Double booked bedrooms?

[HotlantaAl]

I got a call from Amtrak this afternoon saying the tickets I ordered online back last April 10 needed to be changed. They told me that the online reservation system had incorrectly given me bedroom B for my July 10th trip to NOL and that someone else had reserved it a year in advance. To make matters worst, all the other bedrooms were sold out.

Sooooo….They wanted to put us in a roomette and refund the difference. Well, I talked to them about that and got two roomettes at the lower price.

Anyway, is this problem common? I wonder about my CZ trip in October.

 

[the_traveler]

No, it very rarely happens.

 

[Anderson]

Points to Amtrak for dealing with an overbooked train before you got to the station.

 

[Ryan]

Very rare. Glad you got a good outcome.

 

[MrFSS]

. . . that someone else had reserved it a year in advance. To make matters worst, all the other bedrooms were sold out.

This should have been your first question - you can't book in advance a year, only eleven months, so, Mr Agent, how did they do that? Sounds like a story made up to give someone else the room for some reason we will never know.

 

[HotlantaAl]

Well, I'm not sure this is a good outcome. I'm going to wait until we are 15 days out and see if i can get one of the H Bedrooms. When I booked this there were a few bedrooms availble. I wished they had caught this earlier so I could be moved to another bedroom while they were still there. I'm still not happy but I'm going to try and work with them on this.

 

[HotlantaAl]

. . . that someone else had reserved it a year in advance. To make matters worst, all the other bedrooms were sold out.

This should have been your first question - you can't book in advance a year, only eleven months, so, Mr Agent, how did they do that? Sounds like a story made up to give someone else the room for some reason we will never know.

Other than dialing the 1-800 number, I'm not sure whatelse I can do at this point. But yes, I though the same thing when they phoned me.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

This should have been your first question - you can't book in advance a year, only eleven months, so, Mr Agent, how did they do that? Sounds like a story made up to give someone else the room for some reason we will never know.

I would not call-out Mr Agent over approximating "11 months ago", as simply "a year ago".

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Anyway, is this problem common?

From my own past experiences, one thing that comes to mind is that if there is a change in schedule for a train (and that can happen over the course of 11 months), instead of modifying the existing train in their reservations system, they create a second train with new times. Amtrak is suppose to then move all the existing reservations over from the old train to the new train, but I guess they might not be all that quick with this and someone could get (sneak in) a reservation on the second train before the move completes.

Just to make up some numbers for an example, the other people could have had Bedroom B reserved on train #33 leaving at 2:31pm, and you had Bedroom B reserved on train #33 leaving at 3:17pm. Then someone who finally gets around to auditing/checking/reconciling the reservations had an "ah oh" with Bedroom B. :help:

 

[HotlantaAl]

Keep in mind that the reason I chose July 10th was that it was the low bucket at that time, plenty of bedrooms available and at the best price. My ticket can prove this by the accommodation charge listed on the ticket.

I then picked up my tickets from the Amtrak station here in Atlanta on April 10th, same day I made the reservation. Then, almost two months later they tell me it was double booked and sorry no other bedrooms available. And yes, I was very polite to the lady on the phone from Amtrak. I do know that being mad at her does nothing for my cause.

I guess my question to everyone is "How would you feel if this happened to you?"

 

[user 1215]

As with anything to do with Amtrak, I expect the worst, hope for the best, and somewhere inbetween will fall reality. Honestly, they should have added another sleeper, then hopefully sell more rooms in the end.

 

[Shanghai]

I'm sorry to hear of your situation. From what you say,

you are getting two roomettes to replace the bedroom and

the possibility of the H-Room. That sounds like a good

compromise unless you really wanted a bedroom. Are you

flexible to travel on another date where a bedroom would

be available?

 

[chandj]

I am sorry you had this experience. I think it is rare, but when it happens to you personally it must be really disappointing and frustrating. Perhaps you can keep trying to see if a bedroom becomes available. If not, I think you will still enjoy the roomettes, and good on you for getting two. I prefer roomettes to bedrooms because I don't like to have a toilet right in the room with me, but I realize I am a minority in this opinion.

 

[Trogdor]

A simple "schedule change" should not cause any reservations to be dropped out, as long as the train number and day of departure doesn't change.

 

[amamba]

I am sorry you had this experience. I think it is rare, but when it happens to you personally it must be really disappointing and frustrating. Perhaps you can keep trying to see if a bedroom becomes available. If not, I think you will still enjoy the roomettes, and good on you for getting two. I prefer roomettes to bedrooms because I don't like to have a toilet right in the room with me, but I realize I am a minority in this opinion.

Except that there is a toilet RIGHT in the room on the viewliner roomettes that the OP will be on.

OP, I would be beyond PISSED if that happened to me. Do you have any flexibility in your dates? I wonder if you call back if you can change to a different date without paying an additional fare. They should let you, since this was their mistake.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

You could say double-booking on Amtrak is a rare occurrence. Or you could say that double-booking occurs nearly every time a sleeper is bad ordered or a train is canceled and the next available train is already full, in which case it happens all the time.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

A simple "schedule change" should not cause any reservations to be dropped out, as long as the train number and day of departure doesn't change.

I have made my reservations for my trips on the Silvers usually 6+ months in advance in order to get the lowest bucket pricing.

As I mentioned, over the years, occasionally the Silvers would get a new schedule. When I then logged onto the Amtrak website to check on my reservations (being the paranoid person I am), I would see I then had two now separate reservations; one for the original time and one for the new time. Otherwise, same train number and same day of departure. Clearly, there were two trains in the reservation system even though there is only one physical train.

But yes, I was only speculating that if the reservation on the original train wasn't properly and promptly moved onto the new train, that a double booking was at least possible. I don't know if this was what actually happened to the OP or not.

 

[Long Train Runnin']

As with anything to do with Amtrak, I expect the worst, hope for the best, and somewhere inbetween will fall reality. Honestly, they should have added another sleeper, then hopefully sell more rooms in the end.

I'm sure Amtrak would love to do this, but they don't have a lot of spare sleepers to tack on...

 

[chandj]

I am sorry you had this experience. I think it is rare, but when it happens to you personally it must be really disappointing and frustrating. Perhaps you can keep trying to see if a bedroom becomes available. If not, I think you will still enjoy the roomettes, and good on you for getting two. I prefer roomettes to bedrooms because I don't like to have a toilet right in the room with me, but I realize I am a minority in this opinion.

Except that there is a toilet RIGHT in the room on the viewliner roomettes that the OP will be on.

OP, I would be beyond PISSED if that happened to me. Do you have any flexibility in your dates? I wonder if you call back if you can change to a different date without paying an additional fare. They should let you, since this was their mistake.

Maybe the OP doesn't care if there is a toilet in the room--maybe the OP is downright excited at the prospect--I'm the one who won't ride with a toilet. If changing dates isn't possible and no bedroom becomes available, the trip can still be enjoyable. Sometimes when life (or Amtrak) hands you lemons you have the option to make lemonade.

 

[AlanB]

A simple "schedule change" should not cause any reservations to be dropped out, as long as the train number and day of departure doesn't change.

I have made my reservations for my trips on the Silvers usually 6+ months in advance in order to get the lowest bucket pricing.

As I mentioned, over the years, occasionally the Silvers would get a new schedule. When I then logged onto the Amtrak website to check on my reservations (being the paranoid person I am), I would see I then had two now separate reservations; one for the original time and one for the new time. Otherwise, same train number and same day of departure. Clearly, there were two trains in the reservation system even though there is only one physical train.

But yes, I was only speculating that if the reservation on the original train wasn't properly and promptly moved onto the new train, that a double booking was at least possible. I don't know if this was what actually happened to the OP or not.

I think that's just a quirk of how ARROW works that you saw the two times and not that there were actually two "trains" listed in ARROW.

However, even if there was a case where for some reason Amtrak had to in effect "make a new train" in the system, they would block out sales to that train until such time as everyone holding a reservation on the old train had their reservations changed over. In other words, Amtrak would not offer any sales on the new train until after all existing reservations were handled.

This is standard operating procedure for all trains in fact. For example, as many already know, Amtrak doesn't open up sales to the public until the departure is within 11 months. The train however is loaded into ARROW before that point AFAIK. And prior to the public being able to buy tickets, revenue management sets the various number of rooms & seats at each price bucket. Additionally, in the case of all the single level trains and the Portland Sleeper on the EB, rooms are blocked out for the crew. On the Portland sleeper they block out a room for the coach attendant and the cafe attendant between Portland & I believe Spokane, might be a bit further east.

And of course on the Silvers, Crescent, Cardinal, and the LSL they block out rooms for coach attendants, cafe attendants, and dining car staff. Until all those rooms are blocked out, the train's inventory isn't released for sale to the general public.

I also think, not positive, that certain travel agents with special status get a day or two to book rooms prior to the general public being able to do so.

 

[EB_OBS]

Double booked rooms happens pretty rarely in the reservations system. I have however seen it much more often when passengers showed up for their train on the wrong date. I've seen it at Spokane, WA several times in just the last six months. Because the trains depart Spokane after midnight, people will show up a day late sometimes.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Double booking is nothing today compared to pre computerization days, when everything was handwritten.

 

[had8ley]

This should have been your first question - you can't book in advance a year, only eleven months, so, Mr Agent, how did they do that? Sounds like a story made up to give someone else the room for some reason we will never know.

I would not call-out Mr Agent over approximating "11 months ago", as simply "a year ago".

Why not? Eleven months and one day make a world of difference...

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

This should have been your first question - you can't book in advance a year, only eleven months, so, Mr Agent, how did they do that? Sounds like a story made up to give someone else the room for some reason we will never know.

I would not call-out Mr Agent over approximating "11 months ago", as simply "a year ago".

Why not? Eleven months and one day make a world of difference...

Because doing such implies an intend to deceive.

If giving a correct answer requires knowing down to the exact day, then ask for such clarification. However, as I mentioned, I would not "call out" someone for rounding up 11 months plus days, as simply being a year. Especially in the casual conversation style which is what we tend to have here.