Confused. So are cafe meals included, or not? I'm guessing - not.
jb
jb
Not.Confused. So are cafe meals included, or not? I'm guessing - not.
jb
Concur. The one thing they're missing (and maybe they'll do this once the new diners start coming online) is sleeper fares without meals included on a train that has a dining car. I'd gladly take a paid trip with cheaper fares and only eat a meal or two from the dining car and supplement it with my own food, cafe car food, or meals before/after the trip.I predict much wailing and gnashing of teeth here and on foamer boards followed by Amtrak continuing it after a successful trial run.
Now how will this play out with AGR points? Will sleeper rooms on this train use fewer points because no meals are served?
My thinking is "why"? Let's say you book a room for a longer distance than me which would cost you $65 more if we both paid cash. We both would still have to spend the same # of AGR points for the trip.I have reached out and asked that exact question. I'll post when I hear something.
Jis - when you make the reservation for the reduced food service train, are they in any way telling you of the food car situation?I just rebooked my trip from Orlando to Washington DC for the AU gathering changing over from the Meteor to the Star saving over $300 in the process. At least I am a happy camper. I can put up with burgers, little pizzas and Amspecialty sandwiches for a day.I will use the money saved to have some good food in DC and then some.
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No, to put it simply. The Cafe car doesn't stock enough food. They run out of the sandwiches way early.Can two people eat all their meals in the Café car, and have a good meal there, for a total of $65 (NYC to MIA)????
BTW, by "good meal", I don't mean quality as much as quantity in this comparison. And by "quantity", I mean a full meal, not just a bag of chips for lunch.
Watch out for when they run out of sandwiches & pizzas somewhere around Savannah, or maybe Jacksonville. You will not be a happy camper then.I just rebooked my trip from Orlando to Washington DC for the AU gathering changing over from the Meteor to the Star saving over $300 in the process. At least I am a happy camper. I can put up with burgers, little pizzas and Amspecialty sandwiches for a day.![]()
Geez. Amtrak is going to hemmorhage money at those rates. Watch for the sleepers to be removed from the Star and assigned to higher-profit trains ASAP.So I just took a look at a random date in July (the 24th) and the roomate on 91 from WAS to ORL is only $7 more than the flexible coach fare.
Flexible coach fares are usually high in the first place - because they're "flexible".Geez. Amtrak is going to hemmorhage money at those rates. Watch for the sleepers to be removed from the Star and assigned to higher-profit trains ASAP.So I just took a look at a random date in July (the 24th) and the roomate on 91 from WAS to ORL is only $7 more than the flexible coach fare.
This presents a bit of a mess. I suspect that Amtrak will probably end up re-pricing those rooms up a bit (not much, but a bit), though there's probably an element of pricing things low to start with due to uncertainty on how this will play.Geez. Amtrak is going to hemmorhage money at those rates. Watch for the sleepers to be removed from the Star and assigned to higher-profit trains ASAP.So I just took a look at a random date in July (the 24th) and the roomate on 91 from WAS to ORL is only $7 more than the flexible coach fare.
Now *this* is a business model I would support. It would work for both companies and for the passengers.That would be almost like the return of the Harvey House model on Santa Fe, no?Edit: I have to seriously wonder what would happen if Amtrak pulled this on the CONO and Ed Ellis threw the doors open on his diner to Amtrak's passengers (albeit on a for-pay basis).
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