Upgrading a current reservation

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rile42

Lead Service Attendant
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Jan 21, 2005
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I currently have a reservation for a coach trip at the end of the month from Cleveland to DC. On the same reservation is a trip from DC to Boston on a Northeast Regional. I've thought about upgrading the CLE-WAS leg to a roomette. According to the info on the Amtrak website, the coach cost for a new reservation would be $61 with a charge of $131 for the roomette.

Here's where I need help. Since I already have a reservation, could I just add the roomette to my current reservation? In other words, just add the $131 charge to the coach fare I've already paid? Or, does my current reservation get canceled and a new one set up using the current bucket prices? If that is the case, does the WAS-BOS leg also get canceled and then re-bought at the current bucket prices for that leg? It seems so easy for Amtrak to just add the roomette to what I'm already booked but I have a feeling that isn't how it's done.

One more thing, I called Amtrak to price the trip as if I didn't have a reservation. If I recall, I was told the fare for the roomette was around $153 which was different from the fare advertised on their website. Is that possible or did I possibly misunderstand something?
 
You should call. They'll add the $131 room charge onto your reservation and then your "rail fare" part may drop from $61 if there's a lower coach bucket (it looks like $61 is low bucket, though).

Are you sure that it was $153 and not $156? $156 looks like the low bucket for the railfare+room charge at low bucket, which is what you would need to pay if you were making a new reservation. Since you've already paid for a coach ticket, you would only have to pay the room charge for the upgrade.
 
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I guess I should have mentioned that my railfare for the CLE-WAS portion of my reservation is $36.12 counting my AAA discount. If Ryan is correct, then should I be able to upgrade to a roomette by just adding the $131, the current bucket fare for a roomette to my current railfare of $36.12? That would yield a complete fare of $167.12, if my math skills are still up to snuff. That is not how it was priced when I called an agent yesterday.

I know what alot of the veterans here say....keep calling until you get somebody that agrees with me. I just don't want to keep calling and not be sure how it is supposed to work.
 
I think that you confused things when you called in and priced things as a new reservation.

Are you sure that the railfare for CLE-WAS is only $36.12? That's a lot lower than any price I've been able to find.

I agree that if you go to Amtrak.com and the "room charge" for a roomette is $131 on the day you want to travel, then the most you should have to pay to upgrade is that $131.
 
Others may have already said this; but theoretically, if you add a sleeper accommodation to an existing coach reservation, the coach fare can not go up; and possibly could go down. The reason is that with a sleeper you pay LOW bucket for the basic rail fare. So if one had already paid more than low bucket, the coach portion would go down.

This doesn't answer your question about the region ticket. However, I'm almost sure a knowledgeable agent will be able to add the room to the existing multi-segment reservation
 
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Here's a postscript to my pursuit of an upgrade as outlined in my original post. Prior to calling Amtrak to attempt the upgrade again today, I checked the reservations website twice concering the fare for the roomette between CLE and WAS. The first time, the fare was $131 which is what it has been for several weeks. The second time, it must have jumped a bucket and it was $168. Not sure what had happened, I checked a third time and it was at $131 again. I decided to call Amtrak anyway.

When I spoke to an agent, I started by saying I had a reservation in hand and just wanted to add the roomette for the $131 roomette fare and not change anything else. I could hear the agent talking quietly to himself as he was probably scanning his computer screen and heard him say something about "roomette $154". It took the agent a little time, he got back and told me he was having a problem with the fare but was going to contact his tech people. After several minutes he got back on and said that yes he could do that for just an additional $131 just as a previous post by Ryan had said could be done. I'm not sure but I think somehow the agent had gotten me the lower fare even though it had jumped up previous to my call. Maybe the fact that I had mentioned the $131 fare might have helped, I don't know.

As is mentioned here many times, it does pay to use another ticket agent if something you think should be happening doesn't.

By the way, I asked the ticket agent for his name so I could commend him to Amtrak for his efforts on my part. He only gave his first name but I emailed a message to Amtrak expressing my appreciation for the agents time he took to get things worked out for me. I added the reservation number and time of my call to better help Amtrak find the guy who worked with me.
 
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