I've never encountered a bad car attendant on the AT, so I'm sure that you'll see your's more than once. The AT crews don't come from the normal pool of Amtrak employees and operate under a different contract. For that reason Amtrak has been able to gather some of the best crews in its system on the AT.
Thank you for your glowing recommendation of the crew of the Auto Train. The basis of my belief that I'll be ignored by the attendant is on the Sunset Limited, my wife and I had room #13 downstairs in the superliner sleeper.I've never encountered a bad car attendant on the AT, so I'm sure that you'll see your's more than once. The AT crews don't come from the normal pool of Amtrak employees and operate under a different contract. For that reason Amtrak has been able to gather some of the best crews in its system on the AT.
In fact the best attendant that I've ever had was one that I encountered on the Auto Train.
That special ticket jacket/brouchure is one of the reasons that you can't pick up the tickets from a QuikTrak machine. You'll note that there is even a place on that jacket where they'll write down the "number" that they'll assign your van upon checkin. That number will also be on a magnetized rubber placard that will be placed on the driver's door. Upon arrival in Florida, they'll call off those numbers as the cars are unloaded so that you'll know when to leave the waiting area and retrieve your van.
There are other hotels in that general area too, so you might want to search around in that general area for the best rate. You could also consider driving halfway down and then stopping for the night, just to break up the drive a bit.
Yes it does, however they won't expect your van to hand the ticket over. :lol: They will however expect you to do so, just like they expected you and not your van to pay for its transport.
By the way in all seriousness, that special ticket for the auto is where Amtrak hides the cost of providing free meals for all of the passengers on the train, even those in coach.
Yes, your AGR number should be on the van's ticket and you should indeed earn 2 points for every dollar.
Amtrak normally burries the food cost in the accomodation charges, but since those riding in coach have no accomodation charge in which to hide it, it was instead burried in the auto charges.
I'm not that surprised he had one, most stations on the east coast get at least a few of the jackets in their normal supply order. If some agent in say Portland Oregon had one, that would surprise me. And as for the extra ticket for the van, that is the only way that Amtrak can account for the revenue.
On that point he was indeed wrong and I personally would have pointed out to him the fine print that says "I acknowledge the billing to my credit card" or something to that effect.
Rick - not really any of my business, but was there a reason for paying cash when you could have gotten some type of credit card reward points for the amount you paid? Think of all the AGR points the trip would have generated.
I agree, I'd try asking for a refund if you don't have the van, especially if you know about it before you leave home. It used to be a bigger problem before the new car carriers, where they had specific carriers for cars, and special one for vans/SUV's. Now with the new carriers, they are all the same. They just charge more in part because that's what they've always done, in part because of the added weight.
If this had been a plane ticket, paying cash would have set off all the alarm bells in homeland security.
and paying cash for a one way ticket out of Florida will get you a friendly conversation with the DEA.
