Exchanging Reward Tickets At A Counter

[sechs]

I'm sure that someone here has at least tried something like this, so, I'm hoping for some insight.

I'm looking to take an award this summer using the Texas Eagle to get back. Due to scheduling and UP's craptacular record, the only official connections going north out of Los Angeles lead to a relatively late arrival in San Francisco.

Should the train arrive on time or (god forbid) early, could I exchange my tickets at the counter in LAX for an earlier trip home? If so, has anyone done this kind of thing before?

Since AGR tickets have no value and I would get tickets of no value in return, I don't see any technical problems. If the San Joaquins wasn't all reserved, I'd probably not even have to exchange at all.

 

[Long Train Runnin']

I am pretty sure there was a thread about this and from what I remember there is no way a ticket agent can deal with AGR tickets just regular tickets since they can't get into the AGR part of the system

 

[AlanB]

AFAIK the agents in LA can only reticket you in the event of a missed connection due to a late arriving train. They cannot reticket you to an earlier train.

 

[sechs]

Cannot or will not?

I've had customer service agents in Chicago make changes to AGR tickets. It seems that the ticket counter agents couldn't do it solely because they didn't know how.

 

[AlanB]

Amtrak agents are not allowed to make changes to AGR reservations as a general rule, unless a connection has been missed. Each and every reservation made by AGR actually carries the warning that regular agents are not allowed to change said reservation.

I'm aware of only one time where an AGR reservation was modified before travel by a regular Amtrak agent, and that incident happened to Al (RailFanLNK) and it involved the flooding in the midwest last year. Even then, it took us well over an hour to get that change done and the work of not only the agent, but two supervisors.

 

[Trogdor]

Assuming that you're talking about the bus/San Joaquin connection (as that's the only way to get from LA to the SF area coming off the Sunset), you could just ask the bus driver/train conductor if they'd be willing to accept a ticket for a later train instead. If they're not expecting to be full, they might just go ahead and say yes.

 

[sechs]

Unfortunately, I'm looking at a weekend in the summer, so there really is a pretty good chance of train being at capacity at some point. Then again, there's always the cafe car....