Open Sleeper ticket

[jebr]

or QuikTrak machine

The new QuikTrak machines appear to not be able to print out the open sleeper tickets - there was a thread a few months ago where someone struggled mightily to get their open sleeper ticket because their local station only had the new QuikTrak machines which wouldn't let them print out the open sleeper ticket.

They may still offer the mail option, but that's only an option when the booking is at least 10-15 days in advance (I forget what the exact cutoff is/was.) Otherwise you're stuck with having to get it from an agent at a staffed station or try to find one of the remaining older QuikTrak machines.

 

[trimetbusfan]

As others have said, you can figure out the exact fare of an open ticket by doing a ‘as of’ resverstion on the multi-city option on the Amtrak site. The ‘rail fare’ is the cost of the open ticket. While open tickets are usually close to the Coach fare, it’s usually slightly more.

 

[Steve4031]

In my experience the open ticket had to be picked up through a ticket agent. I did this with a friend who lived in Cleveland. There were a couple of different ticket agents and some knew how to print an open ticket and others didn’t. The ones that didn’t would insist it could not be done. Eventually it would get done.

 

[SubwayNut]

I just booked an open Sleeper Ticket. I got a competent but new (she said she started in December) agent, said she had never heard of paper value tickets and was able to issue me an eTicket as an open sleeper. Here's (redacted reservation information) what they look like (personal information and the terms at the bottom redacted). It says I didn't add my AGR number but when I looked up the reservation online (it doesn't appear in my upcoming trips) it shows my number attached. The cost for travel next week was exactly the same $202 what my friend paid for his railfare when he booked the Roomette in April.

I was suprised to not be told I would not need to pick-up my ticket in Tampa and to get an eTicket delievered to my email, but this could be useful for me later on since my local Amtrak station is now unstaffed (South Bend in the past couple of months) and Niles became unstaffed 5ish? years ago.

So are paper value tickets officially dead? I just tried to book a ticket from Philadelphia to Atlantic City and you get an error message that says you can no longer book them online and to visit a train station or call an agent (I know that was one of the last paper ticket vestagies).

 

[dlagrua]

I was told that open sleeper tickets were only valid when presented with the printout of the transaction. A couple of years ago my ticket came through without my wife being added to it. They asked me to buy an open sleeper ticket for her and present it on boarding. They specifically said not to lose it as it is not in the system for the train that I was riding. This sounds highly unusual but thats what the agent told me.

 

[trimetbusfan]

I was told that open sleeper tickets were only valid when presented with the printout of the transaction. A couple of years ago my ticket came through without my wife being added to it. They asked me to buy an open sleeper ticket for her and present it on boarding. They specifically said not to lose it as it is not in the system for the train that I was riding. This sounds highly unusual but thats what the agent told me.

That was when the open sleeper tickets were paper value. They are now e-tickets so it doesn’t matter.

 

[lordsigma]

Yes they are etickets now. An agent told me this was a recent change in the last year or so.

 

[flitcraft]

That is good news; glad the paper value tickets are finally history! Amtrak slowly crawls into the modern world...