Quik-Trak died printing 10-ride

[AlanB]

I've lost hundreds of dollars over the years on tickets that didn't print or were damaged or simply went missing.
Having a credit card charge didn't seem to mean much if anything to Amtrak counter staff.

Amtrak OBS staff were almost universally positive something could be done to recover the value.

Unfortunately the ticket counter staff were equally positive nothing could be done but buy another ticket.

Boy, you just seem to have all the bad luck in the world with Amtrak!

I travel Amtrak far more than you do and I've yet to lose a dime on Amtrak tickets because of a machine malfunction. And in fact, I've only ever had 1 Quik-Trak fail to print my tickets after I started the process of obtaining said tickets.

I've seen a few machines that were clearly out of commission of course, to the point where you couldn't even start to interact with the machine. But again, only 1 that started to work with me and yet failed to accomplish the job.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I've lost hundreds of dollars over the years on tickets that didn't print or were damaged or simply went missing.
Having a credit card charge didn't seem to mean much if anything to Amtrak counter staff.

Amtrak OBS staff were almost universally positive something could be done to recover the value.

Unfortunately the ticket counter staff were equally positive nothing could be done but buy another ticket.

Boy, you just seem to have all the bad luck in the world with Amtrak!

I travel Amtrak far more than you do and I've yet to lose a dime on Amtrak tickets because of a machine malfunction. And in fact, I've only ever had 1 Quik-Trak fail to print my tickets after I started the process of obtaining said tickets.

I've seen a few machines that were clearly out of commission of course, to the point where you couldn't even start to interact with the machine. But again, only 1 that started to work with me and yet failed to accomplish the job.

It only takes a couple cases of missing or damaged tickets across a decade of travel to add up to hundreds of dollars. Amtrak handles some complications reasonably well, while other issues it doesn't seem to have any answer for at all. Most of the time nothing really serious happens, just as nothing really bad has apparently happened to you, but what gets me is that when things do go wrong Amtrak can be surprisingly indifferent toward actually fixing it. To put it another way I've had no worse luck with Amtrak than most of the forum has apparently had with airlines.

 

[BCL]

I've seen a few machines that were clearly out of commission of course, to the point where you couldn't even start to interact with the machine. But again, only 1 that started to work with me and yet failed to accomplish the job.

I've been there. Both machines at GAC with the "OUT OF ORDER" screen. I was planning on picking up my 10-rides that were purchased online. There was someone else without a ticket. When the train came into the station, a conductor came out and we pointed to the out of order machines and the conductor told us to get on. The conductor sold the other passenger a ticket without the usual markup if the origin has the means to buy a ticket. I showed by pickup page with the bar code and was told "You owe me a punch."

 

[BCL]

I've lost hundreds of dollars over the years on tickets that didn't print or were damaged or simply went missing.
Having a credit card charge didn't seem to mean much if anything to Amtrak counter staff.

Amtrak OBS staff were almost universally positive something could be done to recover the value.

Unfortunately the ticket counter staff were equally positive nothing could be done but buy another ticket.

Boy, you just seem to have all the bad luck in the world with Amtrak!

I travel Amtrak far more than you do and I've yet to lose a dime on Amtrak tickets because of a machine malfunction. And in fact, I've only ever had 1 Quik-Trak fail to print my tickets after I started the process of obtaining said tickets.

I've seen a few machines that were clearly out of commission of course, to the point where you couldn't even start to interact with the machine. But again, only 1 that started to work with me and yet failed to accomplish the job.

It only takes a couple cases of missing or damaged tickets across a decade of travel to add up to hundreds of dollars. Amtrak handles some complications reasonably well, while other issues it doesn't seem to have any answer for at all. Most of the time nothing really serious happens, just as nothing really bad has apparently happened to you, but what gets me is that when things do go wrong Amtrak can be surprisingly indifferent toward actually fixing it. To put it another way I've had no worse luck with Amtrak than most of the forum has apparently had with airlines.

For the most part airlines no longer issue tickets with actual "cash value". You can print, reprint, and not worry that losing a piece of paper means not being able to travel. Once I got really bored before a flight and printed about five copies of my boarding pass at the airport. That's actually pretty true for Amtrak (mostly). And for my unreserved commuter train I can conceivably get on board and pay on the spot, which would be a near trick at an airport.

However, this is getting frustrating because I've gone through 3 levels of Amtrak customer service, and the last recommendation is to just try to use the thing and see what happens. I mean - I have a ticket number now, although I'm guessing that the conductors would prefer to not have to enter it in manually. I'm guessing they only do that if the bar code is damaged beyond repair.

 

[BCL]

Finally used the ticket. I had everything ready, including the ticket number on a sticky note. I even researched the bar code format (interleaved 3/5) and printed it out and taped that to the back.

What happened is that he took a look at the ticket and just looked up my name. The other warning he had was that that I should let other conductors figure out what to do, since they could get a bit touchy about being told how to do their jobs. I think they can probably look up name, the reservation #, or the ticket #. Even though my ticket was messed up, there's at least two pieces of information that the conductors can look up.

 

[BCL]

And for my unreserved commuter train I can conceivably get on board and pay on the spot, which would be a near trick at an airport.

Strike that about airports. I remember People Express. You could actually get on board without a ticket and the flight attendants would accept credit cards or cash on board if the flight wasn't full. Of course that was when anyone could walk into the secured area if an airport without a boarding pass or gate pass.

 

[BCL]

Update - I've used it 3-times so far and not a single conductor has had a problem finding the ticket info. The first two times each conductor looked up my name, which is at the top of the ticket. This morning the conductor looked up the reservation number and even showed me how it came up on the iPhone. She said looking up via name would also work (which has happened).

I'm just wondering how this would be handled when posting points to AGR. I noted that I got the ticket number from Amtrak Customer Relations, so I have that number as a backup.

 

[Guest]

I've lost hundreds of dollars over the years on tickets that didn't print or were damaged or simply went missing.
Having a credit card charge didn't seem to mean much if anything to Amtrak counter staff.

Amtrak OBS staff were almost universally positive something could be done to recover the value.

Unfortunately the ticket counter staff were equally positive nothing could be done but buy another ticket.

And you cheerfully paid your credit card charge for the damaged/blank/unprinted ticket?

I would have simply paid for a new ticket, and not paid for the one Amtrak never provided me. A malfunctioning Quiktrak machine is certainly something within Amtrak's control.