COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic: Amtrak-related Discussion

[Dovecote]

Hello To All, It has been awhile since my last post. I have been a lurker for the past year and a half. Family issues have kept me from traveling and participating in the forum. I can add some insight though to this question after cancelling an existing AGR reservation this morning.

The reservation in question was made in early February 2020. When it was cancelled my redemption points were reposted to my account minus a 10% penalty fee. At the time I was unaware of the Change Fees Waived policy recently implemented. When I acquired later in the day concerning this policy, the AGR agent came across unfamiliar with this new policy. I asked to speak to a supervisor and after waiting for a few minutes the AGR agent said none were available to discuss my matter. After further discussion, the agent offered to repost (on a one time basis) the penalized points to my account. The agent explained the reposting of points in this manner is handled via an email request. I will followup with another post when this happens. I have concerns they may not.

I must say my two calls today with the AGR agents question on whether I was talking to outsourced individuals. The first agent was initially going to charge me a 20% penalty fee. I had to read the penalty policy off the website to the agent. The second agent appeared to be unaware of the Change Fee Policy that was recently implemented. This is not the AGR I have experienced on prior occasions.

A happening ending. My penalty points were reposted to my account.

03/03/2020
Amtrak Travel Redemption - Manual Adjustment
Adjustments
1,622
03/03/2020
Point Redeposit Penalty for travel redemption -
Adjustments
-1,622

 

[flitcraft]

A happening ending. My penalty points were reposted to my account.

03/03/2020
Amtrak Travel Redemption - Manual Adjustment
Adjustments
1,622
03/03/2020
Point Redeposit Penalty for travel redemption -
Adjustments
-1,622

Good to see that this worked as it should!

 

[jis]

I just canceled a trip this coming weekend and this was my experience:

United: refunded everything from a non refundable fare, no questions asked. As a matter of fact I did not have to talk to anyone. The web site did it automatically.

Amtrak: refunded everything without any penalty, no questions asked. As a matter of fact I did not have to talk to anyone. The web site did it automatically.

Hilton: since it was past the cancellation window I had to talk to an agent. But she arranged to have the reservation canceled without any single night penalty charge.

 

[pianocat]

I just canceled a trip this coming weekend and this was my experience:

United: refunded everything from a non refundable fare, no questions asked. As a matter of fact I did not have to talk to anyone. The web site did it automatically.

Amtrak: refunded everything without any penalty, no questions asked. As a matter of fact I did not have to talk to anyone. The web site did it automatically.

Hilton: since it was past the cancellation window I had to talk to an agent. But she arranged to have the reservation canceled without any single night penalty charge.

I’m still on the fence about keeping my trip scheduled for Mar22-26 on both Amtrak [outbound] and American [return], so when I read this it caught my attention. Are you saying they’re giving refunds for cancel, rather than just waiving fees for changing travel dates? Whatever United is doing, I’m sure American will follow suit. Their website, at the moment, is only waiving the change fee. And at Amtrak, when I pull up my trip I don’t dare hit the ‘cancel trip’ button as I’m not sure yet if I’m going. If I called a rep from both Amtrak and AA, I wonder if they’d tell me refunds are being offered?

 

[jis]

I’m still on the fence about keeping my trip scheduled for Mar22-26 on both Amtrak [outbound] and American [return], so when I read this it caught my attention. Are you saying they’re giving refunds for cancel, rather than just waiving fees for changing travel dates? Whatever United is doing, I’m sure American will follow suit. Their website, at the moment, is only waiving the change fee. And at Amtrak, when I pull up my trip I don’t dare hit the ‘cancel trip’ button as I’m not sure yet if I’m going. If I called a rep from both Amtrak and AA, I wonder if they’d tell me refunds are being offered?

United refunded both my fare to the credit card and the points that I had tendered for upgrades that had come through. I have no idea if this is affected by my relatively high lifetime status at United or this is valid for all. I follow the dictum of never looking a gift horse in the mouth.

 

[west point]

For those on the fence about cancelling. Study the rate of infections and more importantly the mortality rate for your age group. It is a little disconcerting about the old age mortality at the Seattle home. That is too small of a risk group to yet draw any conclusions. Maybe in a week it may be clearer. One thought. Suppose you go on a trip and get sick and are put off train in north east Podunk >?

 

[jis]

For those on the fence about cancelling. Study the rate of infections and more importantly the mortality rate for your age group. It is a little disconcerting about the old age mortality at the Seattle home. That is too small of a risk group to yet draw any conclusions. Maybe in a week it may be clearer. One thought. Suppose you go on a trip and get sick and are put off train in north east Podunk >?

Frankly my worry while I was on the road in Feb was getting stuck in a 14 day quarantine far from home. Nobody is going to put someone off a train without placing them in some kind of quarantine now, if they suspect COVID-19. And it won't be just the individual. It will likely be the entire train. Look what happened to the cruise ship.

 

[BLNT]

Frankly my worry while I was on the road in Feb was getting stuck in a 14 day quarantine far from home. Nobody is going to put someone off a train without placing them in some kind of quarantine now, if they suspect COVID-19. And it won't be just the individual. It will likely be the entire train. Look what happened to the cruise ship.

Living right near Pt. Canaveral, I have my share of cruise nights (north of 500). I've been on, what I considered at the time, a couple of "cruises from hell" - but the bar has been raised!

 

[jis]

Living right near Pt. Canaveral, I have my share of cruise nights (north of 500). I've been on, what I considered at the time, a couple of "cruises from hell" - but the bar has been raised!

Hey! Where are you located? I am in West Melbourne very near Hammock Landing at the I-95 interchange with Palm Bay Road.

 

[BLNT]

Hey! Where are you located? I am in West Melbourne very near Hammock Landing at the I-95 interchange with Palm Bay Road.

Cocoa Village - looking out on the river right now (live in Rockledge)

 

[fairviewroad]

One thought. Suppose you go on a trip and get sick and are put off train in north east Podunk >?

I think a much more likely scenario is that Amtrak will cancel your return trip and leave you with "no alternative transportation." Some airlines are announcing reduced flight schedules for the next couple of months. It's easy to imagine that Amtrak might, too.

Some of this could take the form of canceling some NEC runs. In that case the affected passengers could be accommodated relatively easily on other trains. But what if Amtrak all of a sudden axes a western LD route back to 3x/week? That could throw a wrench in your plans, especially if you are in a sleeping accommodation.

I have no knowledge of that happening, but to me it's a much more likely event than a passenger being kicked off the train due to an unconfirmed case of COVID-19.

 

[Dovecote]

I’m still on the fence about keeping my trip scheduled for Mar22-26 on both Amtrak [outbound] and American [return], so when I read this it caught my attention. Are you saying they’re giving refunds for cancel, rather than just waiving fees for changing travel dates? Whatever United is doing, I’m sure American will follow suit. Their website, at the moment, is only waiving the change fee. And at Amtrak, when I pull up my trip I don’t dare hit the ‘cancel trip’ button as I’m not sure yet if I’m going. If I called a rep from both Amtrak and AA, I wonder if they’d tell me refunds are being offered?

In my case with the AGR agents I basically had to tell them about this new refund policy. I honestly feel they were unfamiliar with this new edict had I not have mentioned it to each of the agents. Be prepared to have that press release available for discussion.

 

[wordsmith]

I just canceled a trip this coming weekend and this was my experience:

Amtrak: refunded everything without any penalty, no questions asked. As a matter of fact I did not have to talk to anyone. The web site did it automatically.

Wait a second...how come when I looked at cancelling the long distance trip I have planned for late March the website was showing me penalties applied? What were you able to cancel with no penalty? I have not called in yet because we are still on the fence about going but I assume it will be a huge fight to try to cancel without a penalty.

 

[Abe26]

Amtrak 64 was delayed today by more then a hour at the border, as the US customs denied entry for 2 individual who were recently in Iran and China, they also closed off the car were they were sitting

 

[junebug]

I understand how you feel if you cancel. Can't imagine this happening again in the near future, but I thoroughly enjoyed chatting and eating with the Chinese tourists I met on a two-day train ride on the Southwest Chief.

I know I am being a jerk about this, but yesterday I flew Frontier Airlines for the first time. If I had known I would have had to walk through Korean Air in the International terminal in Chicago to get there, I probably would have taken a different airline.

 

[jis]

Wait a second...how come when I looked at cancelling the long distance trip I have planned for late March the website was showing me penalties applied? What were you able to cancel with no penalty? I have not called in yet because we are still on the fence about going but I assume it will be a huge fight to try to cancel without a penalty.

I will find out soon what happens when I try to cancel Sleepers in late March. I will try to do so today. What I canceled was Empire Service.

 

[BLNT]

I will find out soon what happens when I try to cancel Sleepers in late March. I will try to do so today. What I canceled was Empire Service.

I have a round trip scheduled on the Auto Train (end of March, return early April) - as well as two other R/T's in mid and late summer. For all of them I booked priority offloading and coach seats - though we won't be travelling in coach. I booked them all basically to lock in the priority offloading, with the knowledge that we could cancel if our plans changed and be able to get a full refund (7+ days prior to departure). When we're certain we'll travel via train, we'll make the upgrade to a bedroom - IF there are any left. If not, we'll fly or drive (most likely).

Having said all of that - I guess things have changed, penalty wise, for the time being?

 

[west point]

"IF" panic sets in for US travel there may be few persons traveling on Amtrak as is what 's happening for some airline travel ?

 

[BLNT]

"IF" panic sets in for US travel there may be few persons traveling on Amtrak as is what 's happening for some airline travel ?

The roads might get a lot busier !

 

[iplaybass]

My conference got canceled due to COVID-19. Roomette to DC and back. Called just now to cancel, first got the standard cancellation fee line. Stated the conference was canceled due to COVID-19, so the reason for the trip was no longer there, and that I hated to lose that value. Rep quickly checked with a supervisor and cancellation fees were waived. Full refund to credit card.

 

[Barb Stout]

Media report that COVID-19 is two different strains. Hope that it is incorrect. Otherwise immunity to one strain might not carry over to other strain much like flu. Also two strains might have different transmission vectors and different mortality rates.

Someone on this forum posted a phylogeny chart on various Covid-19 isolates and as biologists are fully aware and would not be surprised by, there are a few nucleotide and/or amino acid differences between the isolates gathered from people in the US. At what point that makes them different strains, I don't know, but there can be crossover recognition between different strains of different viruses/bacteria with the immune/vaccine systems.

 

[pianocat]

Here is how American and Amtrak handled canceling my reservations today. American waived the $200 fee, even though I booked that portion before March 1 and the balance of what I paid can be applied to future travel on AA, within a year. Amtrak - I was pleasantly surprised to explain the situation, asked if a refund is possible instead of re-booking, and after some hold time, the rep refunded the entire paid amount to cc of origin. Wasn’t expecting that one. Just FYI, to anyone else in similar situation. And yes, YMMV.

 

[jis]

Meanwhile this is what has been going on in domestic air travel, just as an example.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/healt...coronavirus-patient-blasts-florida-officials/

Who knows how many such are going around undetected, since we are woefully inadequate and behind in carrying out tests.

 

[jebr]

Remember that this thread is specific to impacts on Amtrak.

On that note, Amtrak is making service adjustments, including suspending the Acela Nonstop service until after Memorial Day.

https://media.amtrak.com/2020/03/amtrak-takes-active-measures-to-maintain-safe-environment/

 

[user 14106]

Remember that this thread is specific to impacts on Amtrak.

On that note, Amtrak is making service adjustments, including suspending the Acela Nonstop service until after Memorial Day.

https://media.amtrak.com/2020/03/amtrak-takes-active-measures-to-maintain-safe-environment/

The million dollar question is will Acela non stop come back or is this an excuse to discontinue it unnoticed.