What is a bucket?
- Thread starter Roy
- Start date
Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:
A Bucket is nothing more than Forum-speak for price level. Each coach and sleeper room has five different levels (buckets) that can be offered. Here's an example of the buckets for the City of New Orleans:
The upper fares in the first three columns are blank simply because I've not yet seen them offered by Amtrak. Fares (buckets) for one adult are shown on the chart. While there are actually six different coach fares, most gurus here don't consider the Saver Fare - the circled 110 - a sixth bucket. More Forum-speak gobbledegook to get acquainted with.
The upper fares in the first three columns are blank simply because I've not yet seen them offered by Amtrak. Fares (buckets) for one adult are shown on the chart. While there are actually six different coach fares, most gurus here don't consider the Saver Fare - the circled 110 - a sixth bucket. More Forum-speak gobbledegook to get acquainted with.
Last edited:
As the chart suggests there are a certain number of seats/rooms sold at each bucket or fare. Each fare gets a letter code. Y is usually the most expensive. I believe the next fares goes something like YA, YB, YD, and YE being the cheapest. (or something like that. I use to know the system better) When a train goes on sale, usually all the buckets are open for sale. There might be 10 YE buckets available. Once those sell out, it bumps up to the next bucket, YD and so on. Sometimes Amtrak will manipulate what buckets are available though or place restrictions on some of them. On popular travel days, when Amtrak knows that people might pay more, they may open seats at a higher bucket. Same thing will happen on Saver tickets that have certain restrictions. That Saver fare might require 14 day advance purchase, so within 14 days that fare will be cutoff.
Things get complicated when trains obviously serve over a dozen stops though, but in actuality, Amtrak's fare system is pretty simple. Airlines use the same system on a huge scale.
Things get complicated when trains obviously serve over a dozen stops though, but in actuality, Amtrak's fare system is pretty simple. Airlines use the same system on a huge scale.
Devil's Advocate
⠀⠀⠀
Fully understanding the usage and relevance of a specific booking code can require extensive parsing and analysis of condensed industry jargon, but the basic premise of fare buckets is pretty simple. Although focused on airlines the following video should help new and infrequent travelers to better appreciate the fundamentals of fare pricing.
Last edited:
