what is low bucket for the california zephyr

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white rabbitt

white rabbitt

Lead Service Attendant
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Mar 11, 2012
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oak park michigan
i wondered what low bucket for the zephyr from chicago to emeryville/san francisco

i saw 384 but i thought that might be high bucket and idea on the 3 buckets
 
Yup, sleeper fares continue to climb. And to clarify, there are 5 pricing buckets for each type of sleeping accommodation (and not 3).
 
gatelouse said:
Yup, sleeper fares continue to climb. And to clarify, there are 5 pricing buckets for each type of sleeping accommodation (and not 3).
Click to expand...
Technically, there may be 5 bucket levels of sleeping accommodations, but on the busy routes all of them do not appear to be used. On some routes sleepers appear to open at a high bucket (or close)and stay there while on others like the Autotrain they are low during light demand and very high at peak demand. The amount of available sleepers, and season sales history, appear to now factor heavily into the formula.

What really puzzles me is that when Bedrooms sell for up to $1100 and roomettes up to $800; do passengers really buy at those levels? You can easily end up with a $1000 one way trip for two. Seems like a very noncompetitive form of transportation at these prices and a way to price the service out of existence.

In years past the private railroads ( and early Amtrak) offered sleepers as a low cost option for the traveler that amounted to a fraction of the price of the coach ticket. Today Amtrak sleeper cost can add 4X-8X to the price of the coach ticket. I guess Amtrak is trying to determine where the threshold of pain is.
 
""What really puzzles me is that when Bedrooms sell for up to $1100 and roomettes up to $800; do passengers really buy at those levels? You can easily end up with a $1000 one way trip for two. Seems like a very noncompetitive form of transportation at these prices and a way to price the service out of existence.

In years past the private railroads ( and early Amtrak) offered sleepers as a low cost option for the traveler that amounted to a fraction of the price of the coach ticket. Today Amtrak sleeper cost can add 4X-8X to the price of the coach ticket. I guess Amtrak is trying to determine where the threshold of pain is. ""

I would suppose that many of those rooms go to AGR trips. Since many times we wait until a few months out to book an AGR trip--and price is not a factor-- we have booked several bedroom, roomette trips that cost over $1,000 :)
 
dlagrua said:
In years past the private railroads ( and early Amtrak) offered sleepers as a low cost option for the traveler that amounted to a fraction of the price of the coach ticket. Today Amtrak sleeper cost can add 4X-8X to the price of the coach ticket. I guess Amtrak is trying to determine where the threshold of pain is.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but this has been pretty well disproved around here. Adjusted for inflation, sleeper prices are just about the same as they were in years past.

Yes, the difference between coach and sleepers has increased, but that is because the coach tickets have gotten cheaper (adjusted for inflation), not because sleepers have become more expensive.
 
What really puzzles me is that when Bedrooms sell for up to $1100 and roomettes up to $800; do passengers really buy at those levels? You can easily end up with a $1000 one way trip for two. Seems like a very noncompetitive form of transportation at these prices and a way to price the service out of existence.
Click to expand...
Is there a single bucket thread on this forum where you have not complained about $1000 bedroom fares?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Swadian Hardcore said:
Sean said:
wabbitt said:
NY Penn said:
Check Amsnag for some unpopular date 11 months away.

http://biketrain.net...snag/amSnag.php
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wow 384 is low bucket i thought that was high
Click to expand...
I got a roomette for $278 on the CZ. That was the lowest I ever saw, so that should be the low bucket.
Click to expand...
I think that it is now impossible to get $278. All I've seen for large "block searches" on Amsnag is $384.
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I may have gotten one of the last ones ever at that bucket. My travel is for April 19 on the CZ, and I booked at that price about 3 weeks ago. But you're right.... all I see now is $384 several months out. Interesting.
 
Trogdor said:
What really puzzles me is that when Bedrooms sell for up to $1100 and roomettes up to $800; do passengers really buy at those levels? You can easily end up with a $1000 one way trip for two. Seems like a very noncompetitive form of transportation at these prices and a way to price the service out of existence.
Click to expand...
Is there a single bucket thread on this forum where you have not complained about $1000 bedroom fares?
Click to expand...
No. The fact that the trains run nearly-full would tend to indicate to most people that the prices are not too high, but not our intrepid dlagrua.
 
dlagrua said:
gatelouse said:
Yup, sleeper fares continue to climb. And to clarify, there are 5 pricing buckets for each type of sleeping accommodation (and not 3).
Click to expand...
Technically, there may be 5 bucket levels of sleeping accommodations, but on the busy routes all of them do not appear to be used. On some routes sleepers appear to open at a high bucket (or close)and stay there while on others like the Autotrain they are low during light demand and very high at peak demand. The amount of available sleepers, and season sales history, appear to now factor heavily into the formula.

What really puzzles me is that when Bedrooms sell for up to $1100 and roomettes up to $800; do passengers really buy at those levels? You can easily end up with a $1000 one way trip for two. Seems like a very noncompetitive form of transportation at these prices and a way to price the service out of existence.

In years past the private railroads ( and early Amtrak) offered sleepers as a low cost option for the traveler that amounted to a fraction of the price of the coach ticket. Today Amtrak sleeper cost can add 4X-8X to the price of the coach ticket. I guess Amtrak is trying to determine where the threshold of pain is.
Click to expand...
When you say that "on the busy routes all of them do not appear to be used," I trust that your extensive researched has included all possible city pairs on all routes on all days of the year to make validate your opinion.
 
dlagrua said:
Technically, there may be 5 bucket levels of sleeping accommodations, but on the busy routes all of them do not appear to be used. On some routes sleepers appear to open at a high bucket (or close)and stay there while on others like the Autotrain they are low during light demand and very high at peak demand.
Click to expand...
Focusing more closely on topic, lets look at the bucket levels in use on the Auto Train.

Looking for LOR-SFA at the bedroom charge for the next 2 weeks, we see the following 4 buckets in use:

$298

$431

$564

$697

Looks like a pretty good spread to me.
 
Low bucket for a BEDROOM on the Zephyr from CHI to EMY during Jan and February 2112 was $588 when I booked in late 2011. That rate increased to $600 a couple of months into 2012. These are the lowest travel times of the year I am assuming, so that's the lowest bedroom bucket you'll encounter on the Zephyr if and when Amtrak decides to sell rooms at that low rate. I would say half the bedrooms were sold on our trip in Jan. 2012, even with this low bucket price.
 
Bedroom prices may seem uncompetitive, but consider that most Superliner routes only carry 10 bedrooms PER DAY. Cut that number in half for Viewliner trains.

With so little capacity, competition is of little concern. Amtrak can charge monopoly prices.
 
Ryan said:
dlagrua said:
Technically, there may be 5 bucket levels of sleeping accommodations, but on the busy routes all of them do not appear to be used. On some routes sleepers appear to open at a high bucket (or close)and stay there while on others like the Autotrain they are low during light demand and very high at peak demand.
Click to expand...
Focusing more closely on topic, lets look at the bucket levels in use on the Auto Train.

Looking for LOR-SFA at the bedroom charge for the next 2 weeks, we see the following 4 buckets in use:

$298

$431

$564

$697

Looks like a pretty good spread to me.
Click to expand...
...and the high bucket of $830, which can be encountered reliably when searching southbound around the Christmas season.

Even more interesting is the precise $133 spacing between buckets, all the way from lowest to highest.
 
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