Roomette and Bedroom Pricing

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jnismith

Train Attendant
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Jan 2, 2015
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57
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London
After reading one of the discussions yesterday about " low buckets becoming available". I thought I would look at my trip and see if anything cheaper was available. They weren't.

But what mystified me was that on the Cardinal, a Bedroom was showing at $589 and a Roomette at $600.

I understand how the demand pricing works but it seems ridiculous that you can get a bigger room for a cheaper price.

Any thoughts?
 
jnismith said:
After reading one of the discussions yesterday about " low buckets becoming available". I thought I would look at my trip and see if anything cheaper was available. They weren't.

But what mystified me was that on the Cardinal, a Bedroom was showing at $589 and a Roomette at $600.

I understand how the demand pricing works but it seems ridiculous that you can get a bigger room for a cheaper price.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
My first thought is: book it! :)

Every so often, you'll see this quirk when a bunch of people buy roomettes but nobody books bedrooms (or a few people cancel their bedroom reservations). Not many people think to check back to see if prices have dropped, so you can sometimes score a really good deal like this.

We did a similar thing when returning from our trip last Thanksgiving. I checked bedroom prices a few weeks before our trip, and they were around $600. Roomettes were right around the same price, so I switched our reservation to a bedroom.
 
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jnismith said:
I understand how the demand pricing works but it seems ridiculous that you can get a bigger room for a cheaper price.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Bedrooms and roomettes each have their own bucket pricing. They aren't all combined in one category, Sleeping Rooms.
 
This happens quite often on the Capitol Ltd as the short distance encourages more people into roomettes than bedrooms. We have book bedrooms for less or perhaps a few dollars more than a roomette during the off season.
 
All this talk about "buckets" when it comes to Amtrak fares seems to me nothing more than a handy way to explain something that's essentially unexplainable. I've done occasional fare studies over the last few years, mostly for a Superliner Bedroom for two seniors on the Empire Builder from CHI to SEA. The most recent one (still in progress) looked at fares for each day through the end of May 2015 at weekly (or so) intervals beginning on 18 January 2015. Fares (rounded to the nearest $10) were, so far, $830, $1090, $1350, $1680 and $1970, each recorded on a calendar for an "eyeball" analysis. Here's what I've found so far based on four searches:

• The low fare of $830 disappeared on the 42d day which was 28 Feb 2015

• The high fare of $1970 appeared on the 13th day which was 31 Jan 2015 and remained though the end of May 2015, becoming more frequent as Summer approached.

• The only discernible (to me, at least) pattern in the fares was that, so far, each Wednesday in May had the high $1970 fare each of the four times I've looked thus far.

• The X in Amtraks "Only X Rooms Available At This Price" seemed to make little or no difference.

• For some travel dates, the fare (low, intermediate or high) was the same every time I checked

• For other travel dates, the fares could either: increase; increase then decrease; decrease then increase; or decrease.

Perhaps the "bucket" system explains it all, but if so it's probably beyond my comprehension. As far as I can tell it seems the only bucket involved in Amtrak fare setting "system" is the one from which the blind rabid monkey picks the ball with the "fare of the day" printed on it.

If there's a moral to all my blather it may be: be flexible when it comes to travel start date; start looking early; decide on a date early; book early; re-check often after booking.
 
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Thanks Sarah and everyone, I guess the answer is that the bedroom and roomette prices are not linked. I do think however that the prices fluctuate too much. Would be much simpler if there was just a flat rate. Or would that be too simple?
 
jnismith said:
Thanks Sarah and everyone, I guess the answer is that the bedroom and roomette prices are not linked. I do think however that the prices fluctuate too much. Would be much simpler if there was just a flat rate. Or would that be too simple?
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It is yield management to maximize revenue, similar to the airlines. Roomettes, bedrooms, handicapped rooms, and coach seats are all separate inventories and each of those inventories' price points are determined by the demand for that inventory. How well that is done is open to question, but that is the theory. Amtrak has gotten quite a bit better at it over the last couple of years and old rules like buying early right after the inventory is opened 11 months out would almost always get you low bucket don't really apply any more.

It occasionally gives counter-intuitive results. Once, one week before departure on the Empire Builder, I got a low-bucket roomette that was actually cheaper than the coach fare, which was close to sold out and so near its highest bucket. But these kind of occurrences are pretty rare and edge cases that you don't build the entire system around.
 
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crabby_appleton1950 said:
SarahZ said:
Roomettes were right around the same price, so I switched our reservation to a bedroom.
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And would someone do that by phoning Amtrak and 'modifying' the reservation? Thanks
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No. I simply canceled the reservation and created a new one.
If I had been switching from one roomette to another (such as lower to upper), and roomette prices had gone up, I would have had to modify it to retain the price I'd paid originally. When the price is lower, though, you can simply cancel and rebook.

You have to be careful, though. If you have other legs on that same reservation, their prices may have changed (higher), so canceling and rebooking would actually cost you. In that case, you would want to speak with a reservations agent.
 
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The same thing sometimes happens with airline seats or rewards. Once I was looking for award seats for someone to go to Europe.

Everyone thinks coach is less, so they only look at/book coach award tickets - right? :huh: Coach was the "high" level = 240,000 miles. (Many seats booked.) First Class was the "low" level = 100,000 miles. (Few seats booked.)
 
Just completed the fifth session of gathering fares for the trip outlined in Post #7.which gave me a grand total of 468 consecutive checks for all the travel dates through the end of March 2015. Of all these checks:

• 61 of the 468 (13%) saw the fare increase

• 373 of the 468 (80%) saw no change in the fare

• 34 of the 468 (7%) saw the fare decrease

However, room availability was either not posted by Amtrak or not recorded for at least one of the checks in 186 of those pairs, leaving 282 that did have room availability data. Of all these remaining checks:

• 28 of the 282 (10%) saw the fare increase in which

♦ 10 the available rooms increased

♦ 16 the available rooms remained the same and

♦ 2 the available rooms decreased

• 241 of the 282 (85%) saw the fare remain the same in which

♦ 8 the available rooms increased

♦ 212 the available rooms remained the same and

♦ 21 the available rooms decreased

• 13 of the 282 (5%) saw the fare decrease, in which

♦ 1 the available rooms increased

♦ 10 the available rooms remained the same and

♦ 2 the available rooms decreased

But if the 5 buckets for this route during this 4 month period each has a certain quantity of bedrooms associated with each fare, then perhaps the above figures may not mean too much - except perhaps for percentages for fares increasing, staying the same and decreasing. Maximizing profits is a noble goal for the stockholders (us folks). I just wish there was a way to figure it out as easily as it is for VIA Rail in Canada: for the same accommodations for the wife and I (sleeper with toilet) from Toronto to Vancouver the only change in the fare I could find was a 6% discount if booked more than about 5 weeks in advance. Two buckets with a pretty simple relation between the two.

I've had enough of this amateur analysis of Amtrak fares - and I'm sure most of you are sick of all the numbers.

Q: Is there a limit to the number of times a member can edit a post? (I tried asking a site administrator and the email got bounced back as undeliverable.)
 
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jnismith said:
After reading one of the discussions yesterday about " low buckets becoming available". I thought I would look at my trip and see if anything cheaper was available. They weren't.

But what mystified me was that on the Cardinal, a Bedroom was showing at $589 and a Roomette at $600.

I understand how the demand pricing works but it seems ridiculous that you can get a bigger room for a cheaper price.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
I looked again and the roomette price has reduced again to $527. It really does pay to keep watching (though this is still way above the price I paid a few months ago)
 
And for my trip on the CZ, the price of a family bedroom is now $882 compared to a roomette at $896. A strange model!
 
Thanks to Amsnag, I just modified my multi-city trip, upgraded from roomette on CONO to bedroom and received a $95 eVoucher!
 
I booked my roomette on the Cap Ltd from CHI to CUM about two weeks ago for tomorrow evening's departure. I originally paid $423 for my roomette, not the highest price but also not the lowest. I've been checking prices and inventory daily. Last Saturday a roomette came available for $319, so I called, got changed to the new room, and was issued a $104 e-Voucher. Today I looked again, and there were a couple of roomettes for $319, and a bedroom for $340. So now I'm in a bedroom with a wider bed and my own facilities instead of a roomette, and I still have an $83 credit. Crazy.
 
WindyCityTexan said:
I booked my roomette on the Cap Ltd from CHI to CUM about two weeks ago for tomorrow evening's departure. I originally paid $423 for my roomette, not the highest price but also not the lowest. I've been checking prices and inventory daily. Last Saturday a roomette came available for $319, so I called, got changed to the new room, and was issued a $104 e-Voucher. Today I looked again, and there were a couple of roomettes for $319, and a bedroom for $340. So now I'm in a bedroom with a wider bed and my own facilities instead of a roomette, and I still have an $83 credit. Crazy.
Click to expand...
If you think that's crazy, how about this one? It's for two seniors in a Superliner bedroom on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle departing on 8 April 2015. I've checked this fare at three to seven day intervals since 19 Jan 2015 and the fares have been (rounded to the nearest $100): $1300; $2000; $1700; $1300; $1700; $2000; $1700; $1300; and just now [ta-da] $800. And there may have been fare changes I missed.

How 'bout them apples? :p
 
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All putting in for 8 people does for me is inform me I'm booking four roomettes or bedrooms - or more, if I opt for more in the drop down gizmo.

Maybe by "inventory" he means the X in the "Only X Rooms At This Price" that usually ops up above the room type?

Or maybe he's figured out a clever way to find out the total number of rooms available - not just the number in the particular...uh...bucket.
 
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If there are only 2 roomettes available, then you would know because 8 people can't fit into two roomettes.
 
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