To add a sleeper onto a portion of a trip

[crossties1]

I have a confirmation for DAL to Eugene (yes, I made usre we are on the 421, thanks to all the wonderful help here) for four of us. So I started thinking that four days on the train will leave us rather ripe, so I started looking at adding two roomettes so we can get a shower in (and grab a look at the Parlor car as a nice side bonus). For $200 I can get two roomettes from LAX to Paso Robles, and get lunch in with that, too.

But when I went to see about rebooking my tickets online, I didn't see a way of adding a sleeper to only a portion of the trip. (For that matter, I haven't found much help from Amtrak regarding making any changes whatsoever.) Is there a particular page I should be going to? Or do I have to make those changes by phone?

 

[AlanB]

You cannot do that online now that your intial reservation has been made.

The easy and safe way is to just call up Amtrak, give them your reservation number and have them add the sleeper for that section to your reservation.

You could also cancel the existing reservation and then rebook things, but I would not recommend this as you could see a price jump. If you try this method, first price and new reservation and add in the sleeper. If the coach prices haven't gone up, then book it. Then cancel the other reservation.

But again, I think it far easier to just call and have them add the sleeper.

 

[crossties1]

I saw that prices jumped over $300, so I couldn't do a new booking with th same ticket price. I wasn't sure if that meant I couldn't upgrade, even by phone.

I didn't want to wait on the phone for 25 minutes just to learn that I couldn't upgrade without canceling and rebooking for the new ticket price. (that's the kind of Customer Service an airline would give, but I'm trying to remember that Amtrak might run a bit better!) :huh:

 

[AlanB]

No, the agent doesn't have to cancel the reservation. They just pull it up, add the sleeper for that one section you want and it's done. Just make sure that your careful in what you say and that they fully understand that you only want to add a sleeper to what section of your reservation.

 

[alanh]

Did you actually try pricing out a sleeper, or did you just look at the coach fare? My understanding is that when buying a sleeper, the coach portion of the fare is always low bucket.

For example, taking the Southwest Chief today for LAX-CHI, the coach fare is $287. If you add a roomette, it's $623 additional. But once you start to check out, you'll note that a discount of $141 has been applied. This is the difference between $287 and the low bucket of $146.