Amtrak Guest Rewards - Get ready for a redesigned Amtrak.com

According to the Amtrak employee newsletter October edition (http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/ink/AmtrakInk-101509.pdf) (see page 6), a new version of the website will debuting sometime soon. The article doesn't state an unveiling date, just "FY '10."

The new site will
show full-day availability that reflects an
entire day of seating inventory instead of
the current maximum of 10 options
available for selection.With the new
view, customers will see all seating
options including First Class; the current
site requires additional site navigation to
view these upgrades.

^

Haven't had much of a chance to look around it yet, but the new amtrak.com appears to be in place as of this morning.

Just checking it out now, and so far I like it. First off, the site now remembers me, rather than having to log in every time I use the site (seems to be an issue with Safari).

I like that when booking a ticket, it now tells you the cost of an upgrade without having to navigate to a separate page. There is also a section above the route options telling you the cheapest fare between your selected city pairs and the cost of the fastest route.

The Amtrak Guest Rewards site seems unchanged.

Will have to fiddle with it further, but it certainly looks much nicer than the old site.

Great re-design.

The site exposes a lot of information that I think the average user never would have known was there.

I agree, looks good for the most part. One minor UI nuisance that bears noting. New site drops the capability to input travel dates in the reservation search form using the keyboard. Must use the mouse to click on the popup calendar.

Agree with everyone else here. While Amtrak's old site wasn't particularly bad (there are some much worse and much more dated sites I'm forced to use on a regular basis), the new one seems much more user-friendly (like they actually paid a human factors design professional to review it, unlike some other companies), cleaner, and faster.

Anyone know where to send bug reports to? webmaster@amtrak.com? I was taking a tour of the CCC (http://www.amtrak.com/media/train_tour/crosscountrycafe/superlinerCCC_CONTROLLER.html) and clicked the link to view the CCC menu (http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/menus/Menu_city_new_orleans-0609.pdf), and it gave me a 404. (The correct link appears to be here (http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobkey=id&blobwhere=1249200498619&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadername1=Content-disposition&blobheadervalue1=attachment;filename=Amtrak_Menu_c ity_new_orleans-0609.pdf).)

Also, some pages don't appear to render correctly in real browsers (i.e. Safari or Chrome), like this one (http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer/AM_Content_C/1241245660945/1237405732502) (the text is running off the right side of the frame).

Might also take the opportunity to address the issue ivk5 mentioned.

Anyone know where to send bug reports to?
You can choose Website Feedback in their online contact form:
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1237608364155

You can choose Website Feedback in their online contact form:
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1237608364155
Sweet, thanks. Just sent a message.

I don't know if it's related, but the Amtrak booking system is down this morning. I talked to an agent around 7:45am, and she said it should be up "within an hour." I also called JULIE, and she bailed out and said to please wait for an agent. At 8:45 I tried again, and no joy. However, the on-line booking tool is working, at least for awards - I just booked one and got a confirmation number and receipt by email.

Sweet, thanks. Just sent a message.
Message was just "forwarded to the appropriate department" (according to a reply I received from Chandra moments ago--see, I have nothing but great response times from Amtrak's email customer service!).

I didn't list any specific problems in the email; instead, I sent a link to this thread and said that the response was mostly positive but some people were reporting bugs.

So post your bug reports/broken links/suggestions/complaints/praise here--it will hopefully be seen by Amtrak shortly! :cool:

First impression for me is that the conductor image blocks the tops of the Status, Schedule, and My Trip tabs.
I'm using IE 7.0
Bad karma there. Most used browser has a problem.


http://lh6.ggpht.com/_SJx_sdXW2dM/SuXUEKd00ZI/AAAAAAAAAwU/q_PVbMuBx2c/s400/New Amtrak Web.JPG



The other negatives above I agree with
No saved trips, no putting mulitple trips in a cart, no manual date entry,

I do like the upgrades right there w/o going to another page and the numbers of rooms left

I tried it today, I'm not a fan of the wording. Terms like "add to cart" and "discount applied" remind me of Amazon.com. I also don't like not being able to see the return options until I pick an outbound.

First impression for me is that the conductor image blocks the tops of the Status, Schedule, and My Trip tabs.
I'm using IE 7.0
Bad karma there. Most used browser has a problem.

Strange--looks fine on IE8. All of the computers I touch on a regular basis have IE8 installed, but I do know some corporate folks still using IE7. Is it still really that widely used, though?

Strange--looks fine on IE8. All of the computers I touch on a regular basis have IE8 installed, but I do know some corporate folks still using IE7. Is it still really that widely used, though?

For various reasons, we still use IE6 at my office (in addition to Firefox) -- the conductor graphic, and the rest of the new Amtrak.com, seem to work fine on that version.

I had upgraded one of my home computers to 8 a few weeks ago, finally. Three days later I rolled it back to the, IMHO, superior IE7.