# Do sleeper cars ever go on sale?



## dande (Feb 5, 2019)

Looking at Florida to Penn station.  Do the roomettes and/or sleeper cars ever go on sale and if so is there any certain time that happens.  Not travelling until October.


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## pennyk (Feb 5, 2019)

I travel from Florida to NY Penn Station quite often and find that I get the best fares the further out.  However, there are members on this forum that have researched fares carefully and state that the best fares are 5 months out.  The sleepers do not go on sale per se, but the price of sleepers can fluctuate.  Because meals are not included on the Silver Star (trains 92 and 91), those fares are generally less than the fares on the Silver Meteor (trains 98 and 97), which include meals.

It is likely that you will receive responses from members who have researched fares.  I, personally, book as soon as I can.


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## the_traveler (Feb 5, 2019)

In the past 30+ years, I can only recall once when there was an actual sale on sleepers!


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## jebr (Feb 5, 2019)

The only true "sale" I've seen for sleepers (in the last 5ish years) is a "second person free" sale - you'd still have to pay for the room cost, but if you have two people traveling in the same room the you only have to pay one rail fare instead of two. The sale happens infrequently, so I wouldn't count on it.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 5, 2019)

Guest dande said:


> Looking at Florida to Penn station.  Do the roomettes and/or sleeper cars ever go on sale and if so is there any certain time that happens.  Not travelling until October.


If you've already locked in your dates and destination then most of your pricing leverage has already evaporated.  Sleeper prices can vary a lot and the best way to benefit from the variation is to be extremely flexible with travel dates and destinations.  Many people seem to believe that date of purchase is the most important variable, but in my experience that is rarely true, at least in a manner that is reasonably predictable.


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## Maglev (Feb 5, 2019)

The trains to Florida are very popular, so Amtrak does not really need to run sales to sell inventory.  However, the prices do fluctuate over time.  If you buy at a high fare then the fare goes down, you can have your reservation modified to the lower fare and get a refund of the difference.  So it is good to keep an eye on the fares after you purchase.


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## cpotisch (Feb 5, 2019)

Because Amtrak uses dynamic pricing with five possible fare buckets for a given itinerary, there really aren’t any “sales” to speak of. I recommend you use Amsnag to get a sense of the five possible buckets and what prices are like for when you’re travelling, and from there you can figure out if it makes sense to hold out on booking.


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## dande36 (Feb 6, 2019)

Thanks  I signed up for the Amsnag fare alerts.  Does that service work?


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## cpotisch (Feb 6, 2019)

Guest dande36 said:


> Thanks  I signed up for the Amsnag fare alerts.  Does that service work?


Nope. Paul shut it down because it kept on missing actual price changes and had a tendency of sending users strings of nonsense alerts. :wacko:


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