Amtrak Transportation voucher

[MARC Rider]

I just got a voucher for $120 in consideration of my experience on a very late Capitol Limited on October 17/18. What's interesting is that the conditions of the voucher seem to have changed since the last time I used one. In particular, you can only use the voucher one time, and any amount of the voucher in excess of the fare is forfeited. That's not the way things worked a few years ago. I once received a voucher refund for a trip I had to cancel, and I was using it for months to pay for shorter trips I was taking, as it was a sleeper ticket, and it was in excess of $400. Now, I'll have no trouble spending this $120 voucher -- one trip to New York will take care of it pretty easily, but I'm a little perturbed that The conditions of these vouchers are restricted like that. On the other hand, perhaps these are just conditions for vouchers issued as a goodwill gesture for late trains, perhaps refund vouchers have different conditions.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I just got a voucher for $120 in consideration of my experience on a very late Capitol Limited on October 17/18. What's interesting is that the conditions of the voucher seem to have changed since the last time I used one. In particular, you can only use the voucher one time, and any amount of the voucher in excess of the fare is forfeited. That's not the way things worked a few years ago. I once received a voucher refund for a trip I had to cancel, and I was using it for months to pay for shorter trips I was taking, as it was a sleeper ticket, and it was in excess of $400. Now, I'll have no trouble spending this $120 voucher -- one trip to New York will take care of it pretty easily, but I'm a little perturbed that The conditions of these vouchers are restricted like that. On the other hand, perhaps these are just conditions for vouchers issued as a goodwill gesture for late trains, perhaps refund vouchers have different conditions.

There are two types of vouchers. This one is for compensating a bad experience. Those are one time use only vouchers. The ones you get for cancellations are refund vouchers.

 

[SubwayNut]

It's been going on since at least the end of 2019. I used a $50 Transportion Voucher (received when our checked baggage wasn't loaded onto the train in Chicago and the resulting saga when the fill-in agent didn't do the proper paperwork in South Bend, we got our bag back the next day) on a $49 Buissinness Class ticket from LA to Oceanside. On-line I felt like I was clicking my life away to understand that I was forfitting a dollar.

 

[Triley]

I would presume a refund voucher does not have that limitation. Just like my goodwill gesture travel vouchers with Delta are non-transferable, while my vouchers from canceled reservations are transferable.

And it makes sense to me why.

 

[pennyk]

I just got a voucher for $120 in consideration of my experience on a very late Capitol Limited on October 17/18. What's interesting is that the conditions of the voucher seem to have changed since the last time I used one. In particular, you can only use the voucher one time, and any amount of the voucher in excess of the fare is forfeited. That's not the way things worked a few years ago. I once received a voucher refund for a trip I had to cancel, and I was using it for months to pay for shorter trips I was taking, as it was a sleeper ticket, and it was in excess of $400. Now, I'll have no trouble spending this $120 voucher -- one trip to New York will take care of it pretty easily, but I'm a little perturbed that The conditions of these vouchers are restricted like that. On the other hand, perhaps these are just conditions for vouchers issued as a goodwill gesture for late trains, perhaps refund vouchers have different conditions.

I was on that very late Capitol Limited also. I missed my connection to 91 but (barely) made my connection to 97. I have not phoned Customer Relations since other than anxiety and a stressful 40 minute phone call to Amtrak (when I knew I was going to miss the connection and trying to change my reservation), I really did not suffer. I believe CR keeps track of the transportation vouchers it issues and I think I will wait until I have a more serious incident for which I want to be compensated (which I hope does not happen).

In my experience over the years, transportation vouchers have only been one use. However, in previous years, when redeeming, I had to be connected to CR to redeem, but fairly recently, I was able to redeem when speaking to an AGR agent.