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printman2000

Engineer
Joined
Nov 9, 2005
Messages
3,786
Location
Amarillo, Texas
After doing 13 years of summer vacations using Amtrak, we took the last two years off. One to save money and one to use that money to go to London. Now we are back for at least one more trip. Finally saved up enough points for the four of us to go Fort Worth to New York and back.

Since the website will not longer book trips with multiple segments using points, I booked both using the Amtrak iOS app. Some oddities in that. It would show a point price for sleeper, but then when you select it, the point price would go waaay up. By adding a third roomette to one train, then taking it away, the point price would go back down to what it was suppose to be.

We are doing the Texas Eagle and Lake Shore Limited both ways. Last time we did New York was in 2009. That was when the LSL had a diner-lite. This new meal experience sounds less than ideal, but not much we can do about it. Hopefully will at least get to spend time in a new Viewliner dining car. Last time I was on a single level dining car was back in the 70's as a kid.

Hopefully, all will go well. But it is Amtrak, so who knows.
 
I really like the LSL. The 9:30 pm departure out of Chicago was a fun experience. You're right the meals on the LSL won't be the highlight of your journey. :) There usually seems to be enough stop time in Albany that you can detrain, explore the station a bit (very nice station) and even get a sandwich to tide you over until you get to New York.
 
printman2000 said:
After doing 13 years of summer vacations using Amtrak, we took the last two years off. One to save money and one to use that money to go to London. Now we are back for at least one more trip. Finally saved up enough points for the four of us to go Fort Worth to New York and back.

Since the website will not longer book trips with multiple segments using points, I booked both using the Amtrak iOS app. Some oddities in that. It would show a point price for sleeper, but then when you select it, the point price would go waaay up. By adding a third roomette to one train, then taking it away, the point price would go back down to what it was suppose to be.

We are doing the Texas Eagle and Lake Shore Limited both ways. Last time we did New York was in 2009. That was when the LSL had a diner-lite. This new meal experience sounds less than ideal, but not much we can do about it. Hopefully will at least get to spend time in a new Viewliner dining car. Last time I was on a single level dining car was back in the 70's as a kid.

Hopefully, all will go well. But it is Amtrak, so who knows.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have seen the same thing. When booking multiple rooms, say 3, and there are “2 available” at a certain bucket, if you try to book over the amount “available” then the system will price all rooms at the highest bucket of the 3 you want to book. I saw this last year when trying to book a bedroom suite from Chicago to Salt Lake City, there was one room at B1, and even talking to Amtrak they wouldn’t/couldn’t adjust the prices so we got one cheaper room and one at the next bucket. My only fix was to book two reservations and then ask for the proper rooms for the suite, which worked great. The fun part was I called to try and get us in the 533 sleeper later, they did it and some how the system repriced the higher room to the lower bucket and we got a refund, which was a little odd because the lower fare was not available online.

Have a great trip! Maybe you’ll get Lamar on the Texas Eagle, if you haven’t seen it look up Come Ride with Me on Facebook, he has some really good posts.
 

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