One of the good things about these "Renaissance" sleeping cars is the low surcharge for single occupancy of a double bedroom. Because there are no single bedrooms (formerly known as roomettes and soon to be called single cabins in VIA-speak) the surcharge, which is built into the quoted fare, is a mere 15% over what the per person double occupancy fare is. In the standard equipment, known as Budd or HEP sleepers, there are tiny roomettes available, about the size of a broom closet, so the surcharge for single use of a double room is 50%. Neither my wife nor I like the upper berth, especially in the Renaissance sleepers, so we splurge on two rooms.

One other benefit of the new sleepers: if you are travelling on VIA Preference points, there is is no point surcharge for single occupancy, except in the deluxe (shower-equipped) rooms. So for the same number of points as we would spend to take one two-berth room, my wife and I always take two rooms instead. VIA will try to put two people travelling together on points in the same room, but I simply say we want "single bedrooms" and they have to give us two rooms. This used to work with the deluxe rooms, but I guess someone figured out there was too much revenue loss so more points are required.