Room Assignment and Bucket Pricing Mysteries

[jis]

One possible answer to this would be (okay, I'll put on my flame-retardant suit on now) taking a page out of the airline book, and charging those who want a specific seat or room assignment in advance.  Otherwise, you get it upon check-in (or an auto-assignment a few hours before departure).

The Brits and the Japanese seem to handle this well by doing seat reservations only in a subset of the cars in a train, leaving the other cars open. They even allow standees in the non-reserved cars in Japan, and any car of the class shown on the ticket in the UK. Seems to work out just fine.

I have done a standee trip standing in a toilet on an Shinkansen between Osaka and Yokohama, and standing in the aisle of more than one British train. My last trip to UK for a week, I had no reservations on any trains in the UK, which was very convenient since my train choices changed at the last minute several times. The only reservation with assigned seats that I had were on Eurostars and Thalys, and in that case I got on the website and moved myself to better seats after the system assigned me some random seat when I made the reservation. Since I got my ticket two days before departure most seats on the train were already spoken for. I had to hunt through several cars to find my preferred seat.

 

[Thirdrail7]

I think I've expressed the opinion on this front before (and I'd express the same opinion in re seat assignments) that Amtrak should "sit on" room assignments until some time before the start of travel and then have an algorighm "tetris" reservations in so as to preserve availability as much as possible.

I'm just curious...what makes you think Arrow doesn't automatically do this.  in other words, Arrow automatically assigns rooms for a reason and one of the reasons is to leave as much through space as possible?

 

[lstone19]

The Brits and the Japanese seem to handle this well by doing seat reservations only in a subset of the cars in a train, leaving the other cars open. They even allow standees in the non-reserved cars in Japan, and any car of the class shown on the ticket in the UK. Seems to work out just fine.

ICE trains in Germany have optional seat reservations. You can reserve a seat (depending on your booking source, you may not be able to select it or change it) for a fee or you can ride unreserved at the risk of no seat or having to move. Displays above each seat let you know if it's reserved downline and from where. Displays update at each station. Considering German efficiency, it would not surprise me if the seat assignment algorithm attempts to put a downline passenger in a seat that is opening up at that station (I've seen no evidence to suggest Amtrak does that. I think Amtrak has an assignment order and that's that. Suppose two passengers book a bedroom on the EB - one Chicago-MSP gets assigned to bedroom E (which I believe gets assigned first), the second books Chicago-Minot and gets assigned bedroom D, and then three more come and book A, B, and C Chicago-Seattle (assume there's just one sleeper). Now if another passenger comes along and books Minot-Seattle, I suspect he gets put in E since it's available  even though putting him in D would be more efficient (the former leaving E vacant  MSP-Minot and D vacant Minot-Seattle (and seeing up for the error message when you try to book because no one room is available the entire way) while the latter would leave E vacant MSP-Seattle and make it usable for an MSP-Seattle customer)).

 

[Thirdrail7]

How is the assigned seating in Acela First working out?  I would imagine that this would have a much higher likelihood of running into these issues for a couple of reasons:

1) An Acela First passenger seems to be more likely to make last-minute changes

2) There are a handful of logical "break points" for Acela traffic.

Just like sleepers, you could have a sold out, perfectly allocated train WAS-BOS, and, a couple hours before departure someone cancels WAS-PHL, in seat 1; then another passenger cancels their PHL-NYP ticket for seat 2, and another passenger cancels NYP-BOS in seat 3.  Then, a few minutes before departure, a passenger walk up wanting to buy WAS-NWK, and someone else wants to buy NWK-BOS.

One possible answer to this would be (okay, I'll put on my flame-retardant suit on now) taking a page out of the airline book, and charging those who want a specific seat or room assignment in advance.  Otherwise, you get it upon check-in (or an auto-assignment a few hours before departure).

With the above scenario in mind, that's "probably" why you can't pick your seat assignment on the Acela until after you've purchased your ticket. h34r:   It "probably" looks at your travel points, look at the rest of the system and gives you the choice of seats that are partially reserved.   This would keep a number of through seats.

So, it may not be the "pick your own seat" choice that people think it is.

 

[lstone19]

I'm just curious...what makes you think Arrow doesn't automatically do this.  in other words, Arrow automatically assigns rooms for a reason and one of the reasons is to leave as much through space as possible?

I was posting my own reply while you wrote yours. I am not sure if it does or not. My experience earlier this summer says they don't. In my case above, I know there was a roomette available SYR-BUF (and perhaps beyond but not to Chicago; I do not know how far upline it had been available) and another available BUF-CHI. Boarding, I found out from the SCA that the room I was in had been occupied by an employee who booked it last minute per policy. It's possible the room that was available SYR-BUF had been occupied east of SYR for day use but it also seems likely that it was empty all the way from BOS and that the person who was in my roomette would have been more efficiently placed in a roomette that would be used downline leaving the other for a last minute all the way to Chicago booking.

And in any event, due to cancellations, things can still get messed up. You can assign efficiently and still have it go wrong when someone cancels.

 

[Thirdrail7]

 My experience earlier this summer says they don't. In my case above, I know there was a roomette available SYR-BUF (and perhaps beyond but not to Chicago; I do not know how far upline it had been available) and another available BUF-CHI. Boarding, I found out from the SCA that the room I was in had been occupied by an employee who booked it last minute per policy. t's possible the room that was available SYR-BUF had been occupied east of SYR for day use but it also seems likely that it was empty all the way from BOS and that the person who was in my roomette would have been more efficiently placed in a roomette that would be used downline leaving the other for a last minute all the way to Chicago booking.

.

It is also possible someone requested that specific room from the agent, which would not allow the system to place them in the same room.

And in any event, due to cancellations, things can still get messed up. You can assign efficiently and still have it go wrong when someone cancels.

How true indeed....but at this rate, I can't imagine canceling a room. The penalties are pretty extreme.

 

[cpotisch]

I'm just curious...what makes you think Arrow doesn't automatically do this.  in other words, Arrow automatically assigns rooms for a reason and one of the reasons is to leave as much through space as possible?

I don’t think anyone is saying that Arrow doesn’t already automatically do this. The issue is that people can call and change their room, which is screws the up the whole “Tetris-ing”.

 

[Anderson]

The most efficient way to do things would be to not allow advance assignment other than from the train's origin (and any boarding only stations at the beginning of the trip. If nothing can be reserved downline, then you are assured that any vacant room you place a boarding passenger in is available all the way to the passenger's destination. This avoids the dreaded issue where Amtrak shows a room available but when you go to ticket it, it fails because it's not the same room the whole way.

Think about how most hotels work. You don't get to pre-select your room. You're given an appropriate room that's available at time of check-in and it's yours until check-out date. Imagine the nightmare if hotels advance assigned rooms and you then showed up with your three-night reservation only to find no room available all three nights and be told you'll be in room 123 tonight, then tomorrow you move to room 234, and then the next day you move to room 345.

Downside of this is a multi-room group boarding downline is not guaranteed being able to have rooms near each other - could even end up in different cars. But you have that situation in a hotel and somehow people have survived. You would probably also need to do something like make Superliner lower-level roomettes a separate class of room to assure availability of them for those who need them. While having to direct passengers to a different sleeper when the cars are adjacent is probably not a deal-breaker, having to direct a passenger from a rear sleeper to a head-end transition sleeper might be. Solutions could be something like a text message with your room assignment as soon as it's made (which should be no later than when the train leaves the immediately upline station).

There's been more than one time where I reserved a two-bed room and got a one-bed room at a hotel...so I'd be a little worried about that.  Going from a roomette to a bedroom wouldn't be bad, but the reverse...not so much.

I'm just curious...what makes you think Arrow doesn't automatically do this.  in other words, Arrow automatically assigns rooms for a reason and one of the reasons is to leave as much through space as possible?

I presume that Arrow tries to do that.  It clearly, due to various reasons (cancellations, etc.), doesn't necessarily succeed. 

With the above scenario in mind, that's "probably" why you can't pick your seat assignment on the Acela until after you've purchased your ticket. h34r:   It "probably" looks at your travel points, look at the rest of the system and gives you the choice of seats that are partially reserved.   This would keep a number of through seats.

So, it may not be the "pick your own seat" choice that people think it is.

I don't doubt this is the case; Acela First is also likely protected by the nosebleed fares and what I suspect is a share of the pax up there using upgrades to get in, so anyone buying a few days out isn't likely to be locked out while upgrading pax arguably generally aren't lost revenue.

 

[lstone19]

There's been more than one time where I reserved a two-bed room and got a one-bed room at a hotel...so I'd be a little worried about that.  Going from a roomette to a bedroom wouldn't be bad, but the reverse...not so much.

Obviously, you assign in the same type of room as reserved. If the hotel considers a two-bed room a different type of room than the one-bed room, then there should be a two-bed room available for you. Likewise, Amtrak would consider roomettes and bedrooms to be different types you wouldn't put a passenger holding a roomette reservation in a bedroom just because one was currently open. 

 

[caravanman]

Late to this topic... I saw online several roomettes available for travel from Sac to Chicago, but the station agent found there were no through rooms available, a couple of years back.

Also one time on a reserved seat train, we were told it was over booked, and to leave the lounge and sit in our coach seats, or loose them. (No one got dragged off the train by cops though, so that was good...)

Ed

 

[Anderson]

Obviously, you assign in the same type of room as reserved. If the hotel considers a two-bed room a different type of room than the one-bed room, then there should be a two-bed room available for you. Likewise, Amtrak would consider roomettes and bedrooms to be different types you wouldn't put a passenger holding a roomette reservation in a bedroom just because one was currently open. 

Hotels handle inventory in very odd ways sometimes, segmenting by floor as well on occasion.  There was one time when I was booking a hotel and was told there was only "high floor" inventory available (which is usually an extra $10 or so).  When I checked in, I found that the hotel was only six stories high (I get "high floor" if the hotel is 20 stories...down around 5-6, not so much) and they tried to put me on floor two.  Suffice it to say that I told them that they could either put me on a higher floor or give me my $10 back on principle (I didn't think the presence of a "high floor" category was justified, but if I had to pay for it they were going to give it to me).

Anyhow...room type is usually segmented by bed type/count, and more often than not there's a price difference between one bed and two beds (since the presumption is that in a two-bed room, there will be more people).  But sometimes either the computer doesn't really communicate what is being requested or the hotel doesn't eyeball it too well.  I've never been unable to switch to what I ordered if I ask (at least, that I can recall).