Station Attendant Threw Me for a Loop

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R

Rumpled

Service Attendant
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
229
Location
OC, CA
Last night I took my standard Surfliner to and from the ballgame.

The station attendant really threw me for a loop on this one. I Ordered my tix online per the usual but when I went to the Quiktrak to pick them up - no reservation! Looked by AGR #, looked by train, looked by destination; nothing, zip, nada.

So, I stroll over to the counter and start to say I have a problem when the station attendant asked if I was Rumpled (not really Rumpled, he used my Christian name). I was a bit surprised and said yes. He said "I already printed your tickets for you".

That really threw me for a loop. He was a new station agent to me and said he does this all the time. Same thing happened to another woman right behind me.

I thought it was odd, and I'm usually running right to the minute - grab my tix at the machine and step on the train.

Anybody else have this happen to them?
 
Rumpled said:
Last night I took my standard Surfliner to and from the ballgame.
The station attendant really threw me for a loop on this one. I Ordered my tix online per the usual but when I went to the Quiktrak to pick them up - no reservation! Looked by AGR #, looked by train, looked by destination; nothing, zip, nada.

So, I stroll over to the counter and start to say I have a problem when the station attendant asked if I was Rumpled (not really Rumpled, he used my Christian name). I was a bit surprised and said yes. He said "I already printed your tickets for you".

That really threw me for a loop. He was a new station agent to me and said he does this all the time. Same thing happened to another woman right behind me.

I thought it was odd, and I'm usually running right to the minute - grab my tix at the machine and step on the train.

Anybody else have this happen to them?
Click to expand...
Why would they do that? If they are trying to help, they are not. That's the whole point of the quik-trak machine, do it yourself!

Somebody needs to straighten out that guy.
 
one of the agents in spokane has our tickets printed for us, in a folder with a schedule. i asked him about it once and he said it saved him time (that was before we got a quik trak though). when we took amtrak a couple weeks ago the agent (a different one) mainly oversaw the quik trak machine
 
I agree - it doesn't help at all!

What if the person can not make it, and has to cancel or no show? :huh: Instead of the charge just going back to the credit card, the person could lose 10% - because the tickets were already printed! And if they were AGR award tickets, the person would have to mail them back to AGR for the points to be returned to your account! :rolleyes:
 
Yes, I've experienced this as well at the station in DeLand. I'd walk inside towards the machine and the agent calls over to me that she's already printed the tix. I wasn't really bothered by it, but I would think it just makes more work for them. Anyway, it made the agent come across like she had control issues, as she seemed to disapprove that I should deign to show up only 10 minutes before the scheduled arrival.

 

Then again, this was back during Thanksgiving, so maybe she was just stressed.
 
I am pretty sure this is against policy - if it ever presents a problem, you should call HQ.
 
Anthony said:
I am pretty sure this is against policy - if it ever presents a problem, you should call HQ.
Click to expand...
I have to agree. There is a fear among agents that "the machine" will take their job. I think the agent printing out the tix will show up on their revenue sheets instead of the dreaded machine. Not only are they making problems for the pax but themselves as well.
 
You all bring up some valid issues - especially the loss of points or $ while sorting out a trip not taken.

The main thing for me is my running so close to the time my train is arriving - a delay could make me miss it.

I can and know how to use the Quiktrak - the station attendant should stick to helping those who have 20 questions and can't figure anything out on their own. :D

I'll see if it occurs again, Wednesday maybe.
 
To give him credit, I'll bet most of the passengers ignore the QuikTrak and wait in line to pick up their tickets from him. So having them printed out ahead of time saves him some time.
 
this happened to me once in KCY. i was scheduled on the river runner the next morning and showed up at the quiktrak machine at about 10pm the night before. agent was still there and was actually quite rude when i questioned why they would print tickets in advance (knowing that they are considered "cash"). i will always pick them up more than a day in advance from now on!
 
This recently happened to me in WAS but under slightly different circumstances. There was a power outage in Union Station during the night and when the power came on, they decided to print all of the tickets in case the power went out again. Great idea. Only one problem, they didn't leave any notes at the QuikTrack machines or inform other employees. I had arrived on a train from FL and I was taking Acela out of WAS. I went to the QuikTrack machine and scanned my bar code and it said "reservation cancelled". It didn't say "tickets already printed" and there was no handwritten note or anything anywhere. So I tried my reservation number and credit card etc with no luck. At this point, I was freaking out and had to get home and so thinking the reservation was mistakenly cancelled, I actually tried to book another ticket but the Acela was sold out.

At that point, I went to the desk (which is not near the QuikTrack machines I was using) and found out that they had all the tickets sitting there, much to my relief. On my way back from there to the Club Acela, I saw many more people freaking out about their tickets and this one woman with children was crying that her reservation was cancelled. So I told them what was going on. While I was sitting in Club Acela, some people came in to check in and try to pick up their tickets from the attendant. He tried to pull up their reservation and said it was cancelled, which made them very upset. I was sitting close enough to hear what was going on so I told the attendant all the tickets were printed and out at the desk.

They really need to inform people when they are going to do something like print tickets.

Kim
 
alanh said:
To give him credit, I'll bet most of the passengers ignore the QuikTrak and wait in line to pick up their tickets from him. So having them printed out ahead of time saves him some time.
Click to expand...
and adds to his station revenue from his printer instead of "Mr. Machine"....
 
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