Meat Puppet
Lead Service Attendant
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2009
- Messages
- 342
If for example, there are 4 low bucket coach fares available and one books 5 coach seats....all 5 default to the higher bucket price. But if you book 4 coach and then seperatly book 1 coach, you would get 4 at the lower bucket and 1 at the next higher. I know this because I often travel with 3 people and booking 2 and then 1 is often cheaper than booking 3 together if only 2 seats remain at the lower bucket.You lost me. I can't think of a fare pricing situation where making two (or more) separate reservations, at the same time, for the same train, for the same date(s), could result in a lower combined fare.Based on how the article reads, the reservations were made "separate" to save on the fares, but likely made at the same time so it is unlikely tons of seats would have gotten filled in between making the individual reservations.How would that have prevented this?If Amtrak would come into the 20th century and let you pick your seat, or at least assign it ahead of time like they already do with sleepers, this would not have happened. Blame is squarely on Amtrak for this :angry2:
Here, they made separate reservations (the root of all their problems). So, even if one got to pick seats, one would only be able to pick the seats for that one reservation. There is no guarantee, that with any/all future additional reservations (made hours, weeks, months later), that seats immediately next to those already selected, will still be available.
That's why I was thinking they had to be made at different times.