Upgrading On Borad

[stan]

We will be traveling on Amtrak in the next few weeks. On some legs we are in the sleeper and on other legs we are in coach.

I understand that if there is room in the sleeper you can upgrade on-board for less then the normal sleeper cost.

Does anyone know what cost one might expect on the Lake SHore from Rochester to CHicago on on the Coast Starlight from Emerville to Portland?

Thanks

Stan

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

While I have never done an on board upgrade, I understand you pay whatever the normal lowest bucket is. You probably can get a rough idea how many spaces are left by doing a "dry run" booking for your travel dates and see what upgrades and fares are offered.

 

[darien-l]

Onboard upgrades are sold at the lowest bucket price. To get an idea of what the lowest bucket price is for the routes you're interested in, go to amtrak.com and price out the sleepers some months in the future. Try a bunch of different dates: the lowest price you'll see is the lowest bucket price.

Also, just because there are available sleepers doesn't mean you'll be able to upgrade. Unless the rooms are specifically tagged "conductor-sale," the conductor is not obligated to help you. They don't receive any commissions for selling upgrades and it creates a lot of extra work for them.

Please refer to the Official Onboard Sleeper Upgrade Thread for more information.

 

[the_traveler]

As darien-l said, upgrading may be possible but due to the extra work involved, some conductors may not want "to be bothered". Some others will. Also by law, conductors are only on duty a specified number of hours.

I'm only picking these cities at random. (I'm not sure if these are the crew change points.) Assume that Pittsburgh is where the conductors change. If you ask the conductor before Pittsburgh and he or she says "No" because they don't want to be bothered, but if you ask the conductor after Pittsburgh, it would be a new conductor and he or she may say "Yes"!

 

[had8ley]

Onboard upgrades are sold at the lowest bucket price. To get an idea of what the lowest bucket price is for the routes you're interested in, go to amtrak.com and price out the sleepers some months in the future. Try a bunch of different dates: the lowest price you'll see is the lowest bucket price.

Not necessarily true. Although there are five buckets available you will only see the ones that are available for sale ON AMTRAK.COM. I recently posted where rooms in October started at the middle, or third, bucket. Unless you ask the reservation agent or have access to an Amtrak reservation computer you may never know the lowest bucket that is listed for that date because Amtrak has chosen not to sell any space in the lowest two buckets. My understanding of on board upgrades is that the conductor has to call reservations who then tell him the lowest bucket price. Hope this helps.