Amtrak Website Errors

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V

Viewliner

Engineer
Joined
Aug 23, 2002
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2,662
Location
New Jersey
Anybody ever notice how some things aren't corrected/corrected for a long time on the Amtrak Website.

For example

Trains that are Viewliners:
Crescent

Lake Shore Limited

Silver Service:

Silver Meteor

Silver Palm

Silver Star

Twilight Shoreliner
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Also, until a month or two ago, the Silver Service page said "The Silver Palm Also offers Business Class."

Also someone mentioned the map on the timetables still say Silver Palm on the Atlantic Coast Service.

Any other things anyone can point out.

After all, we all make mistakes. :) Even though we may make alot of them.
 
I bet the website designers were layed off or something and there is not enough staff to fix all the changes. It is misleading though, but is correct on the reservation system.
 
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but if you're in the reservations part of the site, and go back to the primary page where you put in your cities and dates, it defaults back to today's date, whatever date that might be. It does not retain the future dates you put in. This can be dangerous if somebody is booking a reservation for real, and ends up reserving a train for the day they are making the reservation.

People have tried to call this to the attention of Amtrak, but both e-mail and telephone messages never seem to reach the webmaster who is responsible for the program, and this bug. It's impossible to explain this to the clerk on the phone, and certainly Julie the Amtrak Robot is of no help either.
 
Superliner Diner said:
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but if you're in the reservations part of the site, and go back to the primary page where you put in your cities and dates, it defaults back to today's date, whatever date that might be. It does not retain the future dates you put in. This can be dangerous if somebody is booking a reservation for real, and ends up reserving a train for the day they are making the reservation.
People have tried to call this to the attention of Amtrak, but both e-mail and telephone messages never seem to reach the webmaster who is responsible for the program, and this bug. It's impossible to explain this to the clerk on the phone, and certainly Julie the Amtrak Robot is of no help either.
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I agree, that can be a pain with it defaulting. Its a good thing it shows the fares before its booked, otherwise you'd have a bigger problem.

Some of this info like the Silver Palm becoming the Palmetto not being noted is something that even I could fix and I'm 14 not some 25+ year old working on the site.
 
It's certainly a pain in the butt to. I usually switch around dates and times before I get a final intinerary and call Amtrak. If you want to avoid this you can go to the multi-trip page which will not change your info everytime you go back.
 
I just use the phone to make my reservations, although, I may check the fares. So for me its not really an issue.
 
With one exception, I've always booked on-line. I hate hanging on the phone, dealing with mistakes and other nonsense. I can do it so much faster myself.

In fact the one time that I did use the phone, the Amtrak agent made two mistakes. I had called for reservations on the Auto Train. I needed to do this since I was going down to Florida with my mom and my two nieces in a family room. Coming back it was just my mom and I in a deluxe room. Online reservations couldn't handle that. Plus I used my AAA discount for me, but my mom qualified for a senior discount. Online couldn't deal with that either.

In any event the agent misspelled one of my nieces name's and she forgot to give me my AAA discount on the carfare. So I had to call back to get that fixed, especially the name. Did you ever try explaining to a four year old who just learned to spell her name, why her name is misspelled? It's not fun.
 
I remember a long time ago, when I was in high school planning a trip to Florida, that I had to argue with agent about which silver service train split at Auburndale. She wanted to move me out of my slumbercoach at Jacksonville, and I did not want to switch until Orlando. Since I had carefully selected my trains based on this info, I knew I was right. When she looked it up in the computer, she found out I was right.
 
Another thing you have to be careful about is making reservatrions through a travel club type agency. You may ask, why even bother with one? Because the one I belong to, Travelers Advantage, gives you a rebate check after the trip. But these people do not necessarily know about trains. For example, on a trip two years ago, they did not understand that I needed a separate ticket to take the rail-bus from Emeryville into San Francisco..

Altruistically, it is good to give these people experience in booking train trips for you though...they can only learn by doing...just be sure they do not screw you up in the process...you can, in effect, teach them.
 
I’ve had to endure some colossal errors Amtrak agents have made for me on the phone. One was a trip on the Empire Builder in which I asked for a standard bedroom going from Portland to Chicago, and a second traveler accompanying me (in a standard bedroom) from Chicago back to Portland… all under one reservation. I was saved a few weeks after making the faulty reservation that was "tossed out" by the computer by a very knowledgeable agent, who said he was in Los Angeles, and who fixed everything for me, and saved me several hundred dollars in the process. The live agents seem to be able to perform well if the reservation isn’t too complicated.

I’ve found I can do anything I want on the web site, but only if I am careful, patient, refer to my own experience for appropriate prices, and use what I’ve learned in this forum to help me. This forum is, by far, the most valuable help.
 
I agree, it can be difficult to explain the reservations sometimes, but I make a simple round trip on the Silver Meteor, thus its not really a problem for me.
 
Train Arrival Status works for me from home, but from the laptop onboard I get an error on the page where status should appear? Anyone else have trouble with Status page? (I know, I know, the train's late so don't bother checking)
 
Bozo said:
Train Arrival Status works for me from home, but from the laptop onboard I get an error on the page where status should appear? Anyone else have trouble with Status page? (I know, I know, the train's late so don't bother checking)
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I never tried it while on board. I suppose that it could just be a problem with too much data over the cell phone circuits. Are you using your laptop at home or do you have another computer for home use?

If you are using a home computer and not your laptop at home then:

What happens if you use a land line with your laptop?

Does the page load properly then?

If not then the problem might lie with your laptop.
 
Superliner Diner said:
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but if you're in the reservations part of the site, and go back to the primary page where you put in your cities and dates, it defaults back to today's date, whatever date that might be. It does not retain the future dates you put in. This can be dangerous if somebody is booking a reservation for real, and ends up reserving a train for the day they are making the reservation.
Click to expand...
Maybe the planned maintenance this weekend will help to fix this problem.

Due to planned maintenance, Amtrak's online reservations system will be unavailable on Saturday, October 19 from 12:00 a.m. EDT to Sunday, October 20 at 10:00 a.m. EDT.
As a result, it will not be possible to view schedules and fares, or purchase tickets during this period. All other sections of www.amtrak.com will be available during this time. If you require immediate assistance, please call 1-800-USA-RAIL.
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The full press release from Amtrak can be found here.
 
Superliner Diner said:
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but if you're in the reservations part of the site, and go back to the primary page where you put in your cities and dates, it defaults back to today's date, whatever date that might be. It does not retain the future dates you put in. This can be dangerous if somebody is booking a reservation for real, and ends up reserving a train for the day they are making the reservation.
People have tried to call this to the attention of Amtrak, but both e-mail and telephone messages never seem to reach the webmaster who is responsible for the program, and this bug. It's impossible to explain this to the clerk on the phone, and certainly Julie the Amtrak Robot is of no help either.
Click to expand...
I'm going to resurect this old topic.

It would appear that the recent service outage last weekend for the reservation system has fixed the above problem, finally. When one returns to the first page within the reservation section, it now does retain your travel dates instead of reverting back to today's date. :)
 
I'm not and I just tried it again. I placed a date of June 30th into the reservation page, for Scott's trip, then went to the point of pricing a sleeper. When I click the back button on my browser to return to the very first page, the date of June 30th is still there.

Are you doing the same? :)
 
Now if I click the "Reservations Home" link at the top of the page, then yes it reverts back to today's date.
 
It could be the settings that you have chosen for your browser. It may not be downloading the new code, so try this. Go to the following link here, this way you ensure that you are on the same page that I'm on. Once you get to that page, click the refresh button at the top of your browser, before you start entering any info. This should cause you computer to download the latest code from Amtrak's website. Then try entering a future date and pricing the trip. Then click the back button until you return to the first page and see if the date stays the same, or if it reverts to today's date.
 
I've noticed a difference depending on if you've created an account in Amtrak's website. I just priced my Christmas trip home. When I got to the page, entered the information, got the price and returned to the first reservations page, the date had changed. Then I logged into the account that I created. Even though the dates I chose were not on the page when I returned to it, the dates were there after I had logged in. So, it appears the problem only occurs when you're not using an account on Amtrak's server.

If what I've said seems unclear, let me know.

Edit: One thing I just noticed. If you hit the "Reservations Home" link at the top of the page, it will reset the date and station information.
 
Now I'm getting a message like the following:

A site navigation error has been detected. This could be due to one of the following: 

 

* An invalid bookmark.

* An attempt to access a page out of sequence.

* An attempt to access a page not defined within the system.

 

 

To continue browsing the site, click on the Return to Main Page button below
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This is when I tried sending my e-mail to set up an account!
 
EmpireBuilderFan said:
I've noticed a difference depending on if you've created an account in Amtrak's website. I just priced my Christmas trip home. When I got to the page, entered the information, got the price and returned to the first reservations page, the date had changed. Then I logged into the account that I created. Even though the dates I chose were not on the page when I returned to it, the dates were there after I had logged in. So, it appears the problem only occurs when you're not using an account on Amtrak's server.
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Actually , while I do have an account I was not logged in when I was testing the dates yesterday.

Now oddly enough I just tried it from my laptop, as opposed to my home computer, and I reverted back to today's date. So I'll have to compare my internet explorer settings tonigh when I get home. There must be something different between the two computers.
 
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