Quik-Trak died printing 10-ride

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BCL

BCL

Engineer
Joined
Nov 16, 2012
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San Francisco Bay Area
Maybe a first here?

I got off this morning after using up my last 10-ride. I figured I had enough time to buy my next 10-ride at the QT kiosk to use later. So I went through the motions, used my credit card, entered my AGR number, and waited for the ticket and receipt.

The printer started humming and then stopped. The screen had a message saying that it couldn't complete the transaction and to see a ticket agent (I'm at an unstaffed station). Them the entire screen goes black except for OUT OF ORDER. I noticed the ticket is partially ejected and I pulled it out. It's got a reservation number and the upper 3/4 of it is clearly printed. The bar code is faint with the rest barely printed or not printed at all.

So I'm at a loss to figure out what to do. It's not going to scan and there's no visible ticket number. I called Amtrak and after a while am told I was charged and that I'm going to need to take what I have to a ticket office to get a reprint or voucher.

So this was my biggest worry about using one of these things - that a machine could malfunction while printing a live ticket and I'm left with no proof that I made the purchase. If the ticket simply jammed in the printer such that I couldn't pull it out, what could I have done without a res or ticket number? It's not so bad with an eTicket, but a 10-ride has cash value. I used my AGR number but what if its someone randomly buying a 10-ride or monthly?

I believe a regular eTicket is attached to the credit card and can be reprinted at a working machine. Or a conductor could look up a reservation by name.

Sort of reminds me of my worries of slot machines with only electronic credits. I always wondered how they handled power outages. I saw an outage once in Reno and the machine booted up with the same credits as when the power went out. I also have seen a credit slip partially come out but the slot machine said it still had the credits. The casino employee who cleared the jam said to check the slip anyways, and I found out it was already invalidated.
 
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I had that happen to me on a regular ticket in Chicago. Had to go to the counter and a very grumpy lady had to cancel the ticket (this is pre-E-tickets) and issue a new one.

Tried to claim that it was my fault, since you weren't supposed to print AGR tickets from a QT machine. :rolleyes:
 
HiGracie said:
Oh, that sounds frustrating. What did you end up doing, calling Customer Service?
Click to expand...
I did. I was fortunate that I had a reservation number although I think my AGR # or credit card # would have worked. The agent said that he saw an amount and endpoints but little other info. I'm probably going to a station with a ticket office to take care of it.
 
I'm glad this never happened to me. That's what's happens when you depend on automation and machines, I'll have to take caution now.
 
I wish the Amtrak app was fully functional to recognize ALL of our Amtrak travel regardless of how we booked it, hopefully soon. I'll have to google to figure out what this 10 ride is that you speak of, as it's not something I'm familiar with.
 
A 10-ride ticket is offered on many corridor routes such as the Capitol Corridor. It is valid for 10 rides in a 45-day period between two stops (or intermediate points) on the designated route. It generally is discounted around 40% or so (in the case of Capitol Corridor) so you essentially get 6 rides for the price of 10. It is good for commuters who use the train fairly regularly, but not enough to make a monthly pass worth it.

The Capitol Corridor is working on integrating 10-ride and Monthly passes with the e-ticket system but that most likely will not happen until the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year.
 
roadman3313 said:
A 10-ride ticket is offered on many corridor routes such as the Capitol Corridor. It is valid for 10 rides in a 45-day period between two stops (or intermediate points) on the designated route. It generally is discounted around 40% or so (in the case of Capitol Corridor) so you essentially get 6 rides for the price of 10. It is good for commuters who use the train fairly regularly, but not enough to make a monthly pass worth it.
The Capitol Corridor is working on integrating 10-ride and Monthly passes with the e-ticket system but that most likely will not happen until the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year.
Click to expand...
Do you earn AGR on these trips? Thanks for all the info.
 
You earn 2 points for each dollar spent on the ticket. For example, the 10-ride I usually purchase is $171. So I receive 342 points plus whatever tier bonus (Select, S+, SE) that applies.

If I were to purchase each ride separately I'd receive 100 points per trip as the cost of the ticket is under $50. In turn, I would pay about $90 more as I'd be paying the full price per ride.

So 342 points or 1,000 points? All depends if one is in the mood to spend or would rather earn points.

So as a S+ I receive 513 points for the 10 Ride or 1,500 points if I purchased each ride separately (base points + 50% bonus).
 
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I had a similar thing happen to me at a Metrolink Vending machine at North Pamona a year ago (February 2011) picking up pre-eTickets for a complicated multi-city, multi-segment journey from LA to San Francisco. The machine had clearly not needed to print Amtrak tickets in a very long while, and it slowly churned out two of my five tickets that looked awful on the old blue paper before shooting out a receipt telling me the machine had malfunctioned that included the address of the refund office in Philadelphia. I was on my way into Union Station and the consequence was wasting 20 minutes at the ticket office while they read their manual and figured out how to reissue all my tickets (was hoping just to get the last 3 and get some nice old blue tickets as souvenirs). They were definitely confused at why I tried to pick my tickets up at North Pamona (I had fifteen minutes before my train) but reasonably nice about it. It was just a complicated transaction.
 
roadman3313 said:
A 10-ride ticket is offered on many corridor routes such as the Capitol Corridor. It is valid for 10 rides in a 45-day period between two stops (or intermediate points) on the designated route. It generally is discounted around 40% or so (in the case of Capitol Corridor) so you essentially get 6 rides for the price of 10. It is good for commuters who use the train fairly regularly, but not enough to make a monthly pass worth it.
The Capitol Corridor is working on integrating 10-ride and Monthly passes with the e-ticket system but that most likely will not happen until the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year.
Click to expand...
Did you mean to say 10 rides for the price of 6?
 
roadman3313 said:
A 10-ride ticket is offered on many corridor routes such as the Capitol Corridor. It is valid for 10 rides in a 45-day period between two stops (or intermediate points) on the designated route. It generally is discounted around 40% or so (in the case of Capitol Corridor) so you essentially get 6 rides for the price of 10. It is good for commuters who use the train fairly regularly, but not enough to make a monthly pass worth it.
The Capitol Corridor is working on integrating 10-ride and Monthly passes with the e-ticket system but that most likely will not happen until the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year.
Click to expand...
I'm guessing you meant 10 rides for the price of 6. I wouldn't exactly want to ride 6 time for the price of 10. :p
 
HiGracie said:
Do you earn AGR on these trips? Thanks for all the info.
Click to expand...
Yes. It was explained by roadman. However, it takes a while before the points get posted to my account. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I'm guessing that the ticket has to be physically processed. When the 10-ride is used up, a conductor will collect the ticket, tear off the stub and hand the stub to the passenger. I've done it 4 times and usually they just tear it, although I remember one conductor who punched the last spot on the ticket and did two punches on the stub before handing it to me.
 
HiGracie said:
I wish the Amtrak app was fully functional to recognize ALL of our Amtrak travel regardless of how we booked it, hopefully soon. I'll have to google to figure out what this 10 ride is that you speak of, as it's not something I'm familiar with.
Click to expand...
Also explained. It's generally only valid for unreserved Amtrak routes, although it's possible to book them even for some reserved routes like the San Joaquin. I understand they can also be used for the Pacific Surfliner during their reserved period around Thanksgiving.

The thing is that the rest of Amtrak ticketing has gone to eTicketing, where the tickets themselves don't have any value and there are multiple ways to print or display an eTicket. If the printer had jammed while printing an eTicket, I could have just gone to the next machine and just swiped my credit card to pull up the ticket and reprint. I probably would have just used my iPhone app to purchase the ticket and maybe have the eTicket printed at QT.

These tickets actually have value like the way Amtrak used to operate with all tickets. You can get a refund on one if it hasn't been used, but you're supposed to physically possess the ticket. If the ticket is lost, you can't simply reprint. That's what freaked me out about the printer jamming. It registered my purchase, but if I hadn't been able to pull out the ticket, I wouldn't have had the information to get it reprinted.
 
BCL said:
Maybe a first here?
I got off this morning after using up my last 10-ride. I figured I had enough time to buy my next 10-ride at the QT kiosk to use later. So I went through the motions, used my credit card, entered my AGR number, and waited for the ticket and receipt.

The printer started humming and then stopped. The screen had a message saying that it couldn't complete the transaction and to see a ticket agent (I'm at an unstaffed station). Them the entire screen goes black except for OUT OF ORDER. I noticed the ticket is partially ejected and I pulled it out. It's got a reservation number and the upper 3/4 of it is clearly printed. The bar code is faint with the rest barely printed or not printed at all.

So I'm at a loss to figure out what to do. It's not going to scan and there's no visible ticket number. I called Amtrak and after a while am told I was charged and that I'm going to need to take what I have to a ticket office to get a reprint or voucher.

So this was my biggest worry about using one of these things - that a machine could malfunction while printing a live ticket and I'm left with no proof that I made the purchase. If the ticket simply jammed in the printer such that I couldn't pull it out, what could I have done without a res or ticket number? It's not so bad with an eTicket, but a 10-ride has cash value. I used my AGR number but what if its someone randomly buying a 10-ride or monthly?

I believe a regular eTicket is attached to the credit card and can be reprinted at a working machine. Or a conductor could look up a reservation by name.

Sort of reminds me of my worries of slot machines with only electronic credits. I always wondered how they handled power outages. I saw an outage once in Reno and the machine booted up with the same credits as when the power went out. I also have seen a credit slip partially come out but the slot machine said it still had the credits. The casino employee who cleared the jam said to check the slip anyways, and I found out it was already invalidated.
Click to expand...
I had the same thing happen to me in November, but in my case, I was buying my ten-ride moments before hopping on a train. Unlike you, however, I had a totally blank ticket pop out and saw the same "OUT OF ORDER" message, so I just went to the next machine and bought a new ticket, thinking that the first one hadn't been charged. Of course, it was charged, and I had no ticket number or anything, since the first paper ticket that popped out was totally blank. I didn't have much success calling on the phone, but I eventually PM'd AGR Insider on FlyerTalk who had someone call me the next day and sort everything out.
 
Afsheen said:
I had the same thing happen to me in November, but in my case, I was buying my ten-ride moments before hopping on a train. Unlike you, however, I had a totally blank ticket pop out and saw the same "OUT OF ORDER" message, so I just went to the next machine and bought a new ticket, thinking that the first one hadn't been charged. Of course, it was charged, and I had no ticket number or anything, since the first paper ticket that popped out was totally blank. I didn't have much success calling on the phone, but I eventually PM'd AGR Insider on FlyerTalk who had someone call me the next day and sort everything out.
Click to expand...
I'm thinking about what's happening here. In my case, I think that part of the print head had some sort of issue, or perhaps the rollers that press the ticket stock against the print head. It probably needs to be pressed against the paper for the thermal mechanism to properly print. If I hold up the ticket to read, the print is dark from left to right across the entire ticket, but it starts getting faint about 3/4 of the way down and there's nothing printed at the bottom where I know there is supposed to be information.

This is what one of these things looks like:

0203_kvpn_01.jpg


Most likely the printing occurs well inside the machine. My guess is that the ticket is scanned as it exits the machine, and if an issue is detected, the machine then goes "out of order" until someone comes to repair it. In my case something clamped down on the ticket after partially ejecting it.

The other thing I was ticked off about was that I didn't get a receipt.

The place I got it was at the Santa Clara-Great America station. I prefer to use the QT machine on the right. The one on the left has had a bad print head at least since I've started using it. I'm wondering why nobody has ever fixed it. It's one "pixel" but that creates a white line along the length of the ticket where the PDF417 code normally goes on the main body of the ticket.
 
Quick update. I went to a station to take care of it. The agent looked up the reservation and told me she couldn't do anything unless I called Amtrak Customer Relations and not just customer service. Her supervisor was standing over her shoulder. He said that he'd seen this before.

I was hoping to get a replacement 10-ride ticket issued to take the train from that station and park there. I guess my options were to pay for round trip or even get another 10-ride and sort this mess later. In the end I just drove, and it wasn't bad this morning.

I'm just hoping Amtrak will go to eTicketing for this.
 
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What bizarre antics! A business offers you a service, you agree to buy, the business charges you, yet their machine fails to provide that service, and they can't do anything at all to refund or re ticket a face to face customer? Way To Go Amtrak!

Ed :cool:
 
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BCL said:
HiGracie said:
I wish the Amtrak app was fully functional to recognize ALL of our Amtrak travel regardless of how we booked it, hopefully soon. I'll have to google to figure out what this 10 ride is that you speak of, as it's not something I'm familiar with.
Click to expand...
Also explained. It's generally only valid for unreserved Amtrak routes, although it's possible to book them even for some reserved routes like the San Joaquin. I understand they can also be used for the Pacific Surfliner during their reserved period around Thanksgiving.

The thing is that the rest of Amtrak ticketing has gone to eTicketing, where the tickets themselves don't have any value and there are multiple ways to print or display an eTicket. If the printer had jammed while printing an eTicket, I could have just gone to the next machine and just swiped my credit card to pull up the ticket and reprint. I probably would have just used my iPhone app to purchase the ticket and maybe have the eTicket printed at QT.

These tickets actually have value like the way Amtrak used to operate with all tickets. You can get a refund on one if it hasn't been used, but you're supposed to physically possess the ticket. If the ticket is lost, you can't simply reprint. That's what freaked me out about the printer jamming. It registered my purchase, but if I hadn't been able to pull out the ticket, I wouldn't have had the information to get it reprinted.
Click to expand...
You can also get 10 rides on the NEC - those are reserved trains. It is very, very annoying that the 10 rides are still paper tickets. My H lost one after only using one ride on it. :( It was a $168 10 ride pass.
 
BCL, if you still have trouble with getting your money or a new 10 ride ticket from amtrak, I would not hesitate to dispute the charge on your credit card. You paid for a service that you did not receive.
 
amamba said:
You can also get 10 rides on the NEC - those are reserved trains. It is very, very annoying that the 10 rides are still paper tickets. My H lost one after only using one ride on it. :( It was a $168 10 ride pass.
Click to expand...
I noticed that Amtrak says 10/6-rides and monthlies are for "short distance routes", which may include some normally reserved routes even though a reservation isn't required.
 
Cho Cho Charlie said:
BCL said:
So this was my biggest worry about using one of these things - that a machine could malfunction while printing a live ticket and I'm left with no proof that I made the purchase.
Click to expand...
If you are truly left with no proof, not even a credit card charge, then does it really matter?
Click to expand...
Well I was thinking maybe a charge but no other identifying information such as a reservation number or a ticket number. Someone talked about a live ticket coming out completely blank once, and where the machine went out of order.

I made the call to Amtrak Customer Relations. I explained what the ticket looked like - that it was mostly clearly printed then the printing started to fade and nothing at all near the bottom. I was given a case number and eventually the corresponding ticket number (and specifically told not to write anything on the ticket). I had a Post-It note to write down everything and attach to the ticket. They said go ahead and try to use it since all the information was there along with the punch locations, and if the conductor had an issue to have them contact Customer Relations while on board.

I had a brilliant idea that maybe it didn't register as printed and I could simply insert my credit card at QT to reprint. I actually went back to the same machine during lunch and tried again. It wouldn't let me even though I tried using my AGR number and then the reservation number.
 
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.

Some simply said it wasn't their problem while others seemed convinced I was just trying to pull a fast one.

Now that Amtrak has e-tickets for many tickets some of these problems are probably much easier to resolve.

Unless you're still forced to buy tickets that are "same as cash."

Except for the fact they come from half-arsed 'ATM's' that can't always be counted on to actually spit out the money.
 
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