Fare Buckets discussion 2023 Q4 - 2024

zephyr17 said:

The biggest sleeper consists on Superliner trains these days are 2 standard sleepers and transdorm. That means a capacity of about 30-34 roomettes, depending how many are released for sale in the transdorm, 10 bedrooms, 2 family rooms and 2 accessible rooms on each departure at most. Not all trains have that many. The biggest Viewliner consists are 3 sleepers. They apparently only sell 10 of the 12 roomettes in each car, so that means 30 roomettes, 6 bedrooms and 3 accessible rooms. Again, not all trains have that many sleepers.

The supply, as you can see, is highly constrained. It really does not take all that much demand to fill it. Rationing a scarce luxury commodity, which a sleeper room is, despite maintenence and service issues we all know about, is done by price in market economies. Amtrak is merely leveraging the advantage control of a scarce supply gives it, as any rationally run organization would do. The intelligence and rationality of Amtrak executive management is often questionable, but here they are making perfectly rational pricing decisions.

Many here argue sleepers are a poor value proposition, that First Class airfares and cruise cabins are often cheaper. I agree that sleepers at best are a poor value proposition, even at lower buckets. At high buckets they are a downright terrible value proposition. However, value proposition is not what determines pricing decisions, supply and demand does and at that point it is pretty much math. As long as there are enough new riders who want to try out train travel but do not understand what they may be getting themselves into, and enough veteran riders who do but go anyway, to fill that highly limited inventory, pricing will remain high. That will hold until either Amtrak degrades so much it manages to drive off its limited sleeper clientele or increases capacity.

We all can and do make our own purchasing decisions just as Amtrak makes its own pricing decisions. A sleeper room is very much a discretionary "luxury" purchase. No one is entitled to one any more than one is entitled to a lie-flat First Class airline seat. For myself, I won't purchase in higher buckets (or get bedrooms). That is where tools such as railsforless.us and @niemi24s' invaluable bucket charts come in, as well as observing yield management pricing patterns for trains I ride most frequently. Those tools help enable me to ride at a price I am willing to tolerate, which in no way should be conflated with "cheap".

Bottom line, we are observing an iron law of economics in action. You can mourn it all you like, but you cannot change it any more than King Canute could hold back the tide.

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A great Viking. And one of the places he tried was Bosham. But he soon learned it was futile. lol.

trimetbusfan said:

You should be good in the 532, it’s the 540 car that’s been dropped for the off season this time around

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But remember if 40 car is dropped, the. Some rooms are needed for on board employees that used the dorm car.

amtrakp42 said:

But remember if 40 car is dropped, the. Some rooms are needed for on board employees that used the dorm car.

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That should not impact passengers already booked into the 32 car, assuming that car itself is not dropped.

zephyr17 said:

The biggest sleeper consists on Superliner trains these days are 2 standard sleepers and transdorm. That means a capacity of about 30-34 roomettes, depending how many are released for sale in the transdorm, 10 bedrooms, 2 family rooms and 2 accessible rooms on each departure at most. Not all trains have that many. The biggest Viewliner consists are 3 sleepers. They apparently only sell 10 of the 12 roomettes in each car, so that means 30 roomettes, 6 bedrooms and 3 accessible rooms. Again, not all trains have that many sleepers.

The supply, as you can see, is highly constrained. It really does not take all that much demand to fill it. Rationing a scarce luxury commodity, which a sleeper room is, despite maintenence and service issues we all know about, is done by price in market economies. Amtrak is merely leveraging the advantage control of a scarce supply gives it, as any rationally run organization would do. The intelligence and rationality of Amtrak executive management is often questionable, but here they are making perfectly rational pricing decisions.

Many here argue sleepers are a poor value proposition, that First Class airfares and cruise cabins are often cheaper. I agree that sleepers at best are a poor value proposition, even at lower buckets. At high buckets they are a downright terrible value proposition. However, value proposition is not what determines pricing decisions, supply and demand does and at that point it is pretty much math. As long as there are enough new riders who want to try out train travel but do not understand what they may be getting themselves into, and enough veteran riders who do but go anyway, to fill that highly limited inventory, pricing will remain high. That will hold until either Amtrak degrades so much it manages to drive off its limited sleeper clientele or increases capacity.

We all can and do make our own purchasing decisions just as Amtrak makes its own pricing decisions. A sleeper room is very much a discretionary "luxury" purchase. No one is entitled to one any more than one is entitled to a lie-flat First Class airline seat. For myself, I won't purchase in higher buckets (or get bedrooms). That is where tools such as railsforless.us and @niemi24s' invaluable bucket charts come in, as well as observing yield management pricing patterns for trains I ride most frequently. Those tools help enable me to ride at a price I am willing to tolerate, which in no way should be conflated with "cheap".

Bottom line, we are observing an iron law of economics in action. You can mourn it all you like, but you cannot change it any more than King Canute could hold back the tide.

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Please consider another group of consumers who want to take the train but don't want to pay the exorbitant price for a roomette, etc. As a trial, why not have one car of a train be only for one passenger buying two adjacent coach seats and have that one passenger pay double fare ( still cheaper than a roomette.) This way if the train is an overnight one, that person can at least spread out. Might this be a compromise? Amtrak sells two seats for one person...the person gets less privacy than a roomette but more privacy than the standard one coach seat per person. Hasn't its time come? At least can't Amtrak try this out?

SKS1944 said:

Please consider another group of consumers who want to take the train but don't want to pay the exorbitant price for a roomette, etc. As a trial, why not have one car of a train be only for one passenger buying two adjacent coach seats and have that one passenger pay double fare ( still cheaper than a roomette.) This way if the train is an overnight one, that person can at least spread out. Might this be a compromise? Amtrak sells two seats for one person...the person gets less privacy than a roomette but more privacy than the standard one coach seat per person. Hasn't its time come? At least can't Amtrak try this out?

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They could do that if only they'd start assigning seats when reservations were made (which they ought to do anyway. Their railroad predecessors managed it). Otherwise conductors would not enforce it and allow someone to take "your" other seat. Another restraint is they do not have enough coaches, either. The Seattle section of the Builder lost its badly needed second coach again in the middle of the summer, for example.

But yes, selling double coach seats would be cheaper, though coach seats are yield managed, too, and subject to the same economic laws. Allowing purchase of two coach seats per person would tend to raise average coach fares as it increases demand on the same supply. Note that high bucket coach fares are not particularly cheap, either. With the current equipment shortages that approach might backfire badly, drastically increasing coach fares for those lacking means and still needing to travel.

SKS1944 said:

Please consider another group of consumers who want to take the train but don't want to pay the exorbitant price for a roomette, etc. As a trial, why not have one car of a train be only for one passenger buying two adjacent coach seats and have that one passenger pay double fare ( still cheaper than a roomette.) This way if the train is an overnight one, that person can at least spread out. Might this be a compromise? Amtrak sells two seats for one person...the person gets less privacy than a roomette but more privacy than the standard one coach seat per person. Hasn't its time come? At least can't Amtrak try this out?

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The real solution on prices/capacity restrictions is only going to come when current management is removed. The way things are now, even a new car order won’t change management philosophy. With potential board nominee Ron Battory last week saying in front of Congress that Anderson, Coscia and by default Gardner were being deceitful in the SWC trainoff saga of 2018 there might be light at the end of the tunnel. Until then expect fares to keep climbing and LD consists reduced.

I was looking to book a trip to the Midwest late in February this year (not President’s day weekend) and the fares from the East to Chicago are astronomical. A round trip on the LSL from NYP to CHI is over $400 for COACH. The Floridian is about $300. The Cardinal is the typical $180. The Cardinal is about where I remember it plus a hike or two, but the other two are more expensive than flying, which was never the case. Does someone maybe @niemi24s have some knowledge of what “good” East to CHI fares are these days? More seats should have caused lower fares, not higher.

Yet Floridian coach fares from Midwest to Florida fares for many days are in low $100s. Sleepers very high!

During January 2015, most LSL coach fares from NYP to Chicago, or reverse, are $93 single. Suddenly they shoot up to $216 single after the first week in February. Seems a bit odd? Maybe a glitch? That seems to be the price for all dates then going forward...

Septa9739 said:

Does someone maybe @niemi24s have some knowledge of what “good” East to CHI fares are these days?

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For travel between NYP and CHI all I can tell you is the fares I have found for the LSL and Cardinal which can be seen here: https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/long-distance-train-coach-sleeper-fares-buckets.77062/page-7

Unfortunately for you, the only Coach fare posted is the "accommodation" fare for an additional adult in a sleeper. But the easiest way to search for the lowest Coach fare is to use this wonderful search tool: https://railforless.us/ Using it showed lowest fares of $93 for NYP to CHI in Coach on six days in the later half of February as shown below:



the higher fare is $219

I just ran February and March 2025 CHI-NYP on railsforless.us and got a consistent $93 on the LSL and Card and $162 for Floridian/NER in coach on all dates.

I ran NYP-CHI and got the same fare jump to $219 on February 3rd, but it stayed at $219 for the entire remainder of February and all of March for me. I didn't get the dips back to $93 in late February.

I find the direction based fare difference striking. I can come up only two possible explanations. One is that there is a significant difference in demand between westbound and eastbound. The other is that Amtrak yield managers have adjusted inventory allocation for 48, but not yet for 49. We are about five months out, smack in the middle of the 4-6 month out sweet spot that my empirical experience is they often reallocate inventory, at least for sleepers. We very well may see those fares drop in the near future if that is the case.

Just found a bucket score for anyone who is planning to ride the LSL anytime in the near future. Found new low roomette and bedroom fares for many dates in late 2024-early 2025, that are significantly lower than what was identified as the lowest on @niemi24s's chart.

trimetbusfan said:

Just found a bucket score. . . significantly lower than what was identified as the lowest on @niemi24s's chart.

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Thanks for the new low buckets.

Fare on today's # 3 CHI-LAX about 10 minutes ago for a Bedroom is $2880.00. Is this a "bucket" fare config or just a random entry to see if any moron would actually pay that. I suspect I already know the answer to that--with all due respect. An outrageous fare like the one noted often reminds me of a day about 10 years ago departing Los Angeles Union Station when the onboard conductor sold two coach passengers the bedroom adjacent to mine LAX - CHI for $425.00 when the fare receipt for my bedroom had been booked and paid for several months earlier at full bucket $525.00.

Amtrak709 said:

Fare on today's # 3 CHI-LAX about 10 minutes ago for a Bedroom is $2880.00. Is this a "bucket" fare config or just a random entry to see if any moron would actually pay that.

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Normal high bucket.

Amtrak709 said:

Fare on today's # 3 CHI-LAX about 10 minutes ago for a Bedroom is $2880.00. Is this a "bucket" fare config or just a random entry to see if any moron would actually pay that. I suspect I already know the answer to that--with all due respect. An outrageous fare like the one noted often reminds me of a day about 10 years ago departing Los Angeles Union Station when the onboard conductor sold two coach passengers the bedroom adjacent to mine LAX - CHI for $425.00 when the fare receipt for my bedroom had been booked and paid for several months earlier at full bucket $525.00.

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It's normal high bucket and that one single bedroom sleeper accommodation is the only sleeper accommodation of any type available on 3(15).

Today's 4 is sold out entirely in sleepers.

That 3 is going out with just one empty room of any type and 4 is entirely sold out signifies that that yield management is dialed in correctly. Yield management done properly requires a little bit of unsold inventory, consistent sell outs indicate that high bucket pricing is too low and potential revenue is being lost.

I recall when I could do a round trip on the Canadian between Vancouver and Banff in a roomette for $110 CAD. While that was more than 10 years ago, pricing from decade ago or more is wholly immaterial to today, other than in fond fantasy.

Prices for a scarce "luxury" commodity whose supply does not meet demand, which a sleeper bedroom is, are going to be high in a market economy. As I have said many times, that it is a lousy value proposition is immaterial as long as there are people who take it, which there apparently are.

zephyr17 said:

It's normal high bucket and that one single bedroom sleeper accommodation is the only sleeper accommodation of any type available on 3(15).

Today's 4 is sold out entirely in sleepers.

That 3 is going out with just one empty room of any type and 4 is entirely sold out signifies that that yield management is dialed in correctly. Yield management done properly requires a little bit of unsold inventory, consistent sell outs indicate that high bucket pricing is too low and potential revenue is being lost.

I recall when I could do a round trip on the Canadian between Vancouver and Banff in a roomette for $110 CAD. While that was more than 10 years ago, pricing from decade ago or more is wholly immaterial to today, other than in fond fantasy.

Prices for a scarce "luxury" commodity whose supply does not meet demand, which a sleeper bedroom is, are going to be high in a market economy. As I have said many times, that it is a lousy value proposition is immaterial as long as there are people who take it, which there apparently are.

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Thanks, zephyr17, for the prompt reply to my inquiry. I totally agree with your statements and sentiment. I guess I am grieving for myself a little. It has taken until now for me to stop travelling by rail. This railfan (me) who just had his 77th birthday; over a quarter of a million miles as a rail passenger (many miles since Amtrak): who would 3 or 4 or 5 times a year get on the Crescent ATN-WAS or Silvers DLD-WAS just to ride in the sleepers. I can no longer justify the outrageous sleeper fares "just to ride". Indeed, that "fond fantasy" is done. Again, thanks again for your attention to my inquiry!

Amtrak709 said:

Thanks, zephyr17, for the prompt reply to my inquiry. I totally agree with your statements and sentiment. I guess I am grieving for myself a little. It has taken until now for me to stop travelling by rail. This railfan (me) who just had his 77th birthday; over a quarter of a million miles as a rail passenger (many miles since Amtrak): who would 3 or 4 or 5 times a year get on the Crescent ATN-WAS or Silvers DLD-WAS just to ride in the sleepers. I can no longer justify the outrageous sleeper fares "just to ride". Indeed, that "fond fantasy" is done. Again, thanks again for your attention to my inquiry!

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Welcome to the Club from a 50 year+ Amtrak Rider!

That $2880 Bedroom high bucket fare you found is not the highest among all the LD routes. There are three others that are about $400 more and they can be seen here: https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/long-distance-train-coach-sleeper-fares-buckets.77062/page-7

niemi24s said:

That $2880 Bedroom high bucket fare you found is not the highest among all the LD routes. There are three others that are about $400 more and they can be seen here: https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/long-distance-train-coach-sleeper-fares-buckets.77062/page-7

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Thanks for pointing me to that link. I am not sure that finding a fare higher than the one I noted does anything but increase my cynicism of Amtrak's fare structure and their operations in general. I have never fully understood the fare bucket--now I really guess I don't even want to. My problem--and I fully acknowledge it IS my problem--is trying to wrap my head around the fact that a product (an Amtrak Superliner bedroom with transportation CHI-LAX) can be priced 600%-700% higher than it was 10 years ago. It is the exact same product.

My earliest fare bucket chart was about 9 years ago and it shows a high bucket Bedroom fare on the SWC (or TE) of $135 + $1631 = $1766 which is. . .



. . .only up 63% to todays $2880. Back then the total fare for one adult was the sum of the $135 Saver Fare and the $1631 accommodation fare for that $1766 total.

But maybe you were comparing todays high bucket of $2880 to a low bucket fare of $823 which increases the fare jump to only 250%.

Could also be the fares ten years ago (one year earlier than in the above chart) were much much lower. Can't say for sure.

niemi24s said:

My earliest fare bucket chart was about 9 years ago and it shows a high bucket Bedroom fare on the SWC (or TE) of $135 + $1631 = $1766 which is. . .

View attachment 38083

. . .only up 63% to todays $2880. Back then the total fare for one adult was the sum of the $135 Saver Fare and the $1631 accommodation fare for that $1766 total.

But maybe you were comparing todays high bucket of $2880 to a low bucket fare of $823 which increases the fare jump to only 250%.

Could also be the fares ten years ago (one year earlier than in the above chart) were much much lower. Can't say for sure.

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As one who used to regularly ride on the Texas Eagle to CHI and the Eagle/Sunset to LAX, ( and most other LD Trains)the current Room charges are right around 10 times Higher, plus the Time Keeping was Much Better, and generally so we're the Crews, the Food and the Equipment!

For Example I could ride AUS- CHI or AUS-LAx in a Roomette for around $120 Total,( Rail Fare + Room Charges) plus AGR Reward Trips under the Zone System were Really a Bargain , especially the "Loophole" Trips!

"..Those were the days my friend, I thought they'd never end.."

I, too, grieve for myself a little about how the high sleeper fares are making my Amtrak trips less frequent. But, in a market economy, the value (price) of any item or service is simply what someone is willing to pay. I can say there is no value for me or that the price is too high for me, but if someone else is willing to pay the fare then they have determined that the value is there for them. There is nothing wrong or broken with Amtrak's yield management system - in fact by all appearances it is working quite well to maximize revenue from a very limited supply.

The crux of the problem is that sleeper supply is almost comically low and is consistently lagging demand. It's unclear how deep the demand is, but it is evident that the price elasticity for sleepers is very low at current capacities (meaning that as price goes up or down the demand does not fluctuate all that much). The supply pinch might be slightly eased if Amtrak can get more Superliner's fixed (or reassigned from axle count duty), but there won't be any meaningful improvement until/unless the next-gen bi-level equipment goes into service (5-10 years).

niemi24s said:

My earliest fare bucket chart was about 9 years ago and it shows a high bucket Bedroom fare on the SWC (or TE) of $135 + $1631 = $1766 which is. . .

View attachment 38083

. . .only up 63% to todays $2880. Back then the total fare for one adult was the sum of the $135 Saver Fare and the $1631 accommodation fare for that $1766 total.

But maybe you were comparing todays high bucket of $2880 to a low bucket fare of $823 which increases the fare jump to only 250%.

Could also be the fares ten years ago (one year earlier than in the above chart) were much much lower. Can't say for sure.

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niemi24s: Thanks for your prompt reply. Yes, the $525 to which I referred was, in fact, just the accommodation charge, LAX-CHI: the rail fare, of course, was an additional charge that was spread over all legs of the trip This was just one leg of a 17-day 7000-mile cross country train ride that departed 06 April 2015 in DLD; the ticket was purchased, in fact, several months earlier. This trip was constructed over 4 months (1 day a month spent as an outpatient for chemo treatment for bladder CA) as a treat to myself when I beat the bladder CA.
I apologize for the rant and rave about sleeping car fares. The exorbitant fares have just fueled my cynicism regarding Amtrak operations.
Thanks again for you assistance and reply!

Amtrak709 said:

niemi24s: Thanks for your prompt reply. Yes, the $525 to which I referred was, in fact, just the accommodation charge, LAX-CHI: the rail fare, of course, was an additional charge that was spread over all legs of the trip This was just one leg of a 17-day 7000-mile cross country train ride that departed 06 April 2015 in DLD; the ticket was purchased, in fact, several months earlier. This trip was constructed over 4 months (1 day a month spent as an outpatient for chemo treatment for bladder CA) as a treat to myself when I beat the bladder CA.
I apologize for the rant and rave about sleeping car fares. The exorbitant fares have just fueled my cynicism regarding Amtrak operations.
Thanks again for you assistance and reply!

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Just for fun I ran the Builder CHI-SEA on railsforless.us for the immediate future, diving into Amtrak.com on some dates to get the bucket breakouts. They are sold out entirely until Monday 10/21, when a single bedroom is available at the $3407 high bucket. The following day, 10/22, there are 3 bedrooms available, 30% of total inventory, all three are at $1183, the second lowest bucket. On next Thursday, 10/24, there a 4 bedrooms available, all at low bucket $1020, and on Friday 10/25 there are 5 bedrooms available, 50% of inventory, all at $1020. On 10/21 the other 9 may have gone earlier for some reason when inventory was in higher buckets and with one left they saw no reason to reallocate it.

Wednesday, November 6th is interesting. There are 7 unsold bedrooms, a full 70% of bedroom inventory. There are 5 bedrooms at $1020 (1st, lowest bucket), 1 bedroom at $1386 (3rd bucket, low-ish), 1 bedroom at $1637 (4th bucket, mid-low). Clearly at this point they are not expecting to get high bucket even for the last bedroom on that train.

Sunday, November 10th is also interesting, with 2 bedrooms remaining, one at $2,335 (6th bucket, high-ish) and one at $3,407 (8th, highest bucket).

Note that these prices are all inclusive of the $338 rail fare. The accommodation charges are ranging from $682, not all that far off from your prices of 10 years ago, to a high bucket accommodation charge in this period of $3069. That's a 450% spread in Builder bedroom accommodation charges.

To constrast I ran 11 months out, 8/17-9/16, which demonstrates Amtrak's current approach of very aggressive initial yield management allocations at inventory release. Lowest open bedroom prices are $2,813 (7th, second highest bucket) and $3,407 (8th, highest bucket). Many dates are just $3,407, though all those dates have at least 2 rooms sold. I dove deeper into the allocation for Wednesday 9/3 with all 10 bedrooms open and there are 2 at $2,813 and 8 at $3,407 as of today. So much for the old advice of buying 11 months in advance for the best prices. Note that on some of the days with five $1020 low bucket bedrooms in the next couple weeks they may well have sold a couple $3407 bedrooms to some poor suckers 10 or 11 months out on those trains.

Sleeper accommodation charges show very wide variance and it obviously pays a lot of dividends to shop, be as flexible as possible, and have some idea of inferred timing of Amtrak's yield management practices. My empirical experience is they often leave their initial, aggressive, allocations alone for about 6 months, then may start revisiting it and reallocating. The sweet spot for me is to start closely following fares 6 months before intended departure, looking for reallocations that may come between 4 and 6 months out. I will miss relatively last minute low bucket reallocations, such as we see here in the next couple weeks for Builder bedrooms, but will also avoid the high buckets at 11 months out. I generally shoot for lower buckets up to mid and generally get them.
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