Different point costs for different bedrooms?

[Railspike]

Had a first the other day. I called Amtrak Guest Rewards to book a bedroom with points for this coming fall. Rails-For-Less showed 4 bedrooms available at 59,000 points and the points needed were confirmed on Amtrak's website for the given day. When talking with the agent, I asked which 4 bedrooms were available. I was told A, B, D and E. I opted for E. I was told E was 72,000 points. What? The agent explained that rooms A, D & E carried a premium cost of either an additional $200+ or 13,000 points. Room B was the only room available for 59,000 points.
I've been traveling on Amtrak longer than I can remember and never heard of this practice and explained this to the agent. "Sorry, but that's the policy" the agent replied.

I understand as inventory is depleted the price goes up for the next room(s) purchased. But I've never encountered the situation where there is an advertised price for dollars or points for a room and the price goes up depending on which room you choose.

Anyone else encountered this? Buyer beware!

 

[PVD]

That makes no sense at all, A is the smallest and cannot be sold to create a suite.

 

[Maglev]

I like Room A, but definitely feel it shouldn't demand a premium. I've traveled in all the Bedroom numbers, and find them all to be very comfortable.

I have encountered situations where an agent will price Roomettes differently, so I assume the same thing applies to Bedrooms. My guess is that some agents work around this and some don't.

 

[xzperu42]

That makes no sense at all, A is the smallest and cannot be sold to create a suite.

But it does not have a connecting door which can be huge.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Had a first the other day. I called Amtrak Guest Rewards to book a bedroom with points for this coming fall. Rails-For-Less showed 4 bedrooms available at 59,000 points and the points needed were confirmed on Amtrak's website for the given day. When talking with the agent, I asked which 4 bedrooms were available. I was told A, B, D and E. I opted for E. I was told E was 72,000 points. What? The agent explained that rooms A, D & E carried a premium cost of either an additional $200+ or 13,000 points. Room B was the only room available for 59,000 points.
I've been traveling on Amtrak longer than I can remember and never heard of this practice and explained this to the agent. "Sorry, but that's the policy" the agent replied.

I understand as inventory is depleted the price goes up for the next room(s) purchased. But I've never encountered the situation where there is an advertised price for dollars or points for a room and the price goes up depending on which room you choose.

Anyone else encountered this? Buyer beware!

I think you got a newbie or a lazy agent who didn't want to do the necessary steps to book your trip.

And putting a Premium on Bedrooms makes no sense since they're all the same except for A as other posters said.

My best guess is that the Bedrooms were priced in different buckets, with B being the only one @ a Low Bucket.

 

[zephyr17]

I think you got a newbie or a lazy agent who didn't want to do the necessary steps to book your trip.

And putting a Premium on Bedrooms makes no sense since they're all the same except for A as other posters said.

My best guess is that the Bedrooms were priced in different buckets, with B being the only one @ a Low Bucket.

Specific rooms have not been assigned to specific bucket inventories in the past. The algorithm for automatic assigning rooms has been separate from bucket inventory. For one thing, since allocating bucket inventory is dynamic, they'd have to rejigger the room allocation every time they reallocated inventory across buckets. As it is, it is simpler to allocate x rooms to y bucket, and just let rooms be assigned on a next up basis while progressing through the buckets and that is how it has worked in the past. The algorithm for room allocation for that "next up" is something of a mystery, it seems to switch between cars to even out passenger load. It does seem to progress from low to high room numbers within a car, though, at least for roomettes.

Historically, such occurrences as this are usually the result of agents just pulling up the next room, which may trigger a bucket jump since the original room is still being held. I understand that holding a price while switching rooms is tricky and many less experienced agents do not know how to do it. I speculate that it may require agents to go behind whatever relatively modern UI agents customarily use and go to ARROW's native green screen interface to do it.

Changing the way rooms are assigned to associate specific rooms to specific buckets would probably require modification to ARROW itself, not the surround wrapped around it. Amtrak IT is loathe to touch core ARROW, most of the people who really knew it are gone, whatever language it was written in is archaic and, like many 1970s era systems, whatever documentation there was may have been lost in the mists of time.

The agent may have just been putting their own interpretation of the behavior they saw on their UI and explaining it as gospel. To me, that seems more likely than a change in what has been the historic way room assignment and bucket progression work. Such a change would serve little purpose and would have to be done in a part of the system that would be fraught to touch.

 

[diesteldorf]

Sounds like HUCA (hang up and call back) may be your best option. Regardless, good luck.

 

[Railspike]

Specific rooms have not been assigned to specific bucket inventories in the past. The algorithm for automatic assigning rooms has been separate from bucket inventory. For one thing, since allocating bucket inventory is dynamic, they'd have to rejigger the room allocation every time they reallocated inventory across buckets. As it is, it is simpler to allocate x rooms to y bucket, and just let rooms be assigned on a next up basis while progressing through the buckets and that is how it has worked in the past. The algorithm for room allocation for that "next up" is something of a mystery, it seems to switch between cars to even out passenger load. It does seem to progress from low to high room numbers within a car, though, at least for roomettes.

Historically, such occurrences as this are usually the result of agents just pulling up the next room, which may trigger a bucket jump since the original room is still being held. I understand that holding a price while switching rooms is tricky and many less experienced agents do not know how to do it. I speculate that it may require agents to go behind whatever relatively modern UI agents customarily use and go to ARROW's native green screen interface to do it.

Changing the way rooms are assigned to associate specific rooms to specific buckets would probably require modification to ARROW itself, not the surround wrapped around it. Amtrak IT is loathe to touch core ARROW, most of the people who really knew it are gone, whatever language it was written in is archaic and, like many 1970s era systems, whatever documentation there was may have been lost in the mists of time.

The agent may have just been putting their own interpretation of the behavior they saw on their UI and explaining it as gospel. To me, that seems more likely than a change in what has been the historic way room assignment and bucket progression work. Such a change would serve little purpose and would have to be done in a part of the system that would be fraught to touch.

RE: paragraph 2 above. Bedroom B was never assigned to me. The agent said Bedroom B was the only room available for 59,000 points and I refused it. Therefore, there was no need to hold bedroom B to switch to bedroom E.

The story ended well. After I complained and argued with the agent I was just about to ask for a supervisor when the agent put me on hold and came back saying the requested room had been assigned to me as a "one-time courtesy".

 

[zephyr17]

RE: paragraph 2 above. Bedroom B was never assigned to me. The agent said Bedroom B was the only room available for 59,000 points and I refused it. Therefore, there was no need to hold bedroom B to switch to bedroom E.

The story ended well. After I complained and argued with the agent I was just about to ask for a supervisor when the agent put me on hold and came back saying the requested room had been assigned to me as a "one-time courtesy".

The same thing goes whether on initial purchase or a change. Somehow when changing a room, unless they do some special fiddling, the easiest way for them seems to get the initial room held when they pull up another one, causing bucket jumps.

I am picky about roomette location, so always call and never book sleepers online. I also have the agent tell me which roomette is assigned before finalizing the purchase. So all my personal experience with this situation is on initial purchase, though I've seen several reports that similar things happen on changes. Several times, when I am assigned a downstairs roomette, one in the transdorm, or end ones 9/10, and ask for another, I've been told it would be more. I've even been told a mid car roomette was just plain priced differently, like you were told. I've asked for a supervisor or, more frequently, politely ended the call and called back. I've never failed to get a "better" (for me) roomette at the then current bucket in the end.

My personal experiences with this were a few years ago, though, and with cash purchases on the regular line. It was before I realized you could use the AGR line for cash purchases and not just points redemptions. I will say I have never encountered an AGR agent that couldn't do it. They always understood what I wanted and were happy to do it, though it always took bit to get it done. The time it always takes them to do it feels like an indicator it isn't easy or straightforward.

I speculate that you were persistent enough that the agent got help from someone more experienced or from their supervisor. The "one time courtesy" thing frankly sounds to me like an exercise in face-saving since they had been so insistent before.

Anyway, in the end I am glad you persisted enough to get the room you wanted. If I were you I wouldn't pay any attention to the "one time courtesy" remark if you run into this again, though.

Finally, and a bit off topic, I know a lot of people prefer downstairs or transdorm roomettes. That I prefer mid car upstairs in standard sleepers isn't a claim that the location is "better" in any absolute sense, it's just a personal preference. I don't want to inadvertently trigger a discussion about the relative merits of roomette location.

 

[joelkfla]

The story ended well. After I complained and argued with the agent I was just about to ask for a supervisor when the agent put me on hold and came back saying the requested room had been assigned to me as a "one-time courtesy".

In other words, "Yeah, I can do it, but I didn't want to take the time."

 

[Railspike]

The same thing goes whether on initial purchase or a change. Somehow when changing a room, unless they do some special fiddling, the easiest way for them seems to get the initial room held when they pull up another one, causing bucket jumps.

I am picky about roomette location, so always call and never book sleepers online. I also have the agent tell me which roomette is assigned before finalizing the purchase. So all my personal experience with this situation is on initial purchase, though I've seen several reports that similar things happen on changes. Several times, when I am assigned a downstairs roomette, one in the transdorm, or end ones 9/10, and ask for another, I've been told it would be more. I've even been told a mid car roomette was just plain priced differently, like you were told. I've asked for a supervisor or, more frequently, politely ended the call and called back. I've never failed to get a "better" (for me) roomette at the then current bucket in the end.

My personal experiences with this were a few years ago, though, and with cash purchases on the regular line. It was before I realized you could use the AGR line for cash purchases and not just points redemptions. I will say I have never encountered an AGR agent that couldn't do it. They always understood what I wanted and were happy to do it, though it always took bit to get it done. The time it always takes them to do it feels like an indicator it isn't easy or straightforward.

I speculate that you were persistent enough that the agent got help from someone more experienced or from their supervisor. The "one time courtesy" thing frankly sounds to me like an exercise in face-saving since they had been so insistent before.

Anyway, in the end I am glad you persisted enough to get the room you wanted. If I were you I wouldn't pay any attention to the "one time courtesy" remark if you run into this again, though.

Finally, and a bit off topic, I know a lot of people prefer downstairs or transdorm roomettes. That I prefer mid car upstairs in standard sleepers isn't a claim that the location is "better" in any absolute sense, it's just a personal preference. I don't want to inadvertently trigger a discussion about the relative merits of roomette location.

I agree with you about the face-saving "one time courtesy". I've encountered many "one time courtesies" over the years and I suspect I'll get more in the future. This was another hassle that could have been avoided.