Booking online on Amtrak website

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OK I am fighting with the lame Amtrak online booking system.

I am trying to reserve a trip with myself and my son, with me as primary and a senior, and my son as adult and 2nd traveler.
However the *&%$! system will not let me enter traveler 1 as senior, it forces traveler 1 to be an adult.
So the only solutions I can come up with are:
1) Make my son the primary which means he gets the e-tickets and email notifications, not what I want.
2) give up the senior discount and book as 2 adults.
3) Book each person as a separate ticket.
4) Book on the phone via AGR - I assume they can get around this?

I'll probably end up doing #3 which is twice as much work.
Arrrrgh!
You can go to this webiste and choose all travelers at once Amtrak Tickets, Schedules and Train Routes
 
Can you enter email for each? Using the app, I booked a ticket for 2 seniors recently, took my email out, added one of the others. The system processed the tickets with the correct discount. But I didn’t have the issue of needing to receive the emails which might’ve complicated it.
 
I seem to remember someone posted a 'technique' for that exact scenario. I may search a bit to see if I can find it...
Oh yes:
https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/booking-online-amtrak-website.79920/post-984646"
Yes, I brought this up a few weeks ago. It was a great discussion but only this actually worked:
"I first added a senior traveler in addition to the standard adult, then removed the adult and added one again. At that point, the app put the senior as "Traveler 1" and the adult as "Traveler 2". When I chose a random train and had to enter the passenger names, it still says "Traveler 1 of 2 | Senior (Primary Contact)" on top of the screen. I tried the same on the web site and it doesn't work there, the "adult" is automatically put as the primary traveler, but on the iOS app (and potentially also the Android app).""

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/cant-a-senior-purchase-for-self-and-adult.82991/post-973579
 
I'm seeing some fairly major changes to the online booking search results page:
  1. It's displaying "Lowest Fare" and "Fastest" flags
  2. The dollar amounts are in extra large type
  3. When you select "Private Rooms", it displays a box with a brief description of the room below the price
  4. On trips with connections, it doesn't display any room prices until you make selections on all segments. IIRC, it used to show the prices on the 1st segment assuming similar selections on the rest of the trip.
  5. On coach & business, it displays cancellation & refund rules below the fares. (But again, if there's a connection you can't compare fares until you make selections on all segments.)
Unfortunately, the room descriptions all say "Up to 2 Adults", which we know is not true if you phone for a reservation.

Perhaps (hopefully) this is the first step towards the multiple date search that they've promised.

When I tried ORL-NOL, it showed several 3-segment options, including the Raleigh connection. Did those show up before?
 
Oh, God, Amtrak IT is messing around with it again. Be prepared for another round of weird glitches and failures.

On the other hand, 4 would seem to be an attempt to fix a problem they had with mixing accommodation types on connections. If you did, say a roomette and a bedroom, when you clicked the last segments "Continue" button, it was dead. It wasn't grayed out, but it did not respond.
 
Has anyone tried to find a way to buy a ticket on the Autotrain or on Amtrak lately? I just tried to see what is available for an Autotrain trip and got into a loop of reservation policies but no way to say this is when I want to go and this is when I want to come back. How much will it cost? More or less the same with testing what reservations I can make for a plain old LD trip The website is really hard to navigate.
 
Has anyone tried to find a way to buy a ticket on the Autotrain or on Amtrak lately? I just tried to see what is available for an Autotrain trip and got into a loop of reservation policies but no way to say this is when I want to go and this is when I want to come back. How much will it cost? More or less the same with testing what reservations I can make for a plain old LD trip The website is really hard to navigate.
Use the regular booking page and put in LOR & SFA (or the reverse) for the stations.
 
Use the regular booking page and put in LOR & SFA (or the reverse) for the stations.
I tried that on 6/30 and again on 7/1. I entered departure, arrival, + dates and got options. Entered the options and then went on to the return trip..Gray'd out, no way to revive the reservation. Makes no sense to me. I suppose that means on line reservations and long waits...No way to compare dates. I have flexible schedule and can leave on a slow day and spend less money...But I need to go NB and SB to see my family and come home!
 
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To clarify, the round trip option is indeed broke. Just do two one-way searches - and two one way bookings once you decide.
 
I tried that on 6/30 and again on 7/1. I entered departure, arrival, + dates and got options. Entered the options and then went on to the return trip..Gray'd out, no way to revive the reservation. Makes no sense to me. I suppose that means on line reservations and long waits...No way to compare dates. I have flexible schedule and can leave on a slow day and spend less money...But I need to go NB and SB to see my family and come home!
Seems to have an issue with round trips on Auto Train booking. Yet another weird glitch brought to you from Amtrak IT.

One ways seem to work fine. You can check prices and book as two one ways. Amtrak doesn't do round trip discounts, so booking as two reservations really does not matter.
 
I tried that on 6/30 and again on 7/1. I entered departure, arrival, + dates and got options. Entered the options and then went on to the return trip..Gray'd out, no way to revive the reservation. Makes no sense to me. I suppose that means on line reservations and long waits...No way to compare dates. I have flexible schedule and can leave on a slow day and spend less money...But I need to go NB and SB to see my family and come home!
I'm still trying to make a reservation (one way this time) FL to VA. Got to the right page to continue and --blanked out again. I don't think it's me...
 
I'm still trying to make a reservation (one way this time) FL to VA. Got to the right page to continue and --blanked out again. I don't think it's me...
Gave up and called to reserve. After about a 10 min. wait, I spoke with a person who walked through the reservation prooces. I successfully reserved by train, accommodations and, tentatvely room on car (VL!). Credit card went through and round trip reservation is in place. Just call the reservations folks.
 
Very frustrating. I have booked a $500 trip and am trying to pay. On the payment page I have entered everything correctly and have checked the terms and conditions box.
When I click on "purchase" nothing happens.
I have tried two browsers, I have cleared the caches, etc., nothing works. Looks like I will be driving if I can't figure this out. I don't pay by phone.
Any suggestions?
This is an old post but I was googling in 2023 with the same problem. For anyone else, I ended up finding that the issue was with the expiration date entry on the credit card.

The form says enter a 2-digit year for expiration date. Turns out the form accepts and progresses only with a 4-digit year.
 
This morning I was checking fares for any upcoming trip next March to Seattle from NYP. Both the app and the website didn't offer me the shortest and fastest route - LSL and EB. They had me taking the SWC and the CS. Is there something I'm missing here? This is 9 months in the future and the EB can't be sold out
 
I had similar nightmares trying to book from the UK - I'd jump through all the hoops and it failed right at the end. Just an awful backwards system (compared to say, thetrainline, Eurostar or SNCF).

Incidentally am I the only one who is annoyed that when you look up the train schedule the order defaults to 'number of legs' rather than departure time? I can't think of the rationale (fine if it was a choice but not the default).
 
How can I do mixed service bookings?

I want to book a roomette during nighttime and coach during daytime, while remaining on the same train.

I tried doing Multi-City on amtrak.com but it won't find all the seats even though seats exist when I search as One-way.

Do I have to do multiple One-way bookings on Amtrak's site?
 
How can I do mixed service bookings?

I want to book a roomette during nighttime and coach during daytime, while remaining on the same train.

I tried doing Multi-City on amtrak.com but it won't find all the seats even though seats exist when I search as One-way.

Do I have to do multiple One-way bookings on Amtrak's site?
Amtrak blocks a certain number of seats sale for only longer haul passengers, that is likely what you're seeing. The ones allocated for sale to short haul passengers between your coach points are likely sold out.

You can try multiple reservations instead of Multi-City, but I doubt it will make a difference. Blocked inventory is blocked inventory no matter how you get at it. There may be a small chance that it is a deliberate block in Multi-City to prevent such mixed itineraries, but I doubt it. It is worth a shot to try it, just don't get your hopes up.

You can try making your coach segments somewhat longer to get around the inventory limits, which are likely for zones. Like, "only open x seats for local passengers between Omaha and Denver". Also try different dates.
 
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