booking a train on short notice

I have to go to Fort Lauderdale this weekend. My preferred travel option is train. I checked Amtrak from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale by train for this Sunday in Coach and the senior price was $213. Then I checked Southwest and the price was $94. Guess which method of transportation i used?

I love the train..even in coach and I look forward to the almost 24 hour trip and I would much prefer to go by rail than by air,but with that much difference in price I really had no choice. Normally I'll book a train trip months ahead,but this was an emergency, an ill parent.

I am returning by train on Dec 18. I paid about $120 about three months ago. I booked Megabus on Dec 6 from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale.. A whopping $5.50. Of course, I booked that fare shortly after they added dates where all fares start at a dollar.. If I booked that fare today it wold be about $150.

I'm surprised Southwest had that cheap fare available with only a 48 hour notice. Yes, i realize there are ten flights a day from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale and there are only two trains a day, but that is quite a price difference.

This is a bad week to compare fares between different modes of transportation because of all these people wanting to travel for Thanksgiving. You may have gotten lucky and caught a rare 2 minute Fare War on WN

OlympianHiawatha said:

This is a bad week to compare fares between different modes of transportation because of all these people wanting to travel for Thanksgiving. You may have gotten lucky and caught a rare 2 minute Fare War on WN

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I agree about this being a bad time to check "last minute fares" for flights as well as trains. I will be booking nearly last minute flights in the spring after my granddaughter is born (though I may book it a little earlier...waiting for the kids to tell me which week is "mine" to come out). I've been wanting to look at fares for dates within a week or two of "today" just to get an idea, but have been putting it off because I know the holidays are going to affect them.

On the flip side, I've seen tremendously high airfares right before a holiday and low train fares. It really just depends on timing, the route, and luck.

LOL at high prices. Yesterday I wanted to go home on Amtrak after long way at work. Amtrak app had trouble connecting so I went to the lounge to book it. Within span of 3 minutes fare NYP-MET went from $42 to $74. Nope SRO NJT local ($10).

I do know that when booking my recent trip on the train that when I looked at it 8 months prior to travel fay, price was 980.00 round trip. When I eventually got around to buying the tix, about 2 months prior, the trip jumped to 1508.00.

Looking at 9 months from now for another trip, and the price is DIRT CHEEP (678.00).

AMTRAK definitely makes the price go up closer to travel day.

HF

HockeyFan1972 said:

AMTRAK definitely makes the price go up closer to travel day.

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As long as sales are not less than expected. Hopefully.