some day.

 

[haolerider]

The outbound telemarketing group has produced very good incremental revenue for those trains with sleepers and it is a very tightly controlled inventory - with revenue management and marketing suggesting routes and open & closed periods.

There is also some discussion about creating a sleeper wait list, which would be automated and turned over to the outbound telemarketing group for the calls.