Fare for Roomettes: how do they change over time?

[jonv16]

Hello,

We take an annual trip on the Lake Shore Limited. It is always the same weekend, so I buy the tickets when they become available 11 months out.

Last year, I noticed the price was high right away. I asked an agent and she said they were using some other 'bucket' model and the prices released 11 months in advance were not necessarily the cheapest. She said to monitor it and be ready to buy if it dropped.

Of course, I was worried about the price going up or the roomettes selling out, but I did wait.

Three weeks later, the price dropped, and I bought the outgoing leg.

A week after that, the return leg dropped, so I bought that.

In both cases, I was assigned the first roomettes (1 and 2) in the cheapest sleeper. So, I must have been the first purchaser.

I saved ~$150 (I used some points in all this, so hard to assign an exact dollar value).

Has anyone had this experience?

What is the scheme they were following with the fare bucket?

Is this still going on? I hope so, as I am waiting right now to see if the fare drops like it did last year.

Thanks for any comments.

 

[trimetbusfan]

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/fare-buckets-discussion-2023-q4-2024.86129/page-11

This thread is your friend.

It’s all supply and demand.

Typically, 11 months out is not the best time to book. Fares are generally high 11 months out.

The best time is 4-6 months before departure. If there are a lot of inventory at this point, fares will almost certainly drop.

A detailed fare chart by route can be found on this thread (the most recent thread will have the current fares).
https://www.amtraktrains.com/thread...eeper-fares-buckets.77062/page-8#post-1053396

 

[zephyr17]

Hello,

We take an annual trip on the Lake Shore Limited. It is always the same weekend, so I buy the tickets when they become available 11 months out.

Last year, I noticed the price was high right away. I asked an agent and she said they were using some other 'bucket' model and the prices released 11 months in advance were not necessarily the cheapest. She said to monitor it and be ready to buy if it dropped.

Of course, I was worried about the price going up or the roomettes selling out, but I did wait.

Three weeks later, the price dropped, and I bought the outgoing leg.

A week after that, the return leg dropped, so I bought that.

In both cases, I was assigned the first roomettes (1 and 2) in the cheapest sleeper. So, I must have been the first purchaser.

I saved ~$150 (I used some points in all this, so hard to assign an exact dollar value).

Has anyone had this experience?

What is the scheme they were following with the fare bucket?

Is this still going on? I hope so, as I am waiting right now to see if the fare drops like it did last year.

Thanks for any comments.

They haven't been allocating inventory into lower buckets at inventory release 11 months out for many, many years now. They abandoned that practice a long time ago, and the old "buy cheaply at 11 months out" advice is woefully outdated and pretty much flat wrong for sleepers.

The pattern I've discerned, just empirically and by no means a scientific sample, is they allocate inventory initially into the higher couple buckets at inventory release and leave it there for several months. Somewhere between 4 and 6 months out they'll revist it and reallocate based on sales and developing demand. They'll usually reallocate some inventory into lower buckets at that point. They appear to become somewhat more active in managing inventory from then until departure sometimes.

It is important to understand the entire inventory is allocated to various buckets at all times. While yield management is "dynamic", the allocations are not continually changing. As rooms are sold, inventory in lower buckets is consumed and sales roll into the next open one up (they don't necessarily allocate inventory into each and every bucket). If they decide inventory is not moving at current allocations, they'll reallocate and then leave that allocation be for awhile and let sales roll through them.

Railsforless.us will display the number of roomettes in the current bucket. For Bedrooms it shows the total inventory, displayed at somewhat incorrectly at current bucket. The difference is probably a glitch, but one I find useful, I like seeing the total open inventory and can use Amtrak.com to discern the individual bucket allocations witin the total inventory by doing dummy bookings for up to 8 passengers.

My practice is to check prices and inventory early on at 10/11 months in advance of my planned travel date. I typically find high prices and a lot of inventory, and use it as a baseline. Then I leave it alone, maybe checking very occasionally. At six months out I start checking regularly, at least weekly, looking for a "bucket drop" (actually an inventory reallocation).

If it drops to lower/lower-mid bucket, with small inventory, I'll pull the trigger. If there are just a couple rooms, I'll buy, if there are like 5 or more I may hold out for another reallocation.

This method has served me well, and I've always been able to get a low to mid bucket successfully on my intended dates. I will not pay higher buckets, but I also do not hold out for lowest bucket, either.

Note that they seldom allocate more than a very few rooms, often just one or two, to the lowest open bucket. So when you see a low-ish bucket with low inventory, you should grab it.

I mostly use points for sleeper trips, too, but use cash fares to determine when and whether to buy. That way I can reference @niemi24s' bucket chart directly to see where things are at. Cash fares pretty directly translates to points at the rate of about 0.0267/point.