Amtrak Fare Bucket ???

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Ctim2

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Help, I’m Trying to understand the AMTRAK fair bucket system. It seems that it’s different from the Airline system which seems to be based on time booked against departure date. What is the AMTRAK fare bucket system based on?

Here is why I ask; I was interested in using Amtrak for a quick business trip (w/ Sleeper) from the east coast to Atlanta. A week and a half ago I checked availability and 19 was showing both on the Amtrak site and AMSNAG a coach fare between $138.00 and $217.00 plus and additional $438.00 for the sleeper roomette I wanted. This fare level appeared for about 7 days. Then to my surprise while checking two days ago (just to see high much higher the fare was) the coach fare dropped to $318.00 with a roomette charge of $155.00. This was with 4 day before my scheduled departure. How does this fare bucket thing work?

Tim
 
Amtrak's fare bucket system is not like the airline's system. On Amtrak, it is based on the number of seats/rooms sold on a specific train for a specific date or time.

To make it VERY simple, say a train has 100 seats. The lowest bucket is the first ticket sold thru #19. The next bucket is the 20th ticket sold thru the 39th, etc...

As soon as the 19th ticket is sold, the fare rises to the next bucket. It doesn't matter if it's 10 months out, 6 months out, 6 days out or 6 hours out! That's why a train on the 8th may not be the same price as one on the 7th or 9th. And on routes with more than 1 train a day, the 3 pm train may have a fare different than the 11 am train! And although rare, you could find today's train priced lower than one 7 months from today, because today's train has less seats sold!
 
Actually, that's basically how the airlines work as well (based on seats, not time) - if you enable "Expert Mode" with United, you can actually get it to show you the number of seats available in each fare class (the popup box over on the right):

United_Buckets_Available.png


That said, Amtrak had been much more proactive recently (within the past year or two) managing how much inventory is in each bucket in order to maximize revenue. With both the airlines and Amtrak, the number of seats available in each bucket can and do change without notice.
 
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Ryan said:
Actually, that's basically how the airlines work as well (based on seats, not time)
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Yeah, the days when there were fixed price bumps at 21 days out, 14 days out and 7 days out are pretty much gone. It's pure supply and demand now, as well as automated monitoring of competitor's fares. Fare updates are actually published into the central clearinghouse several times per day.
 
Aaron said:
the_traveler said:
However, try to get a low bucket fare on an airline on the day of travel, or even the 13th day before departure, even if the flight is empty!
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Sure, I've done it several times.
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And I did it on the CZ in April 2013, switching from coach to the lowest-bucket-priced roomette on the day before departure. And I did so specifically because coach seats for my travel day were being offered at the highest (or near-highest) bucket, leading me to conclude that my already-ticketed coach would be very crowded, making it even more worthwhile to me to pay the extra cost to switch to sleeper.
 
crescent2 said:
When (how far in advance of travel) is "usually" the best time to get lowest airline coach fares? They don't have an amsnag! :( Thanks-
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I typically find that between three months and six weeks in advance is an optimum time for booking air. If any of the low cost carriers are running specials (usually matched by the legacy carriers), it seems to be within that time frame. However, it is possible to get good fares up to a week or so before travel. On the other hand, booking multiple months in advance is rarely advantageous with the possible exception of travel at peak times.

Most airline websites allow you to search fares with flexible dates. They return a calendar or matrix of the lowest fares for a range of departure and return dates. While a nice tool, often the lowest fare on a given date is an undesirable flight like a red eye. You don't know that until you select dates and then look at individual flights.

No question: Amsnag is the gold standard for fare search.
 
Google Flights is a good tool though they may not have all airlines listed. There are several ways to filter the search besides dates - by departure time & maybe arrival time, by airlines, by cost. You can even enter more than one airport if that works for you (I live between PHL & BWI).

I typed this info from memory so I could be wrong on some of it. :eek: :p
 
Ive found the Best prices for Flights (admittedly Rare Now Days!)on CheapFlights.com!! (Example, AUS-SEA on Alaska Airlines, $118 Taxes included! when Alaska itselff was showing $278!!!) Remember that Southwest airlines doesnt have their Prices posted on these Sites, they have their own site! (swa.com)
 
Wow, thanks all! I certainly didn't know that United had anything like that.

I don't fly that often, but if I'm going very far, it's usually the only practical option.

Related to the "crazy" Amtrak fares, such as when a bedroom is a little cheaper than a roomette on the same train:

For my flight to Europe this fall, traveling from Charlotte to London was a little cheaper than Atlanta to London, even though the Charlotte flight stopped in Atlanta before continuing across the pond. It was the same flight, but cost less if you boarded in Charlotte, even though that made a longer flight. We still opted for ATL, because Charlotte is just too far away from us.
 

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