Help me out here - understanding the many specials and deals

[BALtoNYPtraveler]

I got an email about a three-day special: Today through the 29th, book travel on select Northeast Corridor trips for as low as $39 each way (for what I would be booking, BAL to NYP and back home, which happens to be one of the few eligible locations, and it's during the stated travel dates, which is December 1-18.)

I already called about this and the agent said what is available to her is not the same as what is online-only, and this is online-only.

It says discount will be applied after booking. I already booked (several weeks ago) and paid a lot more than that.

Is anyone familiar with the promotion I just read about, and can anyone help me to know how this works? This seems unfair that someone could jump in and book the same thing I booked weeks ago, and pay a lot less, with less notice than I gave when booking. Also, it says "Fare discount will be automatically applied when qualifying travel is selected." What does that mean- that the price displayed will be higher, but when you actually pay, the lower amount will be shown?

? ? ?

I see in the fine print it says subject to availability. But I looked at available trains and I do see that price for odd times that don't help me. That much I understand; they want to book the less-traveled times of day and fill up the train. What I don't understand is the wording of the ad: It implies that I could pick a higher price and the discount will be applied.. when? Also, I don't undertand the nature of the "three day only" incentive. Those fares were probably there and will be there again later. I see those very low fares at times that don't help me, like 3AM or 3PM. What is the "three days only" all about?

 

[jebr]

Amtrak sometimes runs promotional fares below even the normal "saver" price, and those ones are for a limited time only (the three days.) Airlines often do something similar where there's a promotional time to fill up the flights that aren't selling well. Amtrak will sometimes do something similar...if a train isn't filling up, they'll offer a promo rate (often with restrictions) to try and fill it up. They keep it short to try and get people to book it even if they're not 100% sure they'll make the trip.

 

[BALtoNYPtraveler]

I guess what I'm saying is: I understand nothing is guaranteed to be fair in life, but would they really take $393 from me and then let someone else sit next to me and pay $234? (this is round-trip, for three people, so it's $39 times three, times two.)

There's no way for me to get the advertised fare?

Also, how can I tell what fares "are eligible" if it says they will display AFTER reserving?

This is so confusing to me.

Let me try to clarify something, since people are trying to help (and I appreciate it.) I do see some $39 fares when I look at available trains. Is that what this is all about? Since it said the fare would appear after qualifying travel is selected, I'm just really confused about what "qualifying travel" means in this context.

 

[City of Miami]

The thing you can do is try a lot of 'test' bookings online and go to the next to last step (before 'supply payment info')and see what the final price is. Then empty your basket. I'll bet your conjecture is correct that the available seats will be very early or very late on those days. I know from recent experience that the lowest 'Saver' bucket price is $52 BAL-NYP, and it's hard to get midday.

Edit: You're making it too complicated. If you see $39 fares on trains that work for you, take them. Pay for them. The price you see is the price you pay.

 

[jebr]

Let me try to clarify something, since people are trying to help (and I appreciate it.) I do see some $39 fares when I look at available trains. Is that what this is all about? Since it said the fare would appear after qualifying travel is selected, I'm just really confused about what "qualifying travel" means in this context.

Yeah, that's what it's all about. The "qualifying travel" is for specific train schedules, usually the off-peak ones that people aren't already booking. It's an incentive to try and fill up the trains that don't have a lot of people on them right now. It sounds like it's not an every train special, just certain ones. The qualifying travel will also specify what dates the promotion is running, but it may not be on every schedule (and you'd probably see it on the first page when looking up the different schedules.)

As for the first question: yes, Amtrak will sell fares for cheaper than what they're first booked at. Sometimes those fares have additional stipulations attached to them, but sometimes it's nothing more than that Amtrak overestimated the demand on a certain schedule and needs to lower fares to entice customers to take that specific train day/time. Airlines will do something similar as well. In part, booking early allows you to ensure that you won't pay more than a specific amount, and often if you're taking a popular time earlier is better.

 

[BALtoNYPtraveler]

Citi of Miami: I did that, and all I saw was a total that was exactly as displayed (which is now up to $474, so apparently I did get some benefit from booking when I did.)

I guess they have many fancy ways of saying, "Look, we have some low fares on some trains at some times" but they're making it sound like normally displayed fares will be reduced at checkout with this promotion.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

You could always book at the new fare and cancel the previously purchased tickets...but be aware that you need to do the cancel ASAP after booking because if hte computer catches you having two trips booked on the same day (double booking) it will automatically cancel one of them and it might be the cheaper one that it cancels.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

I guess what I'm saying is: I understand nothing is guaranteed to be fair in life, but would they really take $393 from me and then let someone else sit next to me and pay $234?

That's pretty typical with a lot of travel.

Not every passenger one an airplane pay the same fare. Not every guest at a hotel pay the same for a room. Not every passenger on a cruise, pay the same rate.

 

[BALtoNYPtraveler]

jebr: Thanks. I guess the wording confused me a little. I guess I thought it was like (I keep making this analogy to a particular clothing store, LOL) when you buy a coat marked $70 but since it's on sale, at checkout it will display as really being $39 as advertised in the email, if bought within the next three days.

I'll get the hang of reading all these promotional emails soon enough. What got me going was seeing the exact dates I already booked, and seeing much lower prices than I paid for travel on those dates.

I looked it over and it turns out that the seats they're trying to fill are: Ungodly early like 3AM, then middle of the day, then ungodly late. This makes sense. And since we're doing a ride-up-in-the-morning and ride-home-in-the-evening, which is probably a popular plan, those seats are in demand and therefore not on sale.

 

[BCL]

I thought that most specials are either promo codes (possibly even applied by a conductor) or could only be booked through a web link. Then there are the SmartFares.

 

[niemi24s]

. . . would they really take $393 from me and then let someone else sit next to me and pay $234?

Except for the details, your situation is essentially the same as when one traveler buys a ticket for a low bucket price and then later on somebody else buys a ticket for the same day & train at a higher bucket price. Two people get the same train ride for different prices. Happens all the time. However, you might trying getting another ticket at the discounted price and then cancel the previous reservation and get a refund or credit.

Fairness has nothing to do with it.

 

[BALtoNYPtraveler]

Thanks, AmtrakBlue. The agent I spoke with was helpful and said she'd cancel one out for me. I don't know why people are afraid to call them up; I see a lot of chitchat here about how to do things when one obvious way is to call and let the agents help you - it doesn't cost anything to get their help and they're very efficient and eager to help.

Cho Cho Charlie: I would ask for the same rates they are currently offering to new customers if I saw them offering lower ones. The agent said she would get it for me, if that happened.

It turns out they're just trying to fill seats at odd times that are not in demand, and I understand business, so I get that. The promotion page just confused me into thinking it was something else.

 

[Bob Dylan]

As was said, fairness has nothing to do with supply and demand when it comes to transportation pricing!

Sometimes out of the hundreds of people on a train or plane, there will only be a few that actually paid the exact same Fare for the trip!

 

[BALtoNYPtraveler]

I think I was misunderstood when I said "fair." I'm familiar with this, and I think it's normal in business:

People who book earlier pay less. People who book later pay more. (In general, right?)

I thought they were doing something like this:

People who book early pay a certain price. People who come in later under a "special deal" pay less than those who planned ahead and booked early.

In my case, that's not what's happening. I don't know what's going on with the seats at the odd times I can't use. If I had booked one of those and it became even cheaper for latecomers, I'd ask them to reduce my fare and give me what the latecomers are getting. I believe the agent said they can do that, unless it's a "web only" special (which I think these are.)

At any rate, this doesn't apply to me, since the seats I booked on the departure portion are the same price as of now and on the return portion of the trip are more expensive now for latecomers (makes sense). The "deep discount" deals are at times of day I can't use, so I'm not thinking about it anymore.

But I will do the following routinely: Check my booked tickets a few times before I travel to see if the prices have decreased, and then see if an agent can reduce those for me, or if I can exchange them online. Maybe not, if they're "web only." These "web only" specials probably apply only to "saver" fares and I don't think I've booked any of those yet. Those are already darned cheap at those odd times, anyway. If I didn't have travel companions to think about, I'd probably be one of those 3AM travelers just to save some $$$.

 

[jebr]

People who book earlier pay less. People who book later pay more. (In general, right?)

In travel, this is only extremely roughly true. In general, a more accurate depiction for travel is:

Low-to-medium cost further out, leaning towards medium cost. If it's an unpopular time of year, fares (and hotel room costs, etc.) may start fairly low. If it's a relatively popular time of year, it may be medium to medium-high cost to start out with. This generally holds until about 3 or so months out.

As the time of travel/time of hotel booking gets closer, prices will generally fluctuate. If the time or day is popular, the cost will steadily increase. If it's proving unpopular, prices will lower to start trying to fill seats/rooms/etc. Typically the lowest prices will come out about 4-6 weeks before the date of travel, assuming it is not a popular travel day.

From that point, the closer in to the date we get, the higher prices go, especially for travel. Hotels fluctuate a bit more (and more often seem to often cheap prices closer in if there's a lot of empty rooms,) but airline, intercity train, and even bus service to some extent goes up. Sometimes fares will go down for very specific routes/times if they're extremely empty or they're not expecting people to book last-minute, but generally this is the most expensive time to book a ticket.

 

[niemi24s]

About the only way way to get a true feeling for how fares fluctuate as the travel date nears is to pick a route to study and some day of travel a month or two in the future. Then, begin by using the Amtrak website to get and record the 2 or 3 different coach and 2 or 3 sleeper fares. Keep on doing this every day or so (finding all the fares for the same route/train and day of travel) and when you get down to 15 days before the selected travel date, try not to skip any day checking the fares. As I understand, fares are changed only once a day so there's no reason to do it more often until a few days before the travel date. Then, it wouldn't hurt to check twice a day for those last few days.

There's no need to use Amsnag to acquire this data unless you want to keep track of fares for, say, travel during a 7 day period. And using Amsnag to get a 30 day span of travel dates won't give you the same information because it just tells you what the fares are for each of those days on the day you made the inquiry.

Getting numerical data this way is a bit tedious, but I know of no other way of doing it. Having that numerical data allows you to see for yourself how the fares fluctuate and then you can generalize - if you can. But sometimes it's difficult or impossible to generalize, especially when the numbers seem to fluctuate at random. IMHO, it's a lot better than relying on someone else's recollections about how fares fluctuate. After having done a few or these fare studies, about the only thing predictable is the unpredictability.

Tried attaching a summary of a lengthy study done some months ago, but can't seen to get this sites image posting thingy to work, so I'll use Photobucket instead: .

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p232/niemi24s/travel/AmtrakFareStudy1.jpg~original This particular one was for two seniors in a bedroom on the Empire Builder from CHI to SEA. Even though it's a bit different than the one initially described above as it shows what the fares were for consecutive dates of travel out eight weeks from the seven days the checks were made (18 Jan through 28 Feb 2015) it'll give you some idea of how fares fluctuate. See the pattern? :blink:

 

[chakk]

Big price discrepancies happen all the time in travel situations. I have picked up rental cars many times on weekends in resort towns for $39 TOTAL for a 72 hr rental, while the person calling in for a last-minute rental is quoted more than $100 per day for those same 3 days.

You snooze - you lose.

 

[Anderson]

I've seen more complex patterns in use in general. IIRC, it's medium-to-high cost early on, drifting down to low(er) cost somewhere around six months out if demand is sluggish...and then generally rising in keeping with demand. Sometimes some "bugs" will appear (a low-bucket roomette gets released, for example, or Amtrak sells a space for a key portion of a route and then cuts the price on the rest of the route to get a second sale on the space) but that's the broad overall pattern.

 

[niemi24s]

Here's a summary of the "summary" image link previously posted for that one Empire builder study. It shows how the average fare varied with how far in advance the travel date was (and the fare was quoted): 8wks = $1614; 7wks = $1614; 6wks = $1657; 5wks = $1657; 4wks = $1443; 3wks = $1400; 2wks = $1229; 1wk = $1357; 4days = $1100; 1day = $1100. And know that the image posting feature seems to be working, here's the image previously linked (for those wary of clicking on links):



Note that how the "fare varied with how far in advance the travel date was" is not quite the same as how the "fare varied for the same date of travel as that same date of travel drew near". Furthermore, I have no reason to believe this same study done now or any other study would show a similar trend - and I guess what's above is sort of a trend (gets lower at the end with two upward spasms).