Adding a person after booking a reservation

I was wondering if I book myself in a roomette on the Silver Star and my wife decides to join me later, can I add her to the reservation?

Since it's a roomette, would there be an additional second person accomodation charge or just the additional person's rail charge.

You can add a second person to your reservation and pay only the additional base rail fare. The accommodation charge is the same whether the room is being used by one or two.

If the second person is traveling a different city pair...say, she gets on late or detrains early or is traveling only one way while your ticket is round trip, then the second person needs an "open sleeper" ticket. But if the city pairs are the same, then just add her to your reservation. You have to call in to do this; can't do it on line.

Yep, it's incredibly easy to add another person to your reservation. As ehbowen said, you'll just pay the base rail fare (which will always equate to the cheapest possible Value coach seat price. Saver fares will be cheaper than the rail fare). The accommodation charge is constant, regardless of how many people are occupying the room.

Not sure you can just add a person to your reservation. You may have to do the Open Sleeper reservation and connect it to your reservation. That ticket is only available in paper form so you will need to have it mailed or pick it up at a station.

This is what I had to do earlier this year with a trip booked with points.

Be careful of wording.....cheapest possible coach fare could lead a person to believe "saver" might apply

PVD said:

Be careful of wording.....cheapest possible coach fare could lead a person to believe "saver" might apply

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That is exactly what I was thinking too. It is better to be careful if you insist on being specific. Or alternatively, even if you leave it a little vague no harm will be done.

Bottom line do complete research before giving specific information, or don't give information that looks specific but is wrong, or has a plausible wrong interpretation.

Since the target of the response is a newbie/guest, they are that much less likely to catch it. If I'm in a thread where the participants are mostly "regulars" I'm less cautious, if I make a mistake, someone will correct it, it's a discussion board, so what, but if it is something that could potentially lead someone astray in a manner that could cause some damage I try harder. Even doing research, it is possible to miss something, I'll usually try to use a disclaimer.. Just my style...

jis said:

PVD said:

Be careful of wording.....cheapest possible coach fare could lead a person to believe "saver" might apply

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That is exactly what I was thinking too. It is better to be careful if you insist on being specific. Or alternatively, even if you leave it a little vague no harm will be done.

Bottom line do complete research before giving specific information, or don't give information that looks specific but is wrong, or has a plausible wrong interpretation.

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Apologies. I just clarified it. I don't feel like what I had there was incorrect information, per se, but I understand that I hadn't sufficiently clarified what I meant and that it could have been easily misinterpreted,

One of our most important goals at AU is to see that inquiries are answered as accurately as possible. When we start to have numerous inaccurate posts, our credibility as a viable source of rail information can come into question. Let us work toward that goal.

so what's the correct answer to my posting. I think you said OK to do

By the way, not such a novice as I have taken the trains all my life.(father was a brakeman/yard conductor back in the private pass train days). Usually my wife and travel together from the beginning but this time she may fly but not neccessary(pricing Southwest is 7 months out). Because it would be during a busy holiday period, I don't want to wait to book until I know for sure if she wants to join me. Want to book mine as soon as I can and add her later. Never did this before so that's why I'm asking this question!

You can reserve your ticket now. Then if she joins you, all you have to do is all an agent and request an OPEN SLEEPER TICKET for her. All you will pay extra is the lowest Value fare as her rail portion.

the_traveler said:

You can reserve your ticket now. Then if she joins you, all you have to do is all an agent and request an OPEN SLEEPER TICKET for her. All you will pay extra is the lowest Value fare as her rail portion.

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Is there any benefit of getting an open sleeper ticket compared to just adding the person to the reservation? It should cost the same, right?

If the city pairs are the same, and the trip wasn’t booked on points, and you get an agent that doesn’t “add” someone by cancelling the whole res and starting over.

Or you can avoid the minefield and just get the open sleeper ticket.

Ryan said:

If the city pairs are the same, and the trip wasn’t booked on points, and you get an agent that doesn’t “add” someone by cancelling the whole res and starting over.

Or you can avoid the minefield and just get the open sleeper ticket.

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But be careful! Another minefield awaits! Remember my experience! I specifically requested an "open sleeper" ticket...and was given a coach seat reservation! If I hadn't known what to ask for, and had the persistence to pursue it through a couple of initially unhelpful customer service representatives, my traveling companion could have found himself stuck in coach overnight without meals!

Luckily, the one time I needed an "open sleeper" ticket, it was in conjunction with an award ticket. So I bought it through a Guest Rewards agent, not a regular 800-USA-RAIL agent. The Guest Rewards agents are almost always very knowledgeable and very competent with Arrow, so it was no problem. It was also only for a small part (TAC-PDX) of my much longer trip (SEA-NOL).

BTW, the conductors are so unused to seeing paper "value" tickets now that they never lifted it! They came by, saw the value ticket, said they'd come back later to get it, but never did.

Please excuse my ignorance but I have no idea what an open sleeper ticket is.

To what Ryan said, if an agent did cancel the res and create a new one, would I loose money or cost me more for the new rez, otherwise why would it matter if they did that?

MDRailfan said:

Please excuse my ignorance but I have no idea what an open sleeper ticket is.

To what Ryan said, if an agent did cancel the res and create a new one, would I loose money or cost me more for the new rez, otherwise why would it matter if they did that?

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An "Open Sleeper Ticket" allows someone to be added to a reservation, and you must call Amtrak to get one.

Amtrak now has a 25% penalty for many types of reservation cancellations, so it does make a difference if the reservation is "canceled" instead of "modified."

MDRailfan said:

Please excuse my ignorance but I have no idea what an open sleeper ticket is.

To what Ryan said, if an agent did cancel the res and create a new one, would I loose money or cost me more for the new rez, otherwise why would it matter if they did that?

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An "open sleeper" ticket allows you to add a person to your sleeping car accommodation without modifying or cancelling your reservation. It is the most straightforward way to add a person without risking your own reservation, or incurring cancellation charges. It is a ticket where the person would be booked as a sleeping car passenger, added to the manifest as such, but isn't actually assigned a room in the reservation system due to restrictions of the reservation system. Your reservation is not changed, but the separate "open sleeper" reservation is linked to it.

Due to system limitations, "open sleeper" tickets have to be issued as paper "value" tickets, not etickets, because a room is not formally attached to that reservation, since the room is on your reservation (which is probably why it is called "open").

If you decide to get an open sleeper ticket and the reservation agent doesn't understand what that is, call back until you get an agent that does. If you try to walk an unversed agent through it, you are likely to get the problem ehbowen describes.

cpotisch said:

the_traveler said:

You can reserve your ticket now. Then if she joins you, all you have to do is all an agent and request an OPEN SLEEPER TICKET for her. All you will pay extra is the lowest Value fare as her rail portion.

Click to expand...

Is there any benefit of getting an open sleeper ticket compared to just adding the person to the reservation? It should cost the same, right?

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No advantage if you know two people are going and reserve it as such from the start. In that case, the complexities of the open sleeper ticket would just complicate things. Only advantage is if you have an existing reservation and want to add someone later, or the other person is not traveling between the same two points (my case).

Also, the open sleeper ticket when associated with the other sleeper reservation 1) allows that second passenger to have meals included in the Dining Car, 2) allows that second passenger access to the sleeping car and 3) is priced possibly lower than just buying a coach ticket. And just a coach ticket will not allow that second passenger to be in the sleeper or to have included meals. (They would need to pay in the Dining Car.)

the_traveler said:

Also, the open sleeper ticket when associated with the other sleeper reservation 1) allows that second passenger to have meals included in the Dining Car, 2) allows that second passenger access to the sleeping car and 3) is priced possibly lower than just buying a coach ticket. And just a coach ticket will not allow that second passenger to be in the sleeper or to have included meals. (They would need to pay in the Dining Car.)

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Yes, but all of that would be the case if he just added the person directly to his sleeper reservation, anyway.

cpotisch said:

the_traveler said:

Also, the open sleeper ticket when associated with the other sleeper reservation 1) allows that second passenger to have meals included in the Dining Car, 2) allows that second passenger access to the sleeping car and 3) is priced possibly lower than just buying a coach ticket. And just a coach ticket will not allow that second passenger to be in the sleeper or to have included meals. (They would need to pay in the Dining Car.)

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Yes, but all of that would be the case if he just added the person directly to his sleeper reservation, anyway.

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I'm not sure they can "just add" another pax to an existing reservation. They may have to cancel and rebook which could cause the room cost to be more than originally paid.

In addition to the possibility of a 25% cancellation fee, a new reservation might be subject to higher fares due to changes in availability since the original reservation was made.

It is my impression that an "Open Sleeper" ticket MUST be associated with an existing sleeper reservation. Is this true?

Maglev said:

In addition to the possibility of a 25% cancellation fee, a new reservation might be subject to higher fares due to changes in availability since the original reservation was made.

It is my impression that an "Open Sleeper" ticket MUST be associated with an existing sleeper reservation. Is this true?

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Are you hoping to buy an Open Sleeper then take your chances someone will let you share their room on your travel date?

AmtrakBlue said:

Maglev said:

In addition to the possibility of a 25% cancellation fee, a new reservation might be subject to higher fares due to changes in availability since the original reservation was made.

It is my impression that an "Open Sleeper" ticket MUST be associated with an existing sleeper reservation. Is this true?

Click to expand...

Are you hoping to buy an Open Sleeper then take your chances someone will let you share their room on your travel date?

Click to expand...

I want to auction my spare berth to the highest bidder!