Why doesn't Amtrak allow you to choose your room location?

[dlagrua]

When traveling by air (heaven forbid) the airlines allow passengers to choose their seating arrangements. When booking on Amtrak you are allowed neither the choice of choosing your own bedroom/roomette location or your first class/upgraded seat. We always book early and seem to get a good bedroom location on all of our trips, but is there any reason why Amtrak insists on doing the room/seat assignments rather than letting their customers chhose? Is there any logical reason for this or is it that its first come first placed in the prime locations? I don't understand the system.

 

[Ryan]

I think that it's because other than upper and lower roomettes, there's not that much of a difference, and if you do want to change you can call and request that, so there's not a lot of demand for that feature.

On the other side, the work to do it would be considerable, as each room is assigned a bucket level in ARROW, so they would have to rewrite the system to do room assignments and bucket assignments independently.

Low demand + Work to implement = Good Luck!

 

[AlanB]

Actually the software to allow one to pick a seat/room already exists. Amtrak for several months actually used this software to allow one to pick one's seat in first class on Acela when Acela first came on line. Eventually it was supposed to have spread to the business class seats on the train too.

Amtrak stopped using it for a few reasons, the biggest being the fact that the electronic ticket collection project for Acela died. It died in part because of protests by the crew, software/hardware issues, and lack of funding to complete the project. Yet another reason that Amtrak killed the seat selection in First Class was passenger revolt. So many FC passengers used to the Metroliner FC did not realize that they were be assigned a seat, even if they didn't pick one. They wanted to just sit where they fancied and would not move without great protests to their assigned seats. And the crew, fearing a loss of tips, wouldn't force the issue.

This software still exists and could pretty easily be adapted to work with sleepers, and obviously it's ready to go for any type of seating. As Ryan noted, there might need to be some adaptation to deal with the bucket pricing issues, or at least to warn people that by selecting a particular room they were going to be charged a higher price. But it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

My understanding is that the biggest reason for not allowing it is that Amtrak is trying to maximize how the rooms are being used. In other words, for example I'm currently booked on the EB this summer in the Portland sleeper from Chicago to Portland. However I could not get one room for the entire trip, I have to switch rooms in Whitefish. In this case, Amtrak actually failed even without the interference of people picking their own rooms. They should have placed the people who will board into my room out of CHI in Spokane into the room that I will be moving to in Whitefish. But something went wrong, either the system just screwed up or someone made a specific request that skewed things.

The point is however, that they try to match things in a way that sees a room being vacated part way through the trip being resold to someone who boards there or further down the line. Allowing people to just pick their rooms would hurt this process.

 

[printman2000]

I am pretty sure the only reason is a limitation of the current software used. I am willing to bet if the money comes to replace the software, they will add that feature.

Seems I remember hearing new software is in the plans. Not sure if work has started, though.

 

[RRrich]

If you make your reservation on the phone with a live agent can you pick your room? I almost always use Amtrak.com unless I need an H room

 

[printman2000]

If you make your reservation on the phone with a live agent can you pick your room? I almost always use Amtrak.com unless I need an H room

Sometimes. Rooms are assigned to bucket prices. Some agents will do the work to change your room and maintain the price. Others will not. There seems to be some manual stuff that has to be done to change it.

 

[AlanB]

If you make your reservation on the phone with a live agent can you pick your room? I almost always use Amtrak.com unless I need an H room

You can indeed request a particular room from a live agent, either on the phone or at a station. Just know that depending ont the agent, you may or may not get the lowest bucket price currently available for that train.

 

[Trogdor]

On the other side, the work to do it would be considerable, as each room is assigned a bucket level in ARROW, so they would have to rewrite the system to do room assignments and bucket assignments independently.

That is simply not true. Roomettes are not preassigned bucket levels in Arrow.

All rooms actually default to the "S" bucket if they're unsold (if you ever happen to look at a manifest, you'd note this). When sold, they go at the prevailing bucket.

The main reason for not making it easy for people to pick their own rooms is as Alan said. You don't want someone booking CHI-DEN in room 1, and someone booking DEN-EMY in room 2, and therefore there not being a room CHI-EMY for someone that wants a through trip.

It's different from the airlines because virtually everyone is getting on and off at the same place. A few people may take a "direct" flight with a stop and no change of equipment, but even then, getting up after being stuck in your seat for a two-hour flight, and taking a different seat for the second half of your trip is a lot different from having to gather all of your stuff out of your room, and moving it down the hall (or to a different car) because someone has that room for the next part of the journey.

Making people move to different rooms a couple of times in their trip would likely turn them off of rail travel.

As Alan noted, it still isn't perfect. If a few people book "short" trips, and get assigned rooms accordingly, and then a couple of the "shorts" cancel, then you may still wind up with disjointed room availability.

 

[Trogdor]

Sometimes. Rooms are assigned to bucket prices. Some agents will do the work to change your room and maintain the price. Others will not. There seems to be some manual stuff that has to be done to change it.

The key is that the specific room has to be chosen before one gets automatically assigned. An agent can input a specific room choice and use whatever the prevailing bucket is. However, what most likely happens is that they let the computer assign the room first. When that happens, the room and the bucket are taken out of inventory. Since often you may only have one room available at a particular bucket, then by having the "default" room assigned, that bucket is no longer available (since Arrow thinks that you're trying to book a second room). If that happens, then the agent has to first cancel the default room (releasing both the room and the bucket into inventory), then specify the room desired. Not too much manual work involved. However, you do run the risk of someone else snapping up that bucket in the mean time.

If having a specific room is really all that important to you, then you should probably call and, before even asking to make a reservation, ask if room XX is available on train Y on such-and-such a date. They can look it up and see if it is, then ask to book that specific room.

Since 99% of the passengers don't care what specific room or car number they get, agents probably just get into the default mode of letting the computer assign a room by default, since it takes a couple of extra steps to look up which specific rooms are unsold.

 

[Cristobal]

One curious thing that I noticed when making a change of plans on an upcoming trip on the CS is that when I was originally booked from PDX to SJC I had been assigned Room 4, Car 1132. When I changed the trip to depart from TAC instead (same day) I was assigned Room 7, Car 1130. As near as I can tell these were both low bucket (the total fare increased by about $43) and I was just wondering if they try to fill the first sleeper (closest to the PPC & diner) with those that are boarding at or near the beginning of the trip and those boarding later (but still booking early) are put into low bucket rooms in the the subsequent cars. Or was this just 'luck of the draw'?

 

[daveyb99]

Choosing a room would be a nice feature for those who care to do so. I would wonder how many actually would do that (compared to how many pick seats on airline flights).

I also saw the 'disjointed room' in action. But I was in a roomette and saw a bedroom - one I would have taken immediately - go vacant expect for the last two hours. Yep, that rider blocked the entire trip availability for that bedroom.

Along with room selection, AMTRAK might consider

>> reducing the number of fare levels for rooms (kind of like the airline 21-day 14-day 7-day fares)

>> limiting room purchases on 'short' trips until, i.e. ~10 days out.

>> not confirming a room on 'short' trips (like non-overnight), thereby preventing the 'disjointed room' effect

Any of these would also maximize revenue.

 

[AlanB]

One curious thing that I noticed when making a change of plans on an upcoming trip on the CS is that when I was originally booked from PDX to SJC I had been assigned Room 4, Car 1132. When I changed the trip to depart from TAC instead (same day) I was assigned Room 7, Car 1130. As near as I can tell these were both low bucket (the total fare increased by about $43) and I was just wondering if they try to fill the first sleeper (closest to the PPC & diner) with those that are boarding at or near the beginning of the trip and those boarding later (but still booking early) are put into low bucket rooms in the the subsequent cars. Or was this just 'luck of the draw'?

If revenue management decides that there will be 5 rooms at low bucket, then those 5 rooms are spread across the available sleepers for said train. On a 2 sleeper train, that would be 3 in the sleeper closest to the diner and 2 in the next. On a 3 sleeper train, that would be 2 next to the diner, 2 in the middle car, and 1 in the farthest car from the diner.

Subsequent bucket levels would be equally distributed between the available sleepers.

Amtrak does this because they don't want one car full with the attendant working like a madman, while the other car is empty and its attendant sits around doing nothing.

 

[AlanB]

On the other side, the work to do it would be considerable, as each room is assigned a bucket level in ARROW, so they would have to rewrite the system to do room assignments and bucket assignments independently.

That is simply not true. Roomettes are not preassigned bucket levels in Arrow.

Sorry, but no, it is true. I've watched agents shuffle the buckets to accommodate passengers. Each room is indeed assigned a bucket level, which revenue management can juggle at any time as they deem necessary.

 

[SouthernServesTheSouth]

After I booked my AGR trip CVS to Simi Valley and received a reservation number, I hung up and called Amtrak Reservations. I made a request to be given specific rooms on the View Liner and SUperliner sleepers. The reservation clerk was very helpful and gave me the rooms requested. Since I was not paying for the rooms I don't know what the impact on the room price was,

 

[jis]

On the other side, the work to do it would be considerable, as each room is assigned a bucket level in ARROW, so they would have to rewrite the system to do room assignments and bucket assignments independently.

That is simply not true. Roomettes are not preassigned bucket levels in Arrow.

Sorry, but no, it is true. I've watched agents shuffle the buckets to accommodate passengers. Each room is indeed assigned a bucket level, which revenue management can juggle at any time as they deem necessary.

Gentlemen, you do realize that both of you could be correct. The issue at hand would be when is the actual assignment made. It is plausible that the software has a room assignment to bucket algorithm that is applied when a room is requested, to determine the bucket that it gets, as opposed to it being statically pre-assigned. In either case the agent would plausibly be able to override and get a different bucket assignment.

 

[Trogdor]

Arrow generally has a default method of assigning rooms, which is lowest-to-highest in each car, and also evenly spreading room assignments in each car (with the exception of the transition sleeper, which will not be sold until everything else has been booked.

 

[printman2000]

One time I asked to change a room assignment (to get our two rooms across the hall). To maintain the same price that I already had, seems she had to write down some information form my reservation and then manually put it in for the new room since the new room would have been a higher price.

 

[jis]

One time I asked to change a room assignment (to get our two rooms across the hall). To maintain the same price that I already had, seems she had to write down some information form my reservation and then manually put it in for the new room since the new room would have been a higher price.

Right. She had to override the normal bucket allotment algorithm to maintain the same bucket.