Will Amtrak upgrade your first class accommodations for missed connection?

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spinnaker

Lead Service Attendant
Joined
Mar 23, 2018
Messages
419
Say you have a first class ticket in a roomette  with a guaranteed connection.    Amtrak misses that connection.   So you need to take a different train.  There are no roomettes available on the train  but there are bedrooms or family rooms open.    Will Amtrak upgrade you a level for what you paid for the roomette?
 
Probably depends on how many people are in the same boat, and therefeore if they can treat all missed connection passengers equally (so if there are five people booked in Roomettes but only one Bedroom available, out of fairness they might not upgrade anyone).

Still, I may be talking nonsense, since I don’t think I’ve heard any actual cases of them doing this, and what might seem fair and logical is not necessarily what they do. :wacko:
 
Been in this boat, got the life preserver.

Moral of the story is: be an educated and aware traveler. Pay close attention to your progress, and if it becomes clear you're going to miss-connect, don't wait for Amtrak to solve things. Get on the internet and check your options. Have those ready. Then call and get a reservation agent. Explain your problem and tell them the solution. Most times, they will need a supervisor to approve, but you get to have a say (and probably a bed).  Did this and nabbed the very last bedroom between Chicago and New York for two days (on the Cardinal no less) for no additional charge from a roommate due to a blizzard shutting down the eastern seaboard while riding east on the CZ through Iowa. If I had waited, I would have spent the night in a Chicago hotel and ridden coach with a hundred others downgraded the next day.
 
I had a Roomette reservation on the Silver star from NYP to Miami. I pulled the ticket from the QuikTrac machine and I had been upgraded to a Bedroom at no additional cost. I was not notified in advance either.
 
Been in this boat, got the life preserver.

Moral of the story is: be an educated and aware traveler. Pay close attention to your progress, and if it becomes clear you're going to miss-connect, don't wait for Amtrak to solve things. Get on the internet and check your options. Have those ready. Then call and get a reservation agent. Explain your problem and tell them the solution. Most times, they will need a supervisor to approve, but you get to have a say (and probably a bed).  Did this and nabbed the very last bedroom between Chicago and New York for two days (on the Cardinal no less) for no additional charge from a roommate due to a blizzard shutting down the eastern seaboard while riding east on the CZ through Iowa. If I had waited, I would have spent the night in a Chicago hotel and ridden coach with a hundred others downgraded the next day.
This! All too often, passengers who know they’re going to miss a connection just wait and assume Amtrak will be able to deal with it on their own, and then end up fighting with a dozen other passengers for that last Roomette on the next day’s train. It’s always wise to speed up the process and have them accommodate you first!
 
There have been reports of alert passengers trying to resolve a miss-connect ahead of time only to be told by Amtrak reservations that they needed to wait until they reached a packed customer service desk in Chicago to actually re-book.  Back in the day Amtrak would have a reservations resource board late trains while en route to help facilitate the re-booking process before arrival, but that no longer appears to be the case.  Even if you're allowed to resolve your missconnect over the phone the majority of missconnecting sleeper passengers are going to be bumped back into coach due to lack available onward compartments.
 
I was on the Empire Builder with a connection to the Cardinal (final destination Baltimore) when it was late. Amtrak's plan was to bus us to Cincinnati. Went online before getting to Chicago and found a roomette on the next day's Capitol Limited. Called reservations and got my ticket changed to the Capitol Limited and the NER. In Chicago went to customer service to request that my checked bag be put on the bus. When the agent came back from putting everyone else on the bus, I asked her for a hotel recommendation. She filled out a hotel voucher, we went to the ticket counter, where I paid for the room, and so I got the Amtrak contract rate at the hotel.
 
Our only experience with this scenario is about 6 years back when the Empire Builder was late all the time. As soon as it was evident that we would not arrive in Chicago until our connection had departed I called customer service and they redid our tickets for the next day. They also put us up as guests at the Embassy Suites in a Chicago suburb that night and bought us breakfast. I believe that type of customer service is no longer offered.
 
When I missed my connection (by a couple of minutes!) from the 2018 Gathering I was able to get rebooked at the counter fairly quickly. The default offer that I received was a roomette on the next day's train, a downtown hotel (the Swissotel, I think,) a taxi voucher, and a $10 food coupon. Since we needed to get home right away and since they had a Amtrak-ticketed Greyhound on the route, we asked about moving to that to get home sooner. They directed us to the Greyhound counter in the station, where the Greyhound agent was able to get us on an earlier bus from the Chicago Greyhound terminal to Minneapolis. Made for a very late night, but we did get to sleep in our own beds that night. On the plus side, when I called AGR to cancel my onward ticket (to free up the room) I got a refund of the points for that leg despite them paying for the bus transfer already.
 
Our only experience with this scenario is about 6 years back when the Empire Builder was late all the time. As soon as it was evident that we would not arrive in Chicago until our connection had departed I called customer service and they redid our tickets for the next day. They also put us up as guests at the Embassy Suites in a Chicago suburb that night and bought us breakfast. I believe that type of customer service is no longer offered.
It is! Lots of us have received similar help in Chicago when Connections are missed!
 
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