Can't book yet for December 12th

By my reckoning, a December 12-14 trip would be less than 11 months out now. It shows on Amsnag. and the Amtrak site allows me to choose route options. So, this evening, I tried to book a trip from MSP to WIH on the amtrak.com website, using points. Got all the way to the last screen, and THEN it said there was an issue with availability. So I called, and talked to Rodney at AGR. He was very nice, and after a while he came back and said "there's no manifest for the train on the 12th, yet. I can't choose a room for you. Try again in a week and see if it works then."

Has anyone else run into this? Do you think this has anything to do with the shutdown (even though they claimed it would not affect Amtrak)?

Could it be that you have to complete travel within 330 days and not just commence travel?

I saw on FB the other day someone say they’re having trouble booking an early December trip.

Could be a problem with ARROW.

Acela150 said:

Could be a problem with ARROW.

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Quite a Pointless ARROW, amirite?  

VTTrain said:

Could it be that you have to complete travel within 330 days and not just commence travel?

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Definitely not that. The rule is you have to board the train (or trains) within 11 months of booking.

Well, I called back a couple days later and had no problems. I booked the outbound trip as a separate res, just in case. No need to have the two reservations tied together anyway. But when it came to the return trip, it was booked without a hitch. I booked by calling Guest Rewards, because I wanted to choose my roomette numbers (not fond of #2, and I know that some others may have reasons to want it!). The agent was able to give me everything I wanted, and all at low bucket, too! :wub: