Amtrak.com Shows Open Roomette

I've been hoping to change my reservation from Room 10 to one closer to the coffee and, of course, the bathroom. Amtrak.com shows one open roomette, but when I called they said there are no open rooms. None. Anywhere on that train.

Of course I'll keep trying back with the hope of changing my room, but I don't know why the site shows one thing, but the agent says another.

Why does this happen?

Everydaymatters said:

I've been hoping to change my reservation from Room 10 to one closer to the coffee and, of course, the bathroom. Amtrak.com shows one open roomette, but when I called they said there are no open rooms. None. Anywhere on that train. Of course I'll keep trying back with the hope of changing my room, but I don't know why the site shows one thing, but the agent says another. Why does this happen?

Click to expand...

Sometimes Amtrak.com gets confused by two separate rooms being available at different parts of the same trip. It sees these two rooms as one room that it can't actually book. The agents can technically book both rooms in those situations but you'll have to sell them on the idea first. I've never had an agent offer to help look into this without being specifically asked to do so. In some cases they have refused even after being asked. But if you keep calling back eventually you might get someone who is willing to look for where the two rooms need to be switched.

Is the "open room" number one in a Superliner, perchance? Number one is designated as the attendant's room. It has the same things as most other rooms, but it also has the annunciator board which will ring and light up and awaken you whenever somebody pushes the call button. You don't want that.

Tom

Yes, this would be in a Superliner. However, for the past few days Amtrak.com has shown no rooms available. This open room just came up today.

I didn't know they would sell Room 1. I've never seen anyone except the SA in room 1: and that was only when there were no bedrooms available.

I just did a test booking for Tue 10/7 from CHI-EMY on #5 and Amtrak.com shows One Roomette Available for $800+ Senior Fare and Accommodation Charge!

If your Rez is AGR it doesn't matter what it cost, a 2 Zone Award is 20,000 points! If it's a Paid Trip the Agent should be able to switch your room for No Additional Charge, call back and tell them this, ask for a Supervisor if you get an Agent who can't or won't do this for you!

In all the years I've been riding Amtrak I've never seen or heard of Amtrak.com offering to sell someone the SCA room. Is that a real issue?

The issue is a glitch on Amtrak.com where it will say there is an open roomette. You can try and book, get all the way to the payment page before it brings up an error message. The iOS app is actually an easier way to check.

This happened to me this summer. I found myself with a few days off at the last minute and though I found an open roommette on the Cardinal and a reasonably priced flight home on short notice. My plan was NYP to ABQ, called my friends there, got them excited. Called Amtrak and learned about the "phatom" roomette problem. I thought one opened up a few days later, called, same thing.

I then discovered that the app brought up an error message early (before the final payment screen on the website) as a way to check without calling AGR.

What is an iOS ap?

I tried what you said and went all the way up to the final payment screen and it did not show and error message.

Betty, there's an App (application) for the smart phones. I just did a test on my for the 7th - CHI-EMY (that's the one, right) and got the "no room available" error message after I went through a couple of screens.

I think the earlier post where someone said that there are probably two roomettes available between CHI & EMY. You just need to figure out what city pairs they are available and then call AGR to see if either of them is closer for you. Or try calling again and hope to get an agent willing to search for the city pairs.

Example: Room #3 is available CHI-DEN and Room #7 is available DEN-EMY.

Betty, As of 10:45pm, there was 1 roomette available CHI to EMY showing. 3 roomettes available Denver to EMY. May try to call again this evening and see if anything has opened up for you.

My comments about the attendant's room no.1 were apparently misunderstood. I was suggesting that the attendant's room might be the one that is shown as being empty. It is not supposed to be available for sale, but there have been occasions when it has been sold in error. Since I never worked as a ticket agent, I don't know how that mistake was made.

Tom

I called again this morning and asked the agent why it was showing one room open when she said there were none. She said someone is holding a room.

I'll try again tomorrow morning after I take a look at the city pairs.

FormerOBS said:

My comments about the attendant's room no.1 were apparently misunderstood. I was suggesting that the attendant's room might be the one that is shown as being empty. It is not supposed to be available for sale, but there have been occasions when it has been sold in error. Since I never worked as a ticket agent, I don't know how that mistake was made. Tom

Click to expand...

I don't doubt that you've seen this but is there any evidence that the accidentally released SCA rooms had anything to do with Amtrak.com? Maybe I'm too quick to defend IT but that really sounds like a process an agent would need to be a part of.

Everydaymatters said:

I called again this morning and asked the agent why it was showing one room open when she said there were none. She said someone is holding a room. I'll try again tomorrow morning after I take a look at the city pairs.

Click to expand...

So far as I am aware with regard to Amtrak.com any rooms that are on hold (i.e. reserved but waiting on payment) are essentially invisible. If a room is actively on hold it should not be available for purchase, even in the earliest parts of the process. Rooms that are held and then manually released usually become available almost immediately. Rooms that are released automatically seem to become available sometime between 2AM and 5AM ET. I only know this because at various times I've had to jump through hoops in order to book the very last room on the train.

I have no idea what actually caused the attendant's room to be sold, but I was given the impression that the error was a ticket agent's fault.

Tom

Can't they put you on a waiting list for a sleeper if you call and talk to an agent?

VentureForth said:

Can't they put you on a waiting list for a sleeper if you call and talk to an agent?

Click to expand...

She has a room already. She's hoping to be able to change to a room closer to the center of the car.

AmtrakBlue said:

VentureForth said:

Can't they put you on a waiting list for a sleeper if you call and talk to an agent?

Click to expand...

She has a room already. She's hoping to be able to change to a room closer to the center of the car.

Click to expand...

Amtrak previously had waiting lists for sleepers but I think that option has since been discontinued. Even when it was active it wasn't exactly dependable. Half the time the agents didn't seem to realize that such lists existed and even when they knew about it and said you were on the list rooms would become available again without a phone call or other notice.

Devil's Advocate said:

AmtrakBlue said:

VentureForth said:

Can't they put you on a waiting list for a sleeper if you call and talk to an agent?

Click to expand...

She has a room already. She's hoping to be able to change to a room closer to the center of the car.

Click to expand...

Amtrak previously had waiting lists for sleepers but I think that option has since been discontinued. Even when it was active it wasn't exactly dependable. Half the time the agents didn't seem to realize that such lists existed and even when they knew about it and said you were on the list rooms would become available again without a phone call or other notice.

Click to expand...

The reason for the failure of the "waiting list" is that Amtrak contracted this out and it was not handled by the reservation agents at any of the call centers. The Amtrak agents had no ability to book you if you called the 800 number until the wait list company released the rooms that they were calling about.

Devil's Advocate said:

Everydaymatters said:

I called again this morning and asked the agent why it was showing one room open when she said there were none. She said someone is holding a room. I'll try again tomorrow morning after I take a look at the city pairs.

Click to expand...

So far as I am aware with regard to Amtrak.com any rooms that are on hold (i.e. reserved but waiting on payment) are essentially invisible. If a room is actively on hold it should not be available for purchase, even in the earliest parts of the process.

Click to expand...

The agent's response sounded fishy to me as well.

I'm also suspicious of the two room theory. I mean for example, you want to go from NPV to EMY on the CZ. Nothing is available all the way; but room x is booked. PCT to FMG and room y WIP to SAC. So you could book room room y from NPV to anywhere east of WIP and switch to room x from anywhere west of FMG to EMY. I can't believe the system can search all combinations of two trips between NPV and EMY to see if there is combination that works. If it were that smart, it certainly could display the result

Of couse, a human knowing that a solution exists would'nt check all combinations, but would start by trying to switch rooms at the obvious places: DEN, SLC, etc and then give up.