Choosing Roomettes on SWC

[Cho Cho Charlie]

I hate to rewind this discussion but...   

I thought the reservation system really wasn't all that dynamic.    Just making up an example to illustrate my question/point, let's say there are 8 roomettes and four price buckets.    They way I thought it worked was that roomettes 2 and 5 were priced at $250 each, 1 and 7 at $350 each, 3 and 6 at $500 each, and finally 4 and 8 at $900 each.   Of course, the first two sold would be 2 and 5, and so on.   Anywhere close to being on-track (a pun!) with this example?

The problem here is the first customer wants roomette 4, but doesn't want to pay its assigned $900.    If they want to pay $250, then the system expects them to have to settle for 2 or 5.

Well, unless you get an overly talented reservation agent (PhD in Comp Sci), who can force a price swap between roomettes 2 and 4, and get you roomette 4 for 2's assigned price.

True?   I guess my points is that it isn't a conspiracy, nor an intended rip-off.   Its just the way it works.

 

[VTTrain]

let's say there are 8 roomettes and four price buckets.    They way I thought it worked was that roomettes 2 and 5 were priced at $250 each, 1 and 7 at $350 each, 3 and 6 at $500 each, and finally 4 and 8 at $900 each.   Of course, the first two sold would be 2 and 5, and so on.  

That is exactly what is happening with me and the Lake Shore Limited.  Roomettes #2 and #3 are priced in a lower bucket than roomette #1.  If I want to switch to #1 they tell me that I have to pay more.

 

[Mr2nr]

Really should be based on time reserved before room choice. The blocks (in my humble opinion) should just be based on the availability at the time you make the reservation. Room choice is just a perk they can easily arrange for early booking customers. Now if they want to drive customers away up-charging the specific rooms is a good way to do it. They all ready do that with the Family Bedroom and Suites so they if they are really trying to separately price the roomettes on top of the blocks the might as well have a quarter slot on the toilets.

They should really take advantage of this Gov. Shutdown and do more advertising I bet half the younger population doesn't know about passenger rail service west of the Mississippi.

 

[cpotisch]

I hate to rewind this discussion but...   

I thought the reservation system really wasn't all that dynamic.    Just making up an example to illustrate my question/point, let's say there are 8 roomettes and four price buckets.    They way I thought it worked was that roomettes 2 and 5 were priced at $250 each, 1 and 7 at $350 each, 3 and 6 at $500 each, and finally 4 and 8 at $900 each.   Of course, the first two sold would be 2 and 5, and so on.   Anywhere close to being on-track (a pun!) with this example?

The problem here is the first customer wants roomette 4, but doesn't want to pay its assigned $900.    If they want to pay $250, then the system expects them to have to settle for 2 or 5.

Well, unless you get an overly talented reservation agent (PhD in Comp Sci), who can force a price swap between roomettes 2 and 4, and get you roomette 4 for 2's assigned price.

True?   I guess my points is that it isn't a conspiracy, nor an intended rip-off.   Its just the way it works.

The way I understand it, Arrow automatically starts with certain rooms, and as they sell, does its best to “tessellate” each one so as to maximize capacity over the course of the trip, but the rooms themselves don’t have specific buckets assigned to them. It seems to be a matter of correlation not causation, since as rooms sell the price tends to go up, so when you call and ask to change rooms, some agents think that it counts as a full on modification that requires payment of the current fare.

 

[VTTrain]

I haven’t experienced that.  For example, on the Lake Shore Limited, the booking engine shows one roomette left at $379.  (CHI-ALB).  But when I ask to be switched to roomette #1, I am quoted a higher price.