E-Tickets

[acelafan]

I wasn't sure if it was new, never had it done. Ryan confirmed the practice. Thanks

 

[Trogdor]

I've never understood why people have such a fit about signing tickets. I mean, sure, it's not technically policy to require every ticket to be signed, but on the other hand, it takes about a half a second to do (you don't even have to sign legibly, using your actual signature, a couple of squiggly lines will suffice).

 

[Acela150]

Just made a few reservations for Tuesday. Trying to make the best of the "Summer Well Spent" promo. I used the Amtrak iPhone App. Sent barcodes to the app. It also sent me an e-mail from: [email protected] with pdf files of the print out. Very strange having something that I can lose and print over and over. But I'm so used to the punching and now I have to hear a beep. I'll be honest, I'm 20, very into the tech world. But this is one thing I'm not a fan of. When you grow up hearing that ticket punch and hearing conductors say "tickets please" and have this small piece of paper to retain for your trip, now I have a big piece of paper. I'll get used to it but It's just soooooo weird. I have countless ticket stubs with engine and car numbers. Wonder how I'll do it now.

 

[acelafan]

I agree with you, I have every ticket stub since 2009 when I started riding amtrak in earnest. Guess that's progress as they say.

By the way, they still say "Tickets please!" But it's not quite the same.

 

[jis]

By the way, you have to have an Internet connection to pull up the QR code in the iPhone app. Seems that could be problematic at rural stations with no data service.

You have to have internet connection at some point to get the thing on your mobile device. Once you get it there you can always save either the document away or a screenshot of it, depending on the capabilities of your mobile device, and then no further internet connectivity is necessary.

I have done the same with airline e-Boarding passes and it has always worked.

 

[printman2000]

By the way, you have to have an Internet connection to pull up the QR code in the iPhone app. Seems that could be problematic at rural stations with no data service.

You have to have internet connection at some point to get the thing on your mobile device. Once you get it there you can always save either the document away or a screenshot of it, depending on the capabilities of your mobile device, and then no further internet connectivity is necessary.

I have done the same with airline e-Boarding passes and it has always worked.

All true. I am just curious if there will be people expecting to pull up their Amtrak app only to find no data connection available. Probably will not happen too often, but there is the potential. And the backup would always be the conductor just pulling up their names on his iPhone.

 

[jis]

By the way, you have to have an Internet connection to pull up the QR code in the iPhone app. Seems that could be problematic at rural stations with no data service.

You have to have internet connection at some point to get the thing on your mobile device. Once you get it there you can always save either the document away or a screenshot of it, depending on the capabilities of your mobile device, and then no further internet connectivity is necessary.

I have done the same with airline e-Boarding passes and it has always worked.

All true. I am just curious if there will be people expecting to pull up their Amtrak app only to find no data connection available. Probably will not happen too often, but there is the potential. And the backup would always be the conductor just pulling up their names on his iPhone.

Actually the Amtrak App could mimic what the UA App does, which is to store the e-Boarding passes locally until the itinerary is removed from the itinerary list. So no connection required if you have checked in using the App. The document arrives as soon as you check in and stays in the App until after the flight.

 

[printman2000]

Actually the Amtrak App could mimic what the UA App does, which is to store the e-Boarding passes locally until the itinerary is removed from the itinerary list. So no connection required if you have checked in using the App. The document arrives as soon as you check in and stays in the App until after the flight.

If you have the QR code pulled up and then lose connection, you can still see it when re-entering the app. However, if the app gets restarted (totally closed) or you did not pull it up while you had a data connection, then you cannot get to the QR code. I see no way to store it locally within the app.

I confirmed all this using airplane mode.

 

[Ryan]

Yeah, I just checked the same thing. If you try to launch the app in airplane mode, it refuses to even start. You get a modal dialog box telling you to connect to the internet and then the program terminates.

Amazing. Hopefully this can be fixed in future updates to the app.

 

[jis]

Yeah, I just checked the same thing. If you try to launch the app in airplane mode, it refuses to even start. You get a modal dialog box telling you to connect to the internet and then the program terminates.

Amazing. Hopefully this can be fixed in future updates to the app.

A bit of an aside just to point out that this problem in distributed solutions architecture is not new. People who have grown up with monolithic architectures forget to design things around the possibility that a connectivity may not exists when unreliable network infrastructure is involved. It requires a significant change in design attitudes. But people will learn as they go along. We in the industry have faced this problem since the early days of distributed computing dating back to the mid 70s.

The UA app which has been around longer is better at handling such situations, maybe partly because people do want to look up stuff while in flight in Airline Mode. But still it falls short IMHO. For example it does not keep itinerary summaries on board, so while you can see a one liner description of an itinerary you cannot see the actual itinerary. But at least once downloaded it keeps the Boarding Pass around AFAICT. Though as I said, I always keep a screenshot backup just in case. Many of these apps are quite flaky when it comes down to dependability. They are all quite useful when they work but are also all somewhat flaky.

 

[deathcabforchristina]

Ok so this morning at penn station baltimore, the baggage counter would not accept my e-ticket and made me print one at the quik trak machine!

 

[Ryan]

The baggage clerk doesn't have the ability to just scan a bar code and see where the bags should be routed to? Hopefully that can be resolved.

 

[CHamilton]

My friends who left SEA yesterday afternoon told me that the baggage clerk there hadn't yet seen an e-ticket, but that she was able to figure it out. It sounds like baggage people may not have gotten any training on the new system.

 

[jis]

The baggage clerk doesn't have the ability to just scan a bar code and see where the bags should be routed to? Hopefully that can be resolved.

The e-Ticket PDF attached to the email or even the one downloaded in the App has every piece of information that is needed regarding the itinerary in human readable form. However, that information is current as of the time the e-Ticket was downloaded. It is possible for the itinerary to have changed in the time since one downloaded the e-Ticket, and to guard against that possibility it makes sense for the baggage clerk to make sure that the itinerary in the e-Ticket being presented was the most upto date version of it, and a way to ensure that is to get it printed out at the time the baggage is checked.

The only way the baggage clerk could do without a printout is if s/he is also given one of the e-Ticket scanning devices which can pull up the latest itinerary.

 

[printman2000]

Ok so this morning at penn station baltimore, the baggage counter would not accept my e-ticket and made me print one at the quik trak machine!

That is quite incredible that an employee knows nothing about an e-ticket. Then again, it is Amtrak.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Ok so this morning at penn station baltimore, the baggage counter would not accept my e-ticket and made me print one at the quik trak machine!

That is quite incredible that an employee knows nothing about an e-ticket. Then again, it is Amtrak.

Perhaps you were typing this as JIS was making his post.

She didn't say the employee knew nothing about it, but that the employee would not accept it.

 

[printman2000]

Ok so this morning at penn station baltimore, the baggage counter would not accept my e-ticket and made me print one at the quik trak machine!

That is quite incredible that an employee knows nothing about an e-ticket. Then again, it is Amtrak.

Perhaps you were typing this as JIS was making his post.

She didn't say the employee knew nothing about it, but that the employee would not accept it.

I HIGHLY doubt the guy at the baggage desk was just making sure the itinerary had not changed. I am betting he has had customers show up with just there reservation printouts(pre e-tickets) and is just use to telling people with printouts to go print their tickets.

If someone had their paper tickets printed out 11 months before they travel, their itinerary could have changed since then. You really think the baggage guy made them do anything?

 

[jis]

I HIGHLY doubt the guy at the baggage desk was just making sure the itinerary had not changed. I am betting he has had customers show up with just there reservation printouts(pre e-tickets) and is just use to telling people with printouts to go print their tickets.

Isn't that a somewhat extreme position based on per-conceived notions and next to zero evidence? At least I think so.

If someone had their paper tickets printed out 11 months before they travel, their itinerary could have changed since then. You really think the baggage guy made them do anything?

But they could not travel a different itinerary from that on the ticket using that ticket, no matter when they printed it. Things are different with e-ticket. The same PNR could have a very different itinerary under it at one time from another. A ticket once printed is not changeable without substitution with a new set of tickets.

 

[printman2000]

I HIGHLY doubt the guy at the baggage desk was just making sure the itinerary had not changed. I am betting he has had customers show up with just there reservation printouts(pre e-tickets) and is just use to telling people with printouts to go print their tickets.

Isn't that a somewhat extreme position based on per-conceived notions and next to zero evidence? At least I think so.

Not sure I would use the word "extreme"? Just from my experience dealing with Amtrak. Do YOU really think the guy was worried that that her e-ticket was not correct? Or does it make more sense that he is use to sending people with printouts to the QT machine?

If someone had their paper tickets printed out 11 months before they travel, their itinerary could have changed since then. You really think the baggage guy made them do anything?

But they could not travel a different itinerary from that on the ticket using that ticket, no matter when they printed it. Things are different with e-ticket. The same PNR could have a very different itinerary under it at one time from another. A ticket once printed is not changeable without substitution with a new set of tickets.

You do have a point. I wonder, though, how much change can happen before a new reservation number would be generated.

I still do not think there is much chance that this person was simply being sure of the itinerary. I would like to think so, but experience just does not dictate that.

 

[jis]

I HIGHLY doubt the guy at the baggage desk was just making sure the itinerary had not changed. I am betting he has had customers show up with just there reservation printouts(pre e-tickets) and is just use to telling people with printouts to go print their tickets.

Isn't that a somewhat extreme position based on per-conceived notions and next to zero evidence? At least I think so.

Not sure I would use the word "extreme"? Just from my experience dealing with Amtrak. Do YOU really think the guy was worried that that her e-ticket was not correct? Or does it make more sense that he is use to sending people with printouts to the QT machine?

Without knowing more I have no basis to think this way or that. I don't even know the people involved from Adam to know what their normal behavior is.

If someone had their paper tickets printed out 11 months before they travel, their itinerary could have changed since then. You really think the baggage guy made them do anything?

But they could not travel a different itinerary from that on the ticket using that ticket, no matter when they printed it. Things are different with e-ticket. The same PNR could have a very different itinerary under it at one time from another. A ticket once printed is not changeable without substitution with a new set of tickets.

You do have a point. I wonder, though, how much change can happen before a new reservation number would be generated.

There is no reason to create a new PNR at any point. Heck airlines have changed my itinerary from traveling westwards around the world to eastwards without changing PNR number. Why would Amtrak have to be different from that. Afterall their system comes from the same place that the airline ones come from.

 

[printman2000]

Jis, we can go round and round. I am just saying what I believe to be more likely based on my experience with Amtrak. You, apparently, are not willing to make that call based on your experience, and I am cool with that.

It would be nice if deathcabforchristina would post back with some more detail, but in the long run, it does not really matter.

As for e-tickets and changes in the itinerary. If I had a reservation from Lamy to Chicago, called up Amtrak and told them I wanted instead to go from Chicago to Lamy, do you think they would change my reservation? Or would they cancel my reservation and make a new one? I suspect the former, but do not really know for sure.

Now if I called them and wanted to change Lamy to Albuquerque, I would suspect the latter, and again, don't really know for sure.

 

[E Runs]

As for e-tickets and changes in the itinerary. If I had a reservation from Lamy to Chicago, called up Amtrak and told them I wanted instead to go from Chicago to Lamy, do you think they would change my reservation? Or would they cancel my reservation and make a new one? I suspect the former, but do not really know for sure.

Now if I called them and wanted to change Lamy to Albuquerque, I would suspect the latter, and again, don't really know for sure.

Last summer my travel plans went from GJT-CHI on the CZ to ALB-CHI on the Chief and back to the GJT-CHI on the CZ (long story) and kept the same reservation number throughout. Of course that was before E-ticketing so they may have changed procedure.

 

[jis]

As for e-tickets and changes in the itinerary. If I had a reservation from Lamy to Chicago, called up Amtrak and told them I wanted instead to go from Chicago to Lamy, do you think they would change my reservation? Or would they cancel my reservation and make a new one? I suspect the former, but do not really know for sure.

Now if I called them and wanted to change Lamy to Albuquerque, I would suspect the latter, and again, don't really know for sure.

Technically there is no reason to change the PNR number. They would need to release each segment that you are not traveling anymore and attach new segments that you want to travel. As for what they may or may not actually do that is a different matter.

Indeed at least in case of some airlines that is exactly how they handle non-refundable tickets. They just book the reuse of the are under the same PNR of course accounting for any additional fare or refund voucher to actually associate the right final fare with the PNR.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

In my experience PNR's rarely change, and unless you're joining or splitting a reservation between two or more people there's really no reason for them to change. In general the original PNR will remain active until the last segment has either been used or has expired. After that the PNR will become inactive for a period of time and then eventually be recycled into someone else's newly activated record. Or at least that is my understanding.

 

[deathcabforchristina]

Sorry connection is spotty, we just hit charlotsville, i handed the baggage man my e-ticket, he said it wasnt a real ticket. So i went to the quik-trak and printed a new ticket.

In other funny news, I got a seat to myself for now because one of the train attendants was flirting with me haha