The Metropolitan
OBS Chief
I think I've read here and elsewhere that when a room is cancelled, it goes back into inventory at its original price. After doing a little reservation change today, I'm not so sure about that.
A friend of mine and I are catching the Empire Builder next Sunday from Chicago to Minneapolis/St. Paul. We were going to go coach, but when we priced tickets, it was $99 per person in coach for a total of $198 OR $54 per person rail fare plus $152 for a roomette on Train 7 to total $260. Since we were going to eat dinner on the train anyway, it seemed like a good move to buy the roomette for the included meals and other perks.
I'd noticed that the coach fare had jumped up to $128 per person soon after and out of curiosity, I peeked today to see if it was actually cheaper to ride in Roomette on this itinerary by this point. ABSOLUTELY!
To my surprise, roomettes were still $152 on train 7, but the Family Bedroom on train 27 was now just $94! Having never ridden in one and curious of the differences, I OK'd it with my friend and went on Amtrak to modify the reservation. Though now on a lower level room and farther from the Diner, I'm getting a $58 refund to occupy a larger room. Not a bad tradeoff!
But then I looked onto Amtrak.com to see if it put the room back into inventory at the original $152 price, I noticed that the roomette price on Train 7 was now $116. Pretty unexpected. I'm guessing now that I could have rebooked that same roomette back for $36 less than I originally paid.
Though this might be a rare case, I could see where people might use this to cut some costs from their fare by playing "musical rooms," for example booking from a $152 roomette in Train 7 to a $152 roomette in Train 27 at no change in fare, and then if their originally booked room kicks the bucket down in train 7 to a $116 charge, changing the room back to their original room and getting a refund.
Anyone else ever observe an instance like this?
A friend of mine and I are catching the Empire Builder next Sunday from Chicago to Minneapolis/St. Paul. We were going to go coach, but when we priced tickets, it was $99 per person in coach for a total of $198 OR $54 per person rail fare plus $152 for a roomette on Train 7 to total $260. Since we were going to eat dinner on the train anyway, it seemed like a good move to buy the roomette for the included meals and other perks.
I'd noticed that the coach fare had jumped up to $128 per person soon after and out of curiosity, I peeked today to see if it was actually cheaper to ride in Roomette on this itinerary by this point. ABSOLUTELY!
To my surprise, roomettes were still $152 on train 7, but the Family Bedroom on train 27 was now just $94! Having never ridden in one and curious of the differences, I OK'd it with my friend and went on Amtrak to modify the reservation. Though now on a lower level room and farther from the Diner, I'm getting a $58 refund to occupy a larger room. Not a bad tradeoff!
But then I looked onto Amtrak.com to see if it put the room back into inventory at the original $152 price, I noticed that the roomette price on Train 7 was now $116. Pretty unexpected. I'm guessing now that I could have rebooked that same roomette back for $36 less than I originally paid.
Though this might be a rare case, I could see where people might use this to cut some costs from their fare by playing "musical rooms," for example booking from a $152 roomette in Train 7 to a $152 roomette in Train 27 at no change in fare, and then if their originally booked room kicks the bucket down in train 7 to a $116 charge, changing the room back to their original room and getting a refund.
Anyone else ever observe an instance like this?