Amtrak ending certain discounts in 2018?

[jamess]

Those are Amtrak California, not Amtrak, and they are not affected by the change in discounts, since California apparently has chosen to continue most of the discounts that Amtrak is rescinding. So they are irrelevant in this discussion.

The point still remains that as long as the aggregate ridership and revenues are up, they will not worry about it. They might address specific routes if they affect the big picture sufficiently, but not otherwise. This is just plain reality of what happens when the hands of a management team are forced by specific requirements by their owners, which is exactly what is going on with Congressional dictate communicated via the Amtrak Board.

I think you have it reversed.

Revenue and ridership on the NEC dwarfs everything else. So aggregate ridership might be up if ridership is up on NEC...and down everywhere else!

It makes no sense to establish a national policy because of what is going on with the NEC.

They should do the opposite.

Discontinue the discounts on the NEC, weekdays, only.

 

[jis]

No. I don;t have anything reversed. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Reading an article today about how the overuse of "discounts" by many businesses has not had the desired effect on profits that come with the increase in volume, and it is causing a re thinking of policies for many companies.

Many companies have gone to targeted discounts. The old days of throwing everything on the wall and seeing what sticks is dying out fast. Now at many companies, unless your part of the companies loyalty program, your not going to get much.

Well spoken, Seat38a. This is what you'll see more of. Targeted discounts aimed at specific markets, at specific times. A lot of the other discounts couldn't be combined with saver fares and Amtrak is pushing towards "the early bird getting the worm..and the best(?) available seat.

.

Not something I'm particularly fond of, but I'm a dinosaur I guess.

Seat selection would certainly be an attractive upgrade, but the complexity to build the program with imagining, interactive room and seat selection, might be cost prohibitive. I asked my son who is the CTO and Chief Scientist at his company, about programming this. We sat outside for a couple hours discussing various scenarios before he said it would be a lengthy process requiring a full team of programmers, test engineers, and program managers, plus additional server hardware just during the build/test process, with major addition for rollout. He said the numerous "what ifs" created quite a lot of computer processing. In the end, I was very disappointed with the possibility.

There's plenty of options that are developed and in-use already. I believe there's a few rail operators in the UK that do it, and when buying a ticket on Tornado Bus (a Mexican bus line that travels through the US as well) I was able to choose my seat and it appears to block it off appropriately even for other trips that include that segment (and not block it off for trips that don't include that segment.) It'd take some modification to make it work with Amtrak, but the backend software exists and theoretically could be licensed.

It's been stated several times that Amtrak already has seat selection programmed into their core reservation software. Indeed that's how Acela services were originally sold before Northeasterners chose to ignore their assigned seats and pick fights instead. The flat thumb-focused front end they use today may not support it, but the back end should be fine.

It is possible and it won't be long until it is back.

 

[Ryan]

Revenue and ridership on the NEC dwarfs everything else.

It makes no sense to establish a national policy because of what is going on with the NEC.

Huh?

It makes perfect sense to establish national policy based on where the riders are.

 

[seat38a]

Reading an article today about how the overuse of "discounts" by many businesses has not had the desired effect on profits that come with the increase in volume, and it is causing a re thinking of policies for many companies.

Many companies have gone to targeted discounts. The old days of throwing everything on the wall and seeing what sticks is dying out fast. Now at many companies, unless your part of the companies loyalty program, your not going to get much.

Well spoken, Seat38a. This is what you'll see more of. Targeted discounts aimed at specific markets, at specific times. A lot of the other discounts couldn't be combined with saver fares and Amtrak is pushing towards "the early bird getting the worm..and the best(?) available seat.

.

Not something I'm particularly fond of, but I'm a dinosaur I guess.

Seat selection would certainly be an attractive upgrade, but the complexity to build the program with imagining, interactive room and seat selection, might be cost prohibitive. I asked my son who is the CTO and Chief Scientist at his company, about programming this. We sat outside for a couple hours discussing various scenarios before he said it would be a lengthy process requiring a full team of programmers, test engineers, and program managers, plus additional server hardware just during the build/test process, with major addition for rollout. He said the numerous "what ifs" created quite a lot of computer processing. In the end, I was very disappointed with the possibility.

There's plenty of options that are developed and in-use already. I believe there's a few rail operators in the UK that do it, and when buying a ticket on Tornado Bus (a Mexican bus line that travels through the US as well) I was able to choose my seat and it appears to block it off appropriately even for other trips that include that segment (and not block it off for trips that don't include that segment.) It'd take some modification to make it work with Amtrak, but the backend software exists and theoretically could be licensed.

It's been stated several times that Amtrak already has seat selection programmed into their core reservation software. Indeed that's how Acela services were originally sold before Northeasterners chose to ignore their assigned seats and pick fights instead. The flat thumb-focused front end they use today may not support it, but the back end should be fine.

It is possible and it won't be long until it is back.

I believe things are going to follow similar lines of what the hotel companies are doing. If your part of their loyalty program, and book your room through them, you will see specials such as AAA, fall special, members only 25-30% advanced purchase discount, free cancellation etc. You also get the best rooms and freebies such as early and late checkout. Now try booking a room without being part of their program, or though a discounter and EVERYTHING has a fee. You don't even have to be an elite level to receive many of the benefits. All they want is your info and at the very least you get internet for free.

As a Marriott Rewards member via SPG after their merger, I've requested (no guarantee) early check-in as early as 9AM many times and it is granted if a room is available. No early check-in fees. I tried to early check-in to the Hilton in San Francisco couple of years ago as a non Hilton Honors member and I was asked if I had a HHonors account. I said no and the agent told me they would have to charge me a fee + taxes. He inched closer and whispered that he doesn't have the ability to waive anything unless I was a HHonors member.

Also, its getting to the point where complaints are not taken seriously or completely ignored unless you give up your information via loyalty programs. One other trend I'm starting to see which I'm not sure how I feel about are loyalty program where you have to buy into the program and they give you the cost back as a gift certificate or a free night etc.. The days of screaming I'm one of your valuable customers and I'll take my business elsewhere and the staff actually caring, is coming to an end unless you can back up the claim with data in their computers.

With a former airline exec currently running Amtrak, I would not be surprised if Amtrak uses AGR to pull something similar. Its all of about gathering info and data mining these days. So technically that discount isn't free if you "PAID" with your information and you give them consent to use it somewhere in that long T&C that most will not read.

 

[seat38a]

Now that Amtrak has a former airline exec in charge, when can we expect the railroad to start charging for luggage and reducing legroom in coach?

There will be no reduction of leg room as stated clearly by Anderson several times.

I doubt that there will be any further change in luggage charges either, but we'll see.

It's fundamentally cheap for Amtrak to offer free luggage transport, as long as people don't walk in with the two tandem strollers and 12 suitcases that I saw on the platform in Denver once. It's expensive for airlines because it's weight they have to hoist in the air. Until Amtrak fills the baggage car, it's cheap for Amtrak. This is why there will probably be no change in luggage charges.

Seat pitch has a similar character though less so: they only gain by narrowing it when the train is actually full and they need to add a car. Before narrowing seat pitch, they can tell the coach attendants to stop hogging eight seats for themselves.

The NARP discount encourages passengers to join NARP, which benefits Amtrak in the long run...

On the other hand, the disability discount is probably not getting them many new passengers to speak of, sorry to say. People who are disabled will often travel Amtrak preferentially because it is better for their disabilities; if they can afford it, they'll pay for it. Those who aren't doing so are probably not swayed by a 15% discount. It is more of a *charitable* discount. (The same is true, only more so, of the "senior discounts" which the over-65 members of Congress love to mandate.) So although I don't like that it's being reduced -- being disabled is already very expensive and this makes it more expensive -- from Amtrak's financial point of view, it will probably actually get them more money.

I think luggage transport is fine, but the problem is with checked luggage. I'm assuming your talking about checked luggage since you mentioned baggage car, is the staff and equipment they need to pay for and keep at stations. Correct me if I'm wrong but only staffed stations have checked luggage and the trend has been to turn more and more stations to unstaffed.

 

[neroden]

They have been figuring out how to do checked luggage at unstaffed stations in parts of the Midwest ("at baggage car"). It's not that different from the bicycle loading and unloading. They can figure out how to expand this program.

 

[TiBike]

They have been figuring out how to do checked luggage at unstaffed stations in parts of the Midwest ("at baggage car"). It's not that different from the bicycle loading and unloading. They can figure out how to expand this program.

Except they haven't figured out how to load/unload bikes at unstaffed stations, with a couple of exceptions.

 

[IceMan]

Hi Folks,

here's a new member that just registered.

I was very interested in this topic. Having read all 5 pages now I am curious that nobody has asked one particular question yet.

This thread was started on Dec 7th.

LOSSAN was notified on Nov 8th.

On November 8, 2017, the LOSSAN Agency was notified by Amtrak of upcoming changes to Amtrak’s national tariff policy.

Is it self-understood that tickets ordered earlier will be honored according to the rules of the game at that time ?

I guess that will be the case; yet I am surprised that nobody has asked that question here.

Probably, because you are all more seasoned Amtrak customers than us.

From the comments here it seems to me that only very few members are affected directly.

We are. We knew as early as last spring that we would take the Coast Starlight south sometime end of March 2018. We just could not decide on a precise date at that time. My partner would have qualified as a senior then.

We put this booking on hold until now. And were taken by surprise last week, not having heard about the changes before.

Oh, well ... !

(Be warned - there wil be a few questions from us in the near future!)

 

[Thirdrail7]

Welcome to the board. Unless something has changed, I believe reservations prior to the change will fall under the old policy...unless you make a change. Once that happens, you fall under the new guidelines.

 

[EchoSierra]

Reservations prior to the change does indeed fall under the old policy, but expect the website to try to enforce the new one. Applying the old policy involves agent intervention.