Anyone here prefer paper tickets?

[BCL]

I'm not a Luddite by any stretch and use the Amtrak app when I have no other options or not enough time, but I prefer a ticket printed on Amtrak ticket stock, even though it's technically an eTicket with no cash value. I like having it out and keeping my phone in my pocket. It's also a nice little souvenir. I'll usually have it printed out via QT, but occasionally I'll ask for a paper ticket from a ticket agent. I've only been refused once (especially since I showed the res# from iOS Passbook), and in that case I just walked over to the QT kiosk and printed it up.

Am I the only one who prefers paper tickets?

 

[amamba]

You still have an eticket when you get the printout from the ticket agent.

I like the "tickets" from the ticket agent but I vastly prefer etickets. It means that my ticket can be lost and they will just print me another one.

It caused great consternation for me once when my Husband lost his $378 paper ticket monthly pass at the beginning of the month. YAY for etickets!!!!

 

[Lakeshore]

I prefer the paper tickets for Amtrak and other places, such as sporting events. I used to put tickets in a scrapbook from concerts/events. A bar code just isn't the same... :angry:

 

[BCL]

You still have an eticket when you get the printout from the ticket agent.

I like the "tickets" from the ticket agent but I vastly prefer etickets. It means that my ticket can be lost and they will just print me another one.

It caused great consternation for me once when my Husband lost his $378 paper ticket monthly pass at the beginning of the month. YAY for etickets!!!!

I get that. However, what I'm saying is that I prefer the Amtrak ticket stock. It feels more "official".

Heck - I've probably tried all sorts of junk with tickets, including wasting ticket stock by reprinting them after each segment has been used (used segments go away as they're used).

 

[rickycourtney]

Any nostalgia I had for paper tickets I had went out the window when Amtrak started using the ticket stock as paper for eTickets. I might feel differently if Amtrak still printed the information under the proper headings on the ticket stock.

I get the feeling Amtrak is just using up the current stock before they order tickets that are just plain with an Amtrak logo (like most of the airlines have done). Maybe those tickets will look nicer and will be worth keeping for especially meaningful trips.

Here's what American Airlines newest boarding pass looks like:

And Delta's:

In both cases the airline uses plain white thermal paper with a color logo printed on the ticket stock, or in the case of airports that use "generic" boarding gates the logo can be printed on by the thermal printer.

 

[amamba]

So what you really prefer is not a true paper ticket, then. You prefer etickets that can be printed on paper ticket stock like boarding passes.

Because I'm struggling to see why anyone would really prefer TRUE paper tickets (where the value is lost if you lose the ticket). Because as I mentioned above, I don't see how those benefit anyone.

 

[Orangesaint]

I prefer the paper tickets for Amtrak and other places, such as sporting events. I used to put tickets in a scrapbook from concerts/events. A bar code just isn't the same... :angry:

I agree with you completely. At least Amtrak still lets you get the e-ticket on their "letterhead".

 

[BCL]

So what you really prefer is not a true paper ticket, then. You prefer etickets that can be printed on paper ticket stock like boarding passes.

More or less. However, I prefer this form if I can get it.

I'm not a big fan of bearer instruments. I've worried about losing multi-rides before, and once had to deal with one where the printer malfunctioned at a QT kiosk. With eTicketing I simply print up a new one and no harm no foul. Granted I couldn't figure out why it had to be a live document since they had an electronic record of uses.

 

[jphjaxfl]

I much prefer electronic tickets. I have a large collection of Railroad passenger tickets from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Many stations continued to use their private Railroad ticket stock for 2-3 years after Amtrak started. I continued to collect Amtrak tickets for a while but they became as boring as airline tickets compared to the colorful variety of private Railroad passenger tickets. When I could send my electronic ticket to my phone, that is the ultimate.

 

[Bob Dylan]

I miss the old handwritten tickets on Railroad and Pullman stock that the Passenger Agents or Station Master used to prepare for trips on Passenger Trains!

But as for Amtrak, the e- tickets are certainly convienent to use in whatever form and as was said, not having any cash value if lost, are a very secure way to travel!

 

[dlagrua]

The eTicket was just another way that industry raised more profit by eliminating paper and ink charges. . With the eTicket the paper and ink is on you. It is a convenience though to just print out the tickets when you complete an online purchase. You can also guard against loss by printing out two sets to take along on your trip.

 

[Barciur]

The eTicket was just another way that industry raised more profit by eliminating paper and ink charges. . With the eTicket the paper and ink is on you. It is a convenience though to just print out the tickets when you complete an online purchase. You can also guard against loss by printing out two sets to take along on your trip.

Well, not necessarily - you can now print out the eticket at QT 100 times.

 

[BCL]

The eTicket was just another way that industry raised more profit by eliminating paper and ink charges. . With the eTicket the paper and ink is on you. It is a convenience though to just print out the tickets when you complete an online purchase. You can also guard against loss by printing out two sets to take along on your trip.

Well, not necessarily - you can now print out the eticket at QT 100 times.

Is that the record? I'll admit to maybe three or four copies, if only because I was bored. Once I just gave one to my kid to play with.

Also - nearly all "point of sale" has gone to thermal paper, including Amtrak ticket stock. No ink costs, although sometimes I wonder why retailers and others don't bother to replace malfunctioning print heads. Seems common at Target, and one particular QT kiosk at one Amtrak station always had a line lengthwise right where the PDF417 code was printed. It should work because all these codes are built with redundancies and checksums. You can literally cover up a third of a perfect PDF417 and it will still scan.

Even so, I suppose the idea is that very few passengers will bother to print it out at Amtrak's expense if they have another option like a smart phone or "print at home/work". Also - who would be able to figure out how to print it out at QT? You'll need an AGR card, a credit card, or any eTicket code (figured this out when I had way too much time on my hands).

 

[Anderson]

I'll admit that I preferred paper tickets, but that had a lot more to do with the ultra-flexible, fully-refundable-until-printed nature of the tickets (which meant, in practice, that the tickets were refundable until I walked into the station the day of my trip...I was once able to scrap a massive reservation mere hours before the departure and cancel nearly all the legs associated with it [i kept one leg and used it to have a "train day" on the way up to NYP and back on the Meteor] with no net cost and a full refund).

 

[Ryan]

The eTicket was just another way that industry raised more profit by eliminating paper and ink charges. . With the eTicket the paper and ink is on you.

You could always just not print the ticket.

E-tickets are way, way, way better than antiquated paper tickets. I mistakenly printed out a big chunk of my tickets for my honeymoon trip like 3 months before the wedding. Now THAT was stress, having to worry about not losing them.

 

[afigg]

The eTicket was just another way that industry raised more profit by eliminating paper and ink charges. . With the eTicket the paper and ink is on you. It is a convenience though to just print out the tickets when you complete an online purchase. You can also guard against loss by printing out two sets to take along on your trip.

The paper and printing costs are a very small portion of the cost savings by switching to eTickets. The major costs were in the handling and processing of the paper tickets, for Amtrak and tickets & boarding passes for the airlines. The ticket stock had to be secured to minimize losses from someone getting a stack of blank stock and printing their own tickets. The paper tickets had to be tabulated and shipped to a central data entry facility to process the tickets.

Now, with eTickets, the customer usually prints out the ticket, no more dealing with situations where the original paper ticket was lost, the ticket is collected and automatically processed when the conductor (or boarding gate scanner) scans the eTicket. Saved the airlines a fair amount of money when they went all electronic. eTicketing has cut costs for Amtrak, although I don't recall seeing a stated number an Amtrak report or press release.

As for me, I print out the emailed PDF eTicket and use that at the gate and for scanning on the train. I'm getting into the habit of making sure my eTicket is available on my iPhone, strictly as a backup.

 

[Bill]

I book thru AAA,10% off plus real tickets and this.I prefer hard copies in my hand.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I book thru AAA,10% off plus real tickets and this.I prefer hard copies in my hand.

If you print the ticket they email you, you'll have a "hard copy in your hand". That's what I do. The thing I liked about the tickets before e-tickets is their size. Now I have to fold the paper into 3rds to fit into my ticket holder.

 

[Anderson]

The eTicket was just another way that industry raised more profit by eliminating paper and ink charges. . With the eTicket the paper and ink is on you.

You could always just not print the ticket.

E-tickets are way, way, way better than antiquated paper tickets. I mistakenly printed out a big chunk of my tickets for my honeymoon trip like 3 months before the wedding. Now THAT was stress, having to worry about not losing them.

I still remember the prevailing advice in such a situation: Go to the counter and ask to cancel-and-rebook without printing the (new) tickets off.

I will say that the biggest advantage of the new situation is not getting stuck with "special" fares that are tied up with bad T&C (i.e. being able to book a non-special fare when a special is on offer).

 

[chakk]

After grabbing the wrong (but identically looking) computer bag for a trip from EMY -- with my paper tickets inside the bag left at home -- I was obliged by the EMY station agent to purchase a replacement ticket, and mail the original paper ticket to Amtrak in Philadelphia for a refund received two months later.

So now I am completely in favor of e-tickets, for which my leaving a paper printout of that ticket at home would have been no big deal.

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

While I am by no means the biggest fan of so-called Smart Phones, being able to dump a ticket onto the screen saves a fortune in Printer Ink; there is no Quik Trak or Agent at the Norman station.

 

[Orie]

I can't really explain why, but I prefer the paper tickets out of the Quick Track machines. It's odd because I usually love technology, and I don't keep the tickets afterwards, but I just prefer having a physical ticket with me.

 

[HAL]

I book thru AAA,10% off plus real tickets and this.I prefer hard copies in my hand.

I gather you mean the travel agent tickets issued by AAA. If you lose or forget that "real" ticket you lose the value. If you change plans you have to go to a ticket office to exchange. With E-Tickets you just call up or change online. And since the e-ticket document has no value if it is forgotten or lost the value is not lost. It is best and more convienient not to have what you call "real" ticket! An E-Ticket is the best way to get ticketed. Value tickets of any kind are the worst and unsafest type of ticket to have.

Some passengers book with AAA Travel because they think thye have to book thru AAA Travel to get the discount. Not nessecary. You can get the AAA discount with E ticketing.

 

[gswager]

One item that is fading away, along with ticket, is the puncher. Each puncher is unique- shape of "head" and location of punch or punches on ticket. And those clicking noise.

 

[BCL]

One item that is fading away, along with ticket, is the puncher. Each puncher is unique- shape of "head" and location of punch or punches on ticket. And those clicking noise.

When I started riding Amtrak in 2012, they were occasionally still using them for live tickets. There weren't many left except for the rare ticket that was issued before eTicketing and 10-ride passes. On the 10-rides, the conductor would punch a hole for each ride (and some routes allowed multiple passengers to use the same 10-ride as long as the named passenger was riding), although by then there was electronic recordkeeping. Even so, Amtrak wouldn't replace a lost ticket. I remember when the last ride was used up, the conductor would punch the last hole, then punch a couple of times in the main part of the ticket and a couple of times on the stub and hand it to the passenger. Also - AGR points didn't seem to accrue unless the last ride was taken and the physical ticket was processed.

I only bought a ticket onboard once, and then a receipt book was used with the date and price punched. There were spots for specific stations to be punched as from/to, but the conductor didn't touch those. All the station codes are on the West Coast, but the mix was interesting, including Vancouver, Burnaby and as far south as San Diego. It even includes some bus stops like SFC and YOS. The conductor just wrote both station codes in. I don't think they typically use these any more since their portable printers probably issue the receipts.

About the only use I see any more for a conductor's punch is the Capitol Corridor transit transfers.