Price Hike When Choosing Rooms

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mlanoue

mlanoue

Service Attendant
Joined
Oct 30, 2003
Messages
139
Location
Joliet, Illinois
Forgive me if this has been posted before. But, I was trying to book two roomettes for myself, my wife, and daughter next July from CHI to Whitefish. I had the necessary points according to the website, but I knew that in order to have rooms next to each other I'd need to speak to an AGR agent. All was fine until she tried to give me the rooms I requested. The price jumped from 39K points to 56K. I really don't understand the need for them to do this, but I don't think there's any way around it. And, we can't book two rooms with a computer just randomly putting us in different cars.

Has anybody else had this issue, and found a way to get the rooms we want without it jumping the price so much higher? This might just destroy several weeks of vacation planning.

Thanks!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Changing rooms should not result in a jump in points. If not, I'd book the rooms first at the lower price and then call in to have the room assignment changed. (A change in room assignment should not result in an increase in points, though it may require a supervisor to come and educate the front line representative.)
 
jebr said:
Changing rooms should not result in a jump in points. If not, I'd book the rooms first at the lower price and then call in to have the room assignment changed. (A change in room assignment should not result in an increase in points, though it may require a supervisor to come and educate the front line representative.)
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I thought about doing that, too, and just hoping they could arrange the rooms later, but this new system has me thrown. And, I keep reading about how every little change to a reservation changes the fare. Right now I feel like the new AGR can be a bit of bait and switch. But, hopefully you're right.
 
I had this issue when changing to a downstairs roomette from an upstairs roomette. They wanted to charge me an additional 8,000 points. I called back a different day and got a different answer and actually had some points refunded. Kind of frustrating. Good luck!
 
Pooh2 said:
I had this issue when changing to a downstairs roomette from an upstairs roomette. They wanted to charge me an additional 8,000 points. I called back a different day and got a different answer and actually had some points refunded. Kind of frustrating. Good luck!
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Thanks! What's frustrating is that it's raising the point cost before I even have a room booked. The AGR rep tried lots of different scenarios, but as soon as she tried to specify specific rooms, the cost jumps. She was very nice, though, and told me to try calling back in the middle of the night.

I'm assuming this is just an AGR thing and it would't do that if paying in dollars, correct?
 
One possibility and it would affect the cost in $$ also is that only one roomette is available at the original low bucket fare and the second actually costs more. You can test this by entering all the information and putting your reservation in your Amtrak.com "cart". If you want to compare points to $$ you should enter the reservations as an adult without any discount status as the point system values the points based on non-discounted adult fares. Also, if you add a second roomette, you will have to pay for a second coach fare plus the roomette charge. The best way to do this is add each roomette separately to your cart and see your $$ cost. After seeing the $$ cost you need to go back to the screen that has the toggle button to chose price or points. Also you probably need to clear your cart of the first set of reservations based on $$ before entering the reservation based on points. Remember that points cannot be used with senior or AAA or other discount so you need to specify "adult" as the passenger.
 
Tennessee Traveler said:
One possibility and it would affect the cost in $$ also is that only one roomette is available at the original low bucket fare and the second actually costs more. You can test this by entering all the information and putting your reservation in your Amtrak.com "cart". If you want to compare points to $$ you should enter the reservations as an adult without any discount status as the point system values the points based on non-discounted adult fares. Also, if you add a second roomette, you will have to pay for a second coach fare plus the roomette charge. The best way to do this is add each roomette separately to your cart and see your $$ cost. After seeing the $$ cost you need to go back to the screen that has the toggle button to chose price or points. Also you probably need to clear your cart of the first set of reservations based on $$ before entering the reservation based on points. Remember that points cannot be used with senior or AAA or other discount so you need to specify "adult" as the passenger.
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Wow, okay. That's good information. Thanks. It's really a complicated system!
 
mlanoue said:
Right now I feel like the new AGR can be a bit of bait and switch.
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You are not alone in that thought.

mlanoue said:
I'm assuming this is just an AGR thing and it would't do that if paying in dollars, correct?
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The last two times I've tried to change rooms on cash reservations, an agent has said that individual rooms are assigned to buckets. Then one of them made the switch for me; the other insisted it would cost more.
 

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