Why Such High Prices for The Silvers in February 2022?

[jruff001]

Or trying to artificially suppress demand.

Yeah that must be it.

We are talking (almost) a year away. They have nothing to lose by offering high fares now to those that are so desperate to plan this far out they will pay anything, and then adjusting the fares downwards later if it the high fares are not selling.

Conversely, it would be stupid for them to sell out with cheap fares now when someone might come along in six or nine months who would have been willing to pay more, but nothing is available. n fact, this is what they would do if they REALLY wanted to kill a train by showing low revenue.

 

[Sidney]

I was checking fares for early March 2022, and the prices are still outrageously high. I’m wondering if Amtrak is predicting a boom in travel...

If it isn't low bucket,I ll change my date or won't go. Low bucket is high enough.

 

[Qapla]

Low bucket is high enough.

 

[tricia]

Amen.

If Amtrak wants to create a sky-high-priced, soak-the-rich class of sleeper service, that needs to be something ADDITIONAL to the existing classes of service. Passengers who aren't filthy rich still need a lie-flat sleeping option that's priced higher than coach but not out of reach to most customers.

Failure to provide that reasonably-priced option is a business-killer: Pricing sleeper accommodations so high that most people can't afford them tells anyone who sees that price to cross Amtrak off their list of possibilities for all future overnight travel, unless they're willing and able to sleep sitting up in coach.

Amtrak is the national railroad of a democracy, run by the government and funded by taxpayers. Its pricing structure should not put sleeper accommodations out of reach for the vast majority of US citizens.

 

[IndyLions]

...Failure to provide that reasonably-priced option is a business-killer...

Completely disagree with that one part of your statement. Let's face it - there is going to be a travel boom like most of us have never seen in our lifetimes. And Amtrak is completely unprepared for the demand. Sleeper prices are likely to be the highest (by far) that they have ever been in the Amtrak era.

For loyal Amtrak customers - it sucks big time. But there will likely be people willing to pay high prices.

 

[tricia]

Completely disagree. Let's face it - there is going to be a travel boom like most of us have never seen in our lifetimes. And Amtrak is completely unprepared for the demand. Sleeper prices are likely to be the highest (by far) that they have ever been in the Amtrak era.

For loyal Amtrak customers - it sucks big time. But there will likely be people willing to pay high prices.

And when the projected travel boom is over, the folks who can afford sky-high pricing will move on to something else. And everyone else, including long-time Amtrak customers, will have moved on during the price spike and won't come back. Short-term greed can indeed result in long-term loss that far exceeds the short-term gains.

 

[IndyLions]

Another thing that sucks about the upcoming travel boom is that Amtrak has no upward elasticity in their capacity at all. The airlines have shuttered a lot of planes - but in a period of months they can get their capacity up to pre-pandemic levels.

Amtrak's only option is to order more equipment that will take a minimum of 5 years to deliver. They will have some additional coach capacity when the soon-to-be-upgraded Midwest equipment is available again for national service. But that's it.

 

[IndyLions]

And when the projected travel boom is over, the folks who can afford sky-high pricing will move on to something else. And everyone else, including long-time Amtrak customers, will have moved on during the price spike and won't come back. Short-term greed can indeed result in long-term loss that far exceeds the short-term gains.

You might be right - but probably not. Our demographic has proven to take a beating - and come back for more. We are gluttons for punishment.

 

[Amtrakfflyer]

To take this a step further for those who believe Amtrak is doing the right thing with these insane fares 6-12 months out.

Look at American, United and Delta companies that have been in business 75 years plus. They don’t offer the crazy $49 dollar fire sales 6 months out, but they at least offer reasonable fares say $149 that people who choose to plan far in advance can book.

Some people for whatever reason want to book 6 months out but aren’t willing to be extorted. It could be a working family whose 2 week vacation window is set in stone, grandparents going to grandkids wedding etc. These people will undoubtedly go by air even if rail was their first choice the way things are now.

As far as Gardners, Flynn’s, Coscia’s true motives with this who knows. We can take them at their word they are doing what they think is best for the company, not necessarily the public.

Time will tell. In my families case we have gone from 3-4 LD trips a year to zero and have no intention of booking unless we find value in it even though we could easily pay the sky high fares, we won’t. How many people are like us is the question?

Amen.

If Amtrak wants to create a sky-high-priced, soak-the-rich class of sleeper service, that needs to be something ADDITIONAL to the existing classes of service. Passengers who aren't filthy rich still need a lie-flat sleeping option that's priced higher than coach but not out of reach to most customers.

Failure to provide that reasonably-priced option is a business-killer: Pricing sleeper accommodations so high that most people can't afford them tells anyone who sees that price to cross Amtrak off their list of possibilities for all future overnight travel, unless they're willing and able to sleep sitting up in coach.



Amtrak is the national railroad of a democracy, run by the government and funded by taxpayers. Its pricing structure should not put sleeper accommodations out of reach for the vast majority of US citizens.

 

[Qapla]

You don't have to wait until 2022 to see high prices on the Silvers. I checked to see what a "day trip" would be tp Tampa - keep in mind, this is only a 4+ hour train ride.

• Coach $17
• Roomette $198
• Bedroom $$580

That is for each direction ... the total cost would be double those prices. SO, while a coach round trip could be had for $54 the $1160 for the bedroom roundtrip makes no sense at all. For those who would try to justify the obscene price by trying to point out the possible lost revenue from Miami or Tampa to Jacksonville (the next logical place to book to NYP) I doubt such so-called justification would set well with those who would have to pay an additional $1106 just to spend part of the day in Tampa.

 

[jis]

I think the metric that is important from a revenue POV is whether the short haul fares that are being foregone by demanding too much are actually being fully compensated by actual sale of long haul fares that would have been made impossible by the sale of the short segments. It is hard to tell without more complete information about sales patterns.

One possibility could be to release the short haul segments for sale maybe 24 yo 48 hours before departure if they have not all be sold already as parts of long haul sales. Airlines do such things with a vengeance these days, including selling standby fares in many cases.

 

[Sidney]

You don't have to wait until 2022 to see high prices on the Silvers. I checked to see what a "day trip" would be tp Tampa - keep in mind, this is only a 4+ hour train ride.

• Coach $17
• Roomette $198
• Bedroom $$580

That is for each direction ... the total cost would be double those prices. SO, while a coach round trip could be had for $54 the $1160 for the bedroom roundtrip makes no sense at all. For those who would try to justify the obscene price by trying to point out the possible lost revenue from Miami or Tampa to Jacksonville (the next logical place to book to NYP) I doubt such so-called justification would set well with those who would have to pay an additional $1106 just to spend part of the day in Tampa.

Who could justify and actually pay that obscene bedroom price for that short a trip? Again I ask why does Amtrak price their bedrooms so high? If the prices would come down to earth they would sell more. Baffling

 

[Bob Dylan]

Who could justify and actually pay that obscene bedroom price for that short a trip? Again I ask why does Amtrak price their bedrooms so high? If the prices would come down to earth they would sell more. Baffling

Amtrak doesnt want to tie up Rooms for " Shorts" when they can sell High Bucket Rooms for Long Haul Passengers!

Go with Coach, it's only 4 Hours!

 

[Sidney]

Out of curiosity I checked prices from New York to Fort Lauderdale. Seems low bucket for one person is $490 for a roomette and $1238 for a bedroom. Considering the flexible dining ,those prices are quite steep..and really is paying over $700 more for extra space and a shower in your room worth it? It's a two day one night trip.

At the other extreme of Amtrak's pricing is a trip from Bloomington to Los Angeles on the Texas Eagle. Low bucket was $448 senior fare roomette for three nights and in June(hopefully) traditional dining. I booked that trip for late May. Starting in Chicago I booked a $13 Coach fare to Bloomington. Few hour layover and then theTE/SL. I looked at prices today and after checking multiple dates for the next several months the lowest I could find was about $670.

 

[niemi24s]

Out of curiosity I checked prices from New York to Fort Lauderdale. Seems low bucket for one person is $490 for a roomette and $1238 for a bedroom.

That $1238 you found is middle bucket. Low bucket should be about $929 for a Bedroom.

 

[Qapla]

Amtrak doesnt want to tie up Rooms for " Shorts" when they can sell High Bucket Rooms for Long Haul Passengers!

For a Government owned and tax dollar supported system that is supposed to be the Nation's Railroad, pricing the "shorts" in favor of Long Haul Passengers so that the general taxpaying public cannot afford the cost is not only discriminatory ... it is just plain wrong!

 

[jis]

I think it is hard to claim that general use of yield management by an outfit that is supposed to be run like a for profit business though not necessarily making a profit is contrary to the fiduciary responsibility that has been placed on the shoulder of its management by its charter. What is legitimate to discuss is whether the policy maximizes yield until the charter is changed to say something else.

 

[tricia]

For a Government owned and tax dollar supported system that is supposed to be the Nation's Railroad, pricing the "shorts" in favor of Long Haul Passengers so that the general taxpaying public cannot afford the cost is not only discriminatory ... it is just plain wrong!

Maximizing revenues involves multiple factors, some of them conflicting: You don't want short-haul passengers to block out so many long-haul passengers that it's "too" costly--but you also don't want to permanently discourage short-haul passengers. You also shouldn't price sleepers so high as to permanently discourage customers who see that and conclude that Amtrak's generally just too expensive for them.

And there are factors beyond simply maximizing revenues. I believe there should be a cap on sleeper prices, so they never rise into a stratosphere that the vast majority of potential customers (and taxpaying citizens) can't reasonably afford. That's both for good long-term marketing, and for cultivating wide and deep taxpayer support for Amtrak.

My $0.02.

 

[domefoamer]

As someone posted earlier, wait a while. The prices may indeed come down. Amtrak is not going to act like a 1960s era private railroad. The private RRs wanted to dump their passenger rail service altogether because it wasn't profitable enough for them. ...It's owned by the government, and its purpose is to provide passenger rail service.

Agreed. Amtrak also isn't motivated to ax passenger trains to reallocate schedules and resources to their freight trains, as the private RR's did. Passenger is all they do. And without some LD network to give them national relevance and constituency, it would be tempting to carve Amtrak up into regional entities. What bureaucrat wants to preside over the dissolution of their empire?

You make an excellent case for optimism, MARCrider. Optimism never comes easy on rail forums, but this would seem like the time to exercise that dormant mental muscle. Amtrak Joe is in charge. The new Amtrak head has praised sleeper service, with one expansion. I'll save the pessimism for the next swing of the political pendulum.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The airlines have shuttered a lot of planes - but in a period of months they can get their capacity up to pre-pandemic levels.

Passenger airlines have stored many aircraft for a future return to service but they have also permanently retired many others. Order books are long and manufacturers have slowed production to weather the storm. Even if business and convention travel suddenly returned tomorrow I would not expect most airlines to reach pre-pandemic capacity for years. The rental car market is even more constrained right now. That being said airlines and rental agencies are much more nimble and can expand their fleets a whole lot faster than Amtrak, which seems to take a decade or more.

Amtrak's only option is to order more equipment that will take a minimum of 5 years to deliver. They will have some additional coach capacity when the soon-to-be-upgraded Midwest equipment is available again for national service. But that's it.

This is a problem that dependable multi-year budgets could potentially fix by creating a viable long-term production, maintenance, and replacement strategy like those of other transportation companies.

You might be right - but probably not. Our demographic has proven to take a beating - and come back for more. We are gluttons for punishment.

My trips are way down from the peak "chef inspired" era as prices have risen while service standards dropped.

 

[dlagrua]

Having read through all of the posts here, I will agree that it comes down to price and demand but the one factor being ignored is "competition". We enjoy train travel and will certainly pay more for it but at 5x the price of a First Class Air ticket the choice is pretty clear. If Amtrak drives away faithful customers; is this a good business model? If the sleepers are really that popular and can sell for big bucks, then Amtrak needs to order more sleeping cars and reap the rewards. That's then a good business model.

 

[Old MM]

It does seem to be a new development... qualification: or maybe it took me longer to notice it was happening. Amtrak seems to be experimenting with its revenue management strategy, to try and maximize potential profits wherever possible. Like airline RM, they try to estimate when people are most likely to travel and price accordingly. So it's no longer about booking first on a given train to secure the low bucket. If the train is empty and the RM people think there will be demand, no low bucket will be available. If there are only 3 rooms or BC seats left and you want 2 of them, you might pay a whole lot more... or not, depending on the RM decisions that were made. I've seen examples of both while playing with the Amtrak app during bouts of insomnia. I really miss AmSnag.

 

[Sidney]

Southwest,Megabus,Greyhound and other airlines give you fares for up to a month at a glance. I wish Amtrak would do this on their website. It's frustrating having to punch in a day at a time when trying to find the lowest fares.

 

[niemi24s]

While sniffing around on Arrow for fare increases, just discovered that prices have increased as much as 4½% for Bedrooms and Family Bedrooms on the routes checked. F'rinstance, a high bucket Bedroom on the EB went up $99 from from $2215 to $2314. Only made about eight searches and didn't find any Coach or Roomette increases. These were for travel starting during the upcoming week. And I've no idea when the increases kicked in - only do spot checks every three or four weeks.

A Bedroom from NYP to ORL is probably up by about 1.7%.

But with no AmSnag available, updating the fare bucket chart is not on my to-do list.

 

[Sauve850]

I am taking the Cardinal from Chicago to Alexandria end of August, couple days there and then the Star to South Florida. I originally booked a roomette for both legs with points. Yesterday I changed the Star from roomette to bedroom in the 9111 car. They are only running 2 cars so a reasonable bet that I can try out a new bedroom. All four bedrooms were available and the price rose +$300 after I booked for next available bedroom!