Amtrak Guest Rewards - can one delay cc payment via ask julie

Hi...sorry for the question, but i want to take the train but am low on cash. and low on my cc. If i make a reservation via amtrak. com and provide my credit card, does it get billed immediatly or does billing wait until i pick up tickets? also is there a rule of thumb as to how quickly i have to pay for tix with credit card and/or cash after i make a reservation on phone? thanks

You can make a reservation and put it on hold for later payment, but you can only do this via phone. The length of the hold depends on how far out the date of travel is.

Once you choose to pay for the reservation, or make it on Amtrak.com, your credit card will be charged immediately.

You can make a reservation and put it on hold for later payment, but you can only do this via phone. The length of the hold depends on how far out the date of travel is.

Once you choose to pay for the reservation, or make it on Amtrak.com, your credit card will be charged immediately.

I've had friends try this twice, and both times, they were informed that the held reservation did not guarantee a seat and the fare could change at any time before payment was made.

In that respect, an unpaid reservation appears to be more like a "saved itinerary" rather than a true reservation.

Both, I think, were reservations made within a couple of weeks of departure. There may be other circumstances, though (perhaps if booked farther out), where reservations can be made but not paid for but still secure an actual seat and fare bucket.

I've had friends try this twice, and both times, they were informed that the held reservation did not guarantee a seat and the fare could change at any time before payment was made.

In that respect, an unpaid reservation appears to be more like a "saved itinerary" rather than a true reservation.

Both, I think, were reservations made within a couple of weeks of departure. There may be other circumstances, though (perhaps if booked farther out), where reservations can be made but not paid for but still secure an actual seat and fare bucket.

I don't know what your friends did, but that is definately not how unpaid reservations work. If you let it expire without payment, then yes. But otherwise no.

And I just did this last month as I ran around trying to figure out how to get home from Seattle when VIA's engineer's first threatened a strike that would kill my trip. When things still weren't looking good at all, the day before they actually did strike and the day my unpaid reservation was to expire, I not only changed that unpaid reservation by dropping one train, but got the same price for the other train.

I don't know what your friends did, but that is definately not how unpaid reservations work. If you let it expire without payment, then yes. But otherwise no.
I sent an email over to my friend--
directed him to read this very thread.
I haven't heard a word back from him yet,
but when I do, I'll surely let you know.

;)

I sent an email over to my friend--
directed him to read this very thread.
I haven't heard a word back from him yet,
but when I do, I'll surely let you know.

;)

Ok... I should be sleeping... ;) but I'll answer your request(s) :D

Hi...sorry for the question, but i want to take the train but am low on cash. and low on my cc. If i make a reservation via amtrak. com and provide my credit card, does it get billed immediatly or does billing wait until i pick up tickets? also is there a rule of thumb as to how quickly i have to pay for tix with credit card and/or cash after i make a reservation on phone? thanks

Yes, if you give your CC, its billed immediately (to secure your seat)...
If you only hold a seat... you do not lock in a seat bracket, but then can pay at a later time... (but the fare may increase)... then again, someone could cancel and you get the lower fare :D

What I ended up doing (just mentioned this in another thread... I know) was I held the ticket on the phone using Julie (I think :eek:) - Did this on a Friday night, trip was next Sat... Saturday I didn't want to risk the fare increasing, so I used my credit card to hold it, saying I would pick it up at Union Station... (there was a small chance I would make it there...) and they would hold it until noon on Saturday... but I didn't so I called up Amtrak Friday Night and said I would not make it... so can I pick up the ticket from the conductor on the train... sure- just need to refund the card (would post in 2-3 days) and recharge on train. Only thing I was not clear on was if I secured my fare bucket or not... but the conductor only asked how much it was... so it worked out great for me!

Ok... I should be sleeping... ;) but I'll answer your request(s) :D

Answers only accepted in sonnet form. :p (I'm still working on my dactylic hexameter--see below...)

Yes, if you give your CC, its billed immediately (to secure your seat)...
If you only hold a seat... you do not lock in a seat bracket, but then can pay at a later time... (but the fare may increase)... then again, someone could cancel and you get the lower fare :D

What I ended up doing (just mentioned this in another thread... I know) was I held the ticket on the phone using Julie (I think :eek:) - Did this on a Friday night, trip was next Sat... Saturday I didn't want to risk the fare increasing, so I used my credit card to hold it, saying I would pick it up at Union Station... (there was a small chance I would make it there...) and they would hold it until noon on Saturday... but I didn't so I called up Amtrak Friday Night and said I would not make it... so can I pick up the ticket from the conductor on the train... sure- just need to refund the card (would post in 2-3 days) and recharge on train. Only thing I was not clear on was if I secured my fare bucket or not... but the conductor only asked how much it was... so it worked out great for me!

Don't understand what you're saying here--please do confirm what you mean by
saying they'd hold until Saturday noon at the latest--I don't get!
My understanding is tickets are valid through travel and can be
picked up mere moments before you are boarding the train, so I'm somewhat
baffled at what you were saying in threads such as these (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amtrak-guest-rewards/988617-stations-no-agent-quik-trak.html#post12295069), where you pinpoint
some sort of three-day window in which you must book--wait--I get it!
Sorry! I just had kind of a brain fart--dumb, you can call me!

Umm, OK. So that experiment failed miserably. At least lg10 should be proud (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/12262787-post7.html). ;) (Sorry, I'm not quite to 5,000, but I slipped in a few spondees per Homer's precedent. :p) Anyway, in normal English:

AFAIK, there is no time where your paid ticket would have expired. If you haven't printed it, Amtrak will do a sweep about two days after your train's scheduled departure and automatically cancel the ticket and issue you a refund. (This is for coach; it's slightly more complicated for a sleeper ticket.) So I'm not sure where "they would hold it until noon on Saturday" comes in. They should hold it until at least your scheduled departure from Dyer, since the system isn't smart enough to know anything about the drive time between DYE and CHI or any other nearby stations with Quik-Trak machines.

So that shouldn't have been an issue. It was a paid ticket.

Now, there may have been a time issue with the latest you could book your for-pickup-on-board reservation. I assume the crew would have needed to collect some sort of manifest before departing CHI, so, given the scheduled departure from there, probably calling to make your reservation would have to be done before, say, 5pm on the day of departure (Saturday). Then again, it sounds like you just give a number to the conductor and the conductor calls it in, so conceivably, you may have indeed been able to book that kind of reservation even mere moments before departing DYE.

But that's a separate issue from your paid ticket above. The only reason they're tied together is that you'd want to cancel your original for-pickup-at-a-QT ticket in order to release that fare bucket so it can be reused for your for-pickup-on-board reservation.