29 replies to this topic

[caliPKR]

hi all,

1st post here although i have been browsing this site for about a year now.

Im in my 30s and mainly travel the CS between PDX and LAX for "work". having being a flying hater, I turned to amtrak and oh wow...such a nice change. I work for myself so the extra time spent on the train "aint no biggie"!

i have went thru all of the upgrade posts and didnt see this pondered. What about upgrading from roomette to bedroom? Does this involve the same procedure and what is the likelyhood that I can if they are not filled.

Calipkr

[jackal]

If you're referring to upgrading onboard after departure, I think this was briefly asked about a good while back on FlyerTalk (a mostly flying-focused site with a small Amtrak discussion area, and several folks from here also post there). IIRC, it is the same procedure, and so you would end up paying the difference between what you paid for the roomette and the lowest bucket of bedroom.

Of course, if you paid anything more than the lowest bucket for your roomette, this might result in the bedroom actually being cheaper than the roomette, so Amtrak gets around this with a minimum upgrade charge of $50--still not a bad deal for a room with nearly (or maybe more than) twice the space!

I'm not 100% sure about this, and maybe my fuzzy memory is simply wishful thinking, so it might not be a bad idea to head over to flyertalk.com/forum (look under Miles&Points>Amtrak Guest Rewards) and search a bit over there. Or, wait until the rest of the AUers around here wake up and they can probably shed more light on this!

Edited by jackal, 17 June 2008 - 04:44 AM.

[AlanB]

Hmm, can't say that I've heard of the $50 minimum charge. If they are doing that, then it's new, because I do know someone who did such an upgrade about 2 years ago. At that point because he had a higher bucket roomette, he upgraded for free just because he asked.

But yes, CaliPKR, the procedure is the same. If one is available you can either speak to the conductor or let your sleeping car attendant know such that they'll tell the conductor. Then you pay any difference if the bedroom is more costly, and perhaps if indeed there is a minimum charge, then you'll pay that.

[Walt]

Doesn't Amtrak have any concerns over the reserved roomette, that is now empty?

[wayman]

Doesn't Amtrak have any concerns over the reserved roomette, that is now empty?

Well, now it becomes available for someone in coach who wants an upgrade to a roomette. It sounds like it's no revenue lost for Amtrak to allow someone to upgrade roomette->bedroom, and potentially generates more revenue for Amtrak if a coach passenger wants to upgrade into the now-vacant roomette. How is that a negative?

[Rafi]

Hmm, can't say that I've heard of the $50 minimum charge. If they are doing that, then it's new, because I do know someone who did such an upgrade about 2 years ago. At that point because he had a higher bucket roomette, he upgraded for free just because he asked.

But yes, CaliPKR, the procedure is the same. If one is available you can either speak to the conductor or let your sleeping car attendant know such that they'll tell the conductor. Then you pay any difference if the bedroom is more costly, and perhaps if indeed there is a minimum charge, then you'll pay that.

Yeah, the $50 charge came into being about a year ago or so. Still, it's a fair price if going from a roomette to a bedroom, I think.

-Rafi

[Walt]

Well, now it becomes available for someone in coach who wants an upgrade to a roomette. It sounds like it's no revenue lost for Amtrak to allow someone to upgrade roomette->bedroom, and potentially generates more revenue for Amtrak if a coach passenger wants to upgrade into the now-vacant roomette. How is that a negative?

I guess it isn't clear to me, how the roomette becomes officially vacant, and available for others. I would think it would remain "reserved" in the computer for the entire trip.

[wayman]

Well, now it becomes available for someone in coach who wants an upgrade to a roomette. It sounds like it's no revenue lost for Amtrak to allow someone to upgrade roomette->bedroom, and potentially generates more revenue for Amtrak if a coach passenger wants to upgrade into the now-vacant roomette. How is that a negative?

I guess it isn't clear to me, how the roomette becomes officially vacant, and available for others. I would think it would remain "reserved" in the computer for the entire trip.

Well, in my experience when I ask a conductor about the possibility of an on-board upgrade, he checks with Julie/Amtrak/Arrow to make sure any given currently-vacant roomette is vacant all the way to my destination before saying "yes, one is available" and looking in the book to see what it would cost. (The upgrade price, even low-bucket, has always been more than I want to spend as an individual, so I've never actually gone through with one, but I've asked and gotten to that point a few times.) I assume this means that after taking my money, the conductor would put me into the system with Julie/Amtrak/Arrow, because otherwise it might be possible for someone else to book that roomette not knowing I was now in it.

(Example: I'm traveling PDX-CHI, and ask just after leaving if an upgrade is possible; the conductor first has to make sure that the currently vacant roomette #6 in the Portland sleeper isn't already booked by some other passenger boarding in Whitefish; and then, if I take the upgrade, the conductor has to put me into the system so some passenger doesn't show up at Whitefish station and ask the stationmaster before boarding "hey, can I upgrade?" and be told "sure, roomette #6 in the Portland sleeper is vacant in the system" when I'm now in it through the on-board upgrade.)

Since the conductor is in touch with Julie/Amtrak/Arrow about these things, I think that also means that if I move from roomette #6 into bedroom A, the conductor would update the system to indicate both that bedroom A is taken (so the passenger at Whitefish can't upgrade to it) and that roomette #6 is now available (so he could upgrade to that if he wanted).

Edited by wayman, 17 June 2008 - 11:11 AM.

[AlanB]

Well, now it becomes available for someone in coach who wants an upgrade to a roomette. It sounds like it's no revenue lost for Amtrak to allow someone to upgrade roomette->bedroom, and potentially generates more revenue for Amtrak if a coach passenger wants to upgrade into the now-vacant roomette. How is that a negative?

I guess it isn't clear to me, how the roomette becomes officially vacant, and available for others. I would think it would remain "reserved" in the computer for the entire trip.

Well, in my experience when I ask a conductor about the possibility of an on-board upgrade, he checks with Julie/Amtrak/Arrow to make sure any given currently-vacant roomette is vacant all the way to my destination before saying "yes, one is available" and looking in the book to see what it would cost. (The upgrade price, even low-bucket, has always been more than I want to spend as an individual, so I've never actually gone through with one, but I've asked and gotten to that point a few times.) I assume this means that after taking my money, the conductor would put me into the system with Julie/Amtrak/Arrow, because otherwise it might be possible for someone else to book that roomette not knowing I was now in it.

(Example: I'm traveling PDX-CHI, and ask just after leaving if an upgrade is possible; the conductor first has to make sure that the currently vacant roomette #6 in the Portland sleeper isn't already booked by some other passenger boarding in Whitefish; and then, if I take the upgrade, the conductor has to put me into the system so some passenger doesn't show up at Whitefish station and ask the stationmaster before boarding "hey, can I upgrade?" and be told "sure, roomette #6 in the Portland sleeper is vacant in the system" when I'm now in it through the on-board upgrade.)

Since the conductor is in touch with Julie/Amtrak/Arrow about these things, I think that also means that if I move from roomette #6 into bedroom A, the conductor would update the system to indicate both that bedroom A is taken (so the passenger at Whitefish can't upgrade to it) and that roomette #6 is now available (so he could upgrade to that if he wanted).

That is essentially correct, the conductor calls up space control (not to be confused with NASA's Mission Control) to get the price and to ensure that the sleeper room in question has not been booked while the train was in transit. If the passenger then agrees to pay the fees, the conductor calls them back to block out that room and confirm that a deal was made. In the case of going from a roomette to a bedroom, space control would put that roomette back into the system for sale at the same time it removes the bedroom from inventory.

[Walt]

Ah, thanks, that explains it.

I had, wrongly, thought that once the train left its initial station, that the conductor no longer had access to "space control".

"Space control, this is the Meteor 97, requesting clearance...."

[wayman]

That is essentially correct, the conductor calls up space control (not to be confused with NASA's Mission Control) to get the price and to ensure that the sleeper room in question has not been booked while the train was in transit. If the passenger then agrees to pay the fees, the conductor calls them back to block out that room and confirm that a deal was made. In the case of going from a roomette to a bedroom, space control would put that roomette back into the system for sale at the same time it removes the bedroom from inventory.

Good to know there's a better term than "Julie/Amtrak/Arrow"

[caliPKR]

wow thanks for all the help.

Well I just checked online and it looks as if its "TRAIN SOLD OUT". So it looks like i will be in roomette for the trip. i wil go ahead and try and upgrade anyway but it looks like im gonna be out of luck.

Would it be worth it to try and upgrade at the ticket counter? if not I will start as I board

[MrFSS]

Would it be worth it to try and upgrade at the ticket counter? if not I will start as I board

I'm told that even 5 minutes before the train is leave, the ticket agent has to sell at the current bucket rate. Only way to get that lowest rate is on the train after it has left the station.

[AlanB]

Would it be worth it to try and upgrade at the ticket counter? if not I will start as I board

I'm told that even 5 minutes before the train is leave, the ticket agent has to sell at the current bucket rate. Only way to get that lowest rate is on the train after it has left the station.

That is correct, the ticket agent must sell at the current bucket. It's only once the train has left the station, that one can get the best deal, assuming that one didn't get the low bucket rate by booking early enough.

[caliPKR]

also, i dont understand bucket pricing but i am assuming its somewhat like how hotels cant charge a certain level of price?????

For this trip I paid 80.10(aaa) +190 for sleeper off the internet a couple months ago. During the mudslide a couple month before that, i upgraded for $116 to roomette LAX to klamath falls at time of purchase on the internet as well.This was also purchased only a couple days before departure also. I am pretty sure the mudslide had somethign to with the low price but not sure. I also heard the ticket lady at the counter in LA comment on my low sleeper price when picking up my tickets.

CaliPKR

Edited by caliPKR, 18 June 2008 - 02:11 AM.

[caliPKR]

also, i dont understand bucket pricing but i am assuming its somewhat like how hotels cant charge a certain level of price?????

For this trip I paid 80.10(aaa) +190 for sleeper off the internet a couple months ago. During the mudslide a couple month before that, i upgraded for $110 to roomette LAX to klamath falls at time of purchase on the internet as well.This was also purchased only a couple days before departure also. I am pretty sure the mudslide had somethign to with the low price but not sure. I also heard the ticket lady at the counter in LA comment on my low sleeper price when picking up my tickets.

CaliPKR

All of the above trips were on CS, btw

[jackal]

A fare "bucket" is a certain number of seats or rooms sold at a given fare.

Amtrak publishes four coach fares, five roomette fares, and five bedroom fares for each given city pair. A certain number of seats, roomettes, and bedrooms are placed in each fare bucket.

Seats, roomettes, and bedrooms start selling at the lowest published fare. When all of those seats or rooms are gone in a given fare bucket, the system starts selling rooms at the next higher bucket, and so on until the highest bucket is reached and then the given item (seat, roomette, or bedroom) is sold out.

Let's put together some sample fare buckets for sample city pair on a sample train with 210 coach seats, 42 roomettes, and 15 bedrooms (this particular train would likely have 3 Superliner coach cars and 3 Superliner sleeper cars, and I'm ignoring the family and accessible bedrooms in this sample):

COACH (210 seats available):
$150 (seats 1-75)
$200 (seats 76-125)
$250 (seats 126-175)
$300 (seats 176-210)

ROOMETTE (42 rooms available):
$300 (rooms 1-10)
$375 (rooms 11-18)
$450 (rooms 19-28)
$525 (rooms 29-38)
$600 (rooms 39-42)

BEDROOM (15 rooms available):
$400 (rooms 1-3)
$600 (rooms 4-6)
$800 (rooms 7-9)
$1000 (rooms 10-13)
$1200 (rooms 14-15)

In other words, if 20 out of 210 coach seats on a train are booked, then the next two (the ones you want to book) will still be available at the lowest fare bucket ($150). If 40 out of 42 roomettes are booked, the next one will be sold at the highest price--the highest bucket ($600). And if 7 out of the 15 of the bedrooms are empty, then the next one will be sold for one of the middle buckets ($800). This is how bucket pricing works.

Off-topic side-note: Airlines operate on a similar principle, but they play all kinds of weird games with their fare buckets, such as placing certain advance purchase restrictions on some [e.g. 7, 14, and 21-day APEX] fares, requiring round trips for certain low fares, publishing low fares with just a couple of seats in that fare bucket so they can advertise the low fares, publishing new fares and removing old ones sometimes hourly, lowering the price or introducing a new lower fare bucket to try to drum up business, etc. Amtrak has a very simple system in comparison, since the same four (and five for sleeper) buckets are always the same price and are sold directly relative to how many other seats have already been booked on a given train. That's why we always say around here to book early, since the fares can only go up! (Airlines often hold their prices at a medium level and then start to drop fares and get into fare wars 3-4 months out. Not so with Amtrak.)

Anyway, let's say you and your spouse book one of those high-bucket roomettes at $600 and board the train. You wanted a bedroom, but it was being sold for $200 more than the roomette. Now, if there is space available, you can upgrade on-board the train to a better accommodation. One of the benefits of an on-board upgrade is that, no matter what (even if there is only one room left), they are sold at the lowest bucket, and you only pay the difference between what you paid and the low-bucket price of that room. So if you get on and ask the conductor to upgrade from a roomette to a bedroom, he will sell it to you at the lowest bucket. If you paid the highest bucket for a roomette (in our hypothetical, $600), the low bucket for the bedroom (let's say it's $400) will likely actually be less than you paid for the roomette. In this case, although it would be nice if the conductor actually gave you back money, instead you will pay the minimum $50 upgrade and then be moved into a bedroom. Still, $650 is a better deal than the $800 it would have cost to book the bedroom at the middle-bucket price initially! (The same principle applies to upgrades from coach to roomettes and/or bedrooms, although I doubt even highest-bucket coach is ever more expensive than a low-bucket sleeper.)

On-board upgrades only make sense when the accommodations are not selling at the lowest fare bucket. They are never cheaper than this, so if you are booking your trip and find a roomette or bedroom at low bucket, go ahead and book it then--upgrading on board will not save you any money.

Now, how do you tell what the low bucket price is? That's a good question. An old trick is to do a test booking for 325 days from today. Amtrak starts selling tickets for travel 330 days out, so if you book for 325 days out, you stand a good chance of finding seats and rooms at the lowest bucket. Make a note of that price and then do a test booking for your preferred travel dates--if it's the same, then you're buying the seat/roomette/bedroom at the lowest bucket! If it's more, then, well, you're not--you can play around with your dates and try to find a train still selling at low bucket, or, if you're looking for a sleeper, you can book coach now and attempt an on-board upgrade.

I might have also heard rumors that certain bucket prices can be found in the Amtrak timetable, but I can't confirm that rumor. AlanB might, though (I think he's the one who posted something about that awhile back.)

Another confusing sidenote: I'm also deliberately ignoring the railfare component of the accommodation, since the above principles work fine ignoring it, but here's how that works: when you buy a sleeper, you are charged for two things: the railfare and the accommodation charge. The railfare is always exactly equal to the price of a coach seat at the lowest bucket. This works in your favor in the event that coach seats are selling for a high bucket--let's say 290 out of 300 seats are booked and they're going for $300--but roomettes are pretty empty--let's say 2 out of 30 are sold and they're going for an accommodation charge of $300. The final price of the roomette for two people will be $600, or the $300 accommodation charge plus the $150 low-bucket coach fare per person times two, since that is the base railfare, even though coach seats are selling at twice that. The reason I say this works in your favor is that most people will click the "View Upgrade Options" button and see that the roomette is going for $300 and automatically assume that it's $300 on top of the $600 coach fare (for two people) for a total of $900. However, now you know that upgrading to the roomette will cause the railfare component to drop from $600 to $300. And if two coach seats were selling for $600 and it cost the same $600 to book two people into a roomette, which would you choose? I thought so!

Also, the railfare is the component that qualifies for the AAA, NARP, SA, VA, etc. discount. The accommodation charge is not discounted by these programs.

I think this is my most comprehensive post about the bucket system I've ever done. I should save it for future reference...after rewriting it for readability, of course! Anyone have any corrections or suggestions?

Edited by jackal, 18 June 2008 - 06:09 AM.

[PRR 60]

The sample fares at the back of the Amtrak system timetable gives a range of prices for rail fares and accommodations for select city pairs. The lower price is the low bucket fare, and the higher price is the high bucket. If you are travelling between one of the sample city pairs, or at least close to the sample pair, the timetable can tell you the low bucket price.

[Joel N. Weber II]

On a train that has sleepers, you should be able to determine the low bucket coach price by doing a test booking of any sleeper compartment, since the low bucket ``seat charge'' is always used in conjuction with any sleeping compartment (but of course, there are buckets for the sleeping compartments).

This gets a little weird on the Lake Shore Limited for, say, BOS->CHI, because if you book a sleeper for the ALB->CHI segment, I believe you will always get the low bucket price BOS->ALB, since the low bucket BOS->CHI coach price is $80 and shows up as a single price for that whole trip, even though the upgrades are priced separately for the two segments.

(Another weirdness there is that if you upgrade to Business Class for the BOS->ALB segment, you do not get any extra AGR points for that $19, because the BOS->ALB segment is always less than $50 and therefore gets you a flat 100 points. AGR shows the BOS->ALB segment as $18.33 for coach.)

[Walt]

Another confusing sidenote: I'm also deliberately ignoring the railfare component of the accommodation, since the above principles work fine ignoring it, but here's how that works: when you buy a sleeper, you are charged for two things: the railfare and the accommodation charge. The railfare is always exactly equal to the price of a coach seat at the lowest bucket. This works in your favor in the event that coach seats are selling for a high bucket--let's say 290 out of 300 seats are booked and they're going for $300--but roomettes are pretty empty--let's say 2 out of 30 are sold and they're going for an accommodation charge of $300. The final price of the roomette for two people will be $600, or the $300 accommodation charge plus the $150 low-bucket coach fare per person times two, since that is the base railfare, even though coach seats are selling at twice that. The reason I say this works in your favor is that most people will click the "View Upgrade Options" button and see that the roomette is going for $300 and automatically assume that it's $300 on top of the $600 coach fare (for two people) for a total of $900. However, now you[i] know that upgrading to the roomette will cause the railfare component to drop from $600 to $300. And if two coach seats were selling for $600 and it cost the same $600 to book two people into a roomette, which would you choose? I thought so!

Wow, I never knew that piece (with an accommodation, the railfare price for all, is always the lowest bucket coach price).

Thanks!