will amtrak put us up in a hotel for missing our connection?

[gingee]

Okay I bragged too soon. Empire builder is now running two hours late. I am guessing we will miss the last train to galesburg. Was due to take the Illinois zephyr at 555. We are now running two hours late which means we may come in either right on the same time our next train leaves or after it leaves. Will they put us up in a hotel overnight so we can take the first zephyr out in the morning?

 

[Mackensen]

Okay I bragged too soon. Empire builder is now running two hours late. I am guessing we will miss the last train to galesburg. Was due to take the Illinois zephyr at 555. We are now running two hours late which means we may come in either right on the same time our next train leaves or after it leaves. Will they put us up in a hotel overnight so we can take the first zephyr out in the morning?

You still might make it--there's enough soak time in Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago. Getting out of ND only two hours late is pretty good these days. We didn't have any Galesburg-bound passengers on our train so I never heard what the options would be for them. If there's enough people Amtrak might engage a van or bus to get you there, otherwise a hotel is a real possibility.

 

[Everydaymatters]

Many years ago Amtrak put my granddaughter and I up in a hotel in St. Louis due to a missed connection. I think it was a Holiday Inn Express.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine had a missed connection in Chicago and Amtrak put her and the others in a no-tell motel in a bad area.

I hope you don't miss your connection.

 

[Rafi]

Gingee, there's enough padding in the schedule between Minnesota and Chicago that you can easily make up most of those 2 hours. Amtrak.com is showing your expected arrival as being 17 minutes late at this point, well within connection time. I would not even begin to worry until you reach Wisconsin, and only then if you're running more than 90 mins late.

Regardless, if you do miss the connection for some reason, Amtrak will most likely bus you or taxi you to Galesburg. Otherwise, they'll put you up in a hotel.

Rafi

P.S. What are you doing up so early? GET TO BED!

 

[RRrich]

A while back we were late getting into CHI on the EB but they held the last LS train to STL so although late we made the connection.

I think Amtrak does not really want to have to pay for hotel rooms DOH

 

[Gingee]

I bet they wouldn't want to put us up in a hotel either.

 

[bwitt]

Actually has this happen to us at the end of april, we were about 2 hours late into CHI, and there were 7 of us that got to ride in a van to GBB not the most comfortable thing in whe world but they got us there.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Does it make a difference if it is a "guaranteed" connection or not?

Is a hotel room normally offered, or do you have to rant a bit to get one?

 

[Long Train Runnin']

Does it make a difference if it is a "guaranteed" connection or not?

Is a hotel room normally offered, or do you have to rant a bit to get one?

They will only offer you a hotel if you missed a guarnteed connection and some other option can be arranged. If you blow a conncection that you reserved on to different reservations because you could not get the connection in one rez. Then Amtrak probably won't do much for you.

 

[Trogdor]

Does it make a difference if it is a "guaranteed" connection or not?

Is a hotel room normally offered, or do you have to rant a bit to get one?

They will only offer you a hotel if you missed a guarnteed connection and some other option can be arranged. If you blow a conncection that you reserved on to different reservations because you could not get the connection in one rez. Then Amtrak probably won't do much for you.

Not true. Guaranteed connections have to do with whether or not the connection is valid, not whether or not the tickets are on one reservation.

Nonetheless, it is a good idea to make all of your continuous travel on a single reservation, as that way, when they are pulling data on inbound connections if a train is running late, they'll know how many people are connecting to where.

 

[bwitt]

Empire Builder to Illinois Zephyr should be guaranteed as long as it's all on the same reservation. When we were bussed (or vanned) to galesburg they made an announcement on board the EB letting those of us that were going to miss our connections know what was going to happen. I think the announcement was made somewhere around Milwaukee, if I remember right.

 

[Gingee]

Well we lucked out. When our room attendant understood that our suitcases was booked to Chicago, he contacted the right people and they pulled our suitcases out ahead of time so we didn't have to wait for them. We ended up having 15-20 minutes to get to our other connection and we made it. Thank goodness. In a way I wanted a hotel in Chicago overnight but oh well.

 

[lepearso]

I was on a 5-hour late eastbound Zephyr in 2006 and Amtrak did a very good job helping everybody with missed connections.

Here's how it worked: two customer service reps boarded the train at Galesburg. Using the PA system they called us to the dining car according to the trains we were connecting to.

Michigan passengers were told to board a bus that would be waiting in front of Chicago Union Station. All other passengers were given a hotel voucher and a cash ticket. The cash ticket we took to the ticket counter to exchange for cash money to use for our taxi to the hotel and to buy dinner. The voucher was for a very nice downtown hotel about eight blocks from CUS.

When we picked up our cash, the agents told all of us to come back the next morning to exchange our missed connection tickets for replacement tickets.

All in all, it worked out well for everybody I talked to. The only gripe I heard from fellow passengers was that there were no morning trains leaving for New York, Boston, Washington, Cincinnati, or New Orleans. All of us had to wait until evening to leave Chicago.

 

[RRrich]

One time the EB was massively late into CHI and Amtrak had a table full of agents giving out hotel vouchers and cash vouchers.

No yelling/ranting needed. Amtrak had to take care of us, they knew it and they did it - nicely.

Although I got home a day late, it was a pleasant experience.

 

[manderson]

One time the EB was massively late into CHI and Amtrak had a table full of agents giving out hotel vouchers and cash vouchers.

Last May the Zephyr didn't get into Chicago until 7:00 am the next day. They were even offering hotel rooms for the day and cab fare for those whose changed connections had them leaving that night.