Difficulty using Amtrak's website to make connections

[merkelman06]

If 3x trains are not bad enough for planning a trip, Amtrak’s website makes it even more difficult.

I use the City of New Orleans to connect with other long distance trains in Chicago. Have done it for years. The City leaves New Orleans on Wednesday Friday and Sunday on the 3x schedule. Yet if you type in New Orleans to any other city on a long distance train west it says “no Amtrak service between stations selected.”

So New Orleans to Minneapolis or Denver or Albuquerque all come up with the no service message.

If the trip is reversed to New Orleans it shows the connection in Chicago but not from New Orleans. I guess it’s a classic case of you can’t get there from here.

Im sure most folks will see that message and simply move on and fly or drive even though service was actually available.

 

[oregon pioneer]

Welcome to my world. Even when there was daily service, if I wanted to go from Bend Oregon to Rte 128 (near Boston), the answer was "no can do." I had to call an agent and talk them through it, link by link. I think they used multi-city to get the connections to work.

 

[Qapla]

I was told the reason the connection shows as "no service" is because the connection is not "guaranteed" - evidently, they do not consider a connection that requires an overnight stay as "guaranteed" or a layover time so short it is too easy for a slightly late train to cause you to miss the other train and therefore will not post it for booking.

You may be able to book two separate tickets, one for each leg, that will make the trip "possible" - but, if the layover times are too short or too long Amtrak will not make that reservation on the app since they won't accept responsibility for a missed connection and have to pay for your room or ticket.

 

[merkelman06]

The connection time is 5 hours. I’ve booked this connection at least 3 times a year for the last 10 years. Most recently in June. It works in reverse. I don’t know what they did to the website. It was showing up as of last week when I checked a trip.

 

[daybeers]

I have seen similar silly things. It seems the reservation system was modified to result in these errors. I sadly agree that most travelers would think travel between those two points wouldn't be possible and would give up and either fly or drive.

 

[bratkinson]

It's simple...Amtrak honchos do NOT want anyone to make connections to/from LD trains. ie, ride 'em while you can!

I just tried a NYP->MKE booking on Sunday Nov 8 that #49 runs, but NEITHER of the two possible routings presented, NYP-WAS-CHI-MKE and NYP-PGH-CHI-MKE shows the obvious, the Lakeshore Ltd. I checked the following Sunday as well.

 

[WWW]

Airlines won't let you book an illegal connection and if that connection is too long of time then the reservation goes point to point
resulting in not getting the benefit of a through fare if one was there at all.

 

[merkelman06]

The website was updated overnight and the connection now shows available. I messaged Amtrak yesterday and they said they would send it off to the web team. I guess in this case they did.

 

[niemi24s]

Now that Arrow has been fixed, is it safe for our Chicken Littles to leave their coops?

 

[Barb Stout]

I started taking Amtrak in 2015 and always had that "problem" with showing no service between ABQ and Cleveland, for example. So I just assumed right from the start that one has to book everything in segments. Then I found out from this forum about guaranteed connections and not guaranteed connections with the way I was doing it. But apparently if you made the reservations in segments, you can call Amtrak up to request a guaranteed connection. There is some magical phrase you can use, but I have forgotten what it is.

 

[Bob Dylan]

I started taking Amtrak in 2015 and always had that "problem" with showing no service between ABQ and Cleveland, for example. So I just assumed right from the start that one has to book everything in segments. Then I found out from this forum about guaranteed connections and not guaranteed connections with the way I was doing it. But apparently if you made the reservations in segments, you can call Amtrak up to request a guaranteed connection. There is some magical phrase you can use, but I have forgotten what it is.

Link the Reservations!

 

[niemi24s]

I have a fuzzy recollection that the magic word is link. If you can start a multi-city booking with something like a 2 to 23 hour connection time between trains, an agent can put them on the same ticket which forms the link and also the guaranteed connection.

I think. But somebody here who travels a lot more can give you the real process.

 

[me_little_me]

I started taking Amtrak in 2015 and always had that "problem" with showing no service between ABQ and Cleveland, for example. So I just assumed right from the start that one has to book everything in segments. Then I found out from this forum about guaranteed connections and not guaranteed connections with the way I was doing it. But apparently if you made the reservations in segments, you can call Amtrak up to request a guaranteed connection. There is some magical phrase you can use, but I have forgotten what it is.

I always use the following phrase: "Do it or my cousin Guido is going to see you swim with the fishes". Works every time. One agent even offered to pay for my ticket himself but I told him it was not necessary because if he didn't make the connection guaranteed, his family would have to pay for the concrete.