Buh-bye, Amtrak AAA Discount

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I think if you get the value discount two weeks ahead or more, you get 20 or 25 percent off (used to be 25, but not sure if it's gone down to 20) the regular fare, which works out to more than the 10 percent seniors now get. The value fare was even a better deal when seniors got 15 percent.

Others on here will chime in if I have my facts wrong, but I think that's why it is cheaper.
 
It looks like the senior discount is also gone during the busy season. If you try to book and click senior it puts you right back to the std Adult fare. .
Because the "value" fare is cheaper without the Senior Discount...........
Sorry, the Value fare is cheaper if it doesn't have the Senior Discount? Why?
He means a saver fare can be cheaper than a discounted value fare. And it will show “Fare Alert” under the saver fare if it is.
 
I've got my saver and value terms mixed up, I think. Which is the one that is the 25 percent off if you plan ahead and get it at least two weeks before you leave?
 
It looks like the senior discount is also gone during the busy season. If you try to book and click senior it puts you right back to the std Adult fare. .
Because the "value" fare is cheaper without the Senior Discount...........
Sorry, the Value fare is cheaper if it doesn't have the Senior Discount? Why?
He means a saver fare can be cheaper than a discounted value fare. And it will show “Fare Alert” under the saver fare if it is.
Oh that. According to the Amtrak site, Saver fares are 25% cheaper than Value fares. So if you do the math, Saver fares are 16.7% cheaper than the lowest discounted Value Fare.
 
I've got my saver and value terms mixed up, I think. Which is the one that is the 25 percent off if you plan ahead and get it at least two weeks before you leave?
That's Saver.
Except that for the LD trains, the Saver fare is only 20% off (or 20% less than) the Value fare - not 25% off (or 25% less than) the Value fare.

But the obverse of this is that the Value fare is thus 25% more than the Saver fare.
 
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I've got my saver and value terms mixed up, I think. Which is the one that is the 25 percent off if you plan ahead and get it at least two weeks before you leave?
That's Saver.
Except that for the LD trains, the Saver fare is only 20% off (or 20% less than) the Value fare - not 25% off (or 25% less than) the Value fare.

But the obverse of this is that the Value fare is thus 25% more than the Saver fare.
What if you're taking an LD train short distance? Is a Saver fare on the Meteor from NYP to WAS slightly more expensive than a Saver fare on a Regional?
 
Never had much interest in the trains in the Northeast, but did find what seems an oddity: On 6 Nov 2108, all the NER trains from NYP to WAS have $98 Value fares and $49 Saver fares - or 50% off!

Maybe there's a sale going on?
 
I recently booked two round trips from CLE-BOS that were cheaper if I didn't apply the NARP discount, which seemed odd as well.
 
The key factor about the Saver fare is that it's already discounted. It's discounted from the "value" bucket. It's discounted at 25% off. You can't discount something that's already discounted in this situation.
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Never had much interest in the trains in the Northeast, but did find what seems an oddity: On 6 Nov 2108, all the NER trains from NYP to WAS have $98 Value fares and $49 Saver fares - or 50% off!

Maybe there's a sale going on?
Couldn't it just be that the Value fares are at a high bucket?
 
I think Amtrak forces the NYP - WAS Saver fares to $49, not a set percentage off the standard low bucket. There's a few other routes that are like that (I think BOS - NYP is similar, and a couple others.) It's mainly for marketing and competition purposes (to compete a bit against the discount bus lines and to compete against the air shuttle market.)
 
I think Amtrak forces the NYP - WAS Saver fares to $49, not a set percentage off the standard low bucket. There's a few other routes that are like that (I think BOS - NYP is similar, and a couple others.) It's mainly for marketing and competition purposes (to compete a bit against the discount bus lines and to compete against the air shuttle market.)
I thought that Saver fares are always 25% (or 20% in the case of LD trains) off the lowest bucket Value fare. No?
 
I thought that Saver fares are always 25% (or 20% in the case of LD trains) off the lowest bucket Value fare. No?
No. Amtrak will occasionally override that default behavior for certain sales or certain city pairs. The $49 NYP - WAS fare has been there for years, through multiple hikes of the buckets. That fare (along with a few others) aren't directly tied to the Value fare.
 
As I understand it, there are set numbers of Saver seats available for each train - and my guess is that the price is 25% off the lowest value fare. So, it's possible that the bucket price for the value fare to go up before all the Saver seats have been sold.
 
As I understand it, there are set numbers of Saver seats available for each train - and my guess is that the price is 25% off the lowest value fare. So, it's possible that the bucket price for the value fare to go up before all the Saver seats have been sold.
I'm not sure that's entirely the case. I've yet to see an example where the Saver fare is being sold on a train but the Value fare is above the low bucket fare.

I took a peek at NER fares NYP - WAS and I can't find a fare below $98 in the Value category for multiple dates across multiple different months. It's possible that there's a Value fare bucket below that, but I've yet to see it. I also recall the $49 fare existing for a number of years NYP - WAS, and for sure the $79 BOS - WAS fare was there in 2015 (I booked it then, and it still exists today) and there's been multiple fare increases since then for the Value/Flexible buckets. I'm pretty sure they manually set those city pair prices so they can compete in markets where there's a lot more competition.
 
AAA has been gone since February.
Nope. It's been gone since fall of last year.
Here is the link to my original topic of the AAA discount being discontinued.

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/72335-aaa-discontinued-effective-21818/?hl=discount&do=findComment&comment=740951

OK, so my original memory of Spring 2018 was right afterall, not that it matters a heck of a lot.
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You were close.
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That's what matters.
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AAA was still available the beginning of February, but by mid-April it was gone.
See the post above that is on the first page of the topic.
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I booked 3 Jan 2018 & got AAA discount. Amtrak sent an adjusted ticket on 9 Feb 2018 still showing my AAA discount. Unfortunately I had to cancel those tickets & when I booked 17 Apr 2018 AAA was no longer available.

ETA: I missed the original post & wanted to help with the timing. When AAA was removed, I signed up with NARP.
 
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