One of my concerns about the whole "book then ask for a refund if the price drops" thing is that I've never seen evidence of the actual policy. What we have is a usual practice but I, at least, do not have any idea of how firmly grounded it is. I do not have any idea whether they'll quietly change it and suddenly it cannot be done any more, and so be stuck with the original price. Further, the ability of agents to accomplish it properly is inconsistent. I think in this case that the agent may not have known how to do it while holding the room and reservation and just cancelled and rebooked, which would be the simplest and most straightforward way to do it, though at the cost of incurring a penalty.
One question I would like ask
@SantaFe69 is if their reservation number changed.
In any case, I will keep to my current method of monitoring prices and booking only when a price I can live with appears. I know a lot of people advocate booking first to get the space, then monitoring price and asking for an adjustment if it changes. I am skeptical of that and will continue my monitor first, then buy approach. I feel like Amtrak could yank the rug out from under doing it the other way at any time, plus, as we see here, not all agents know how to do it right.