Originally Posted by
tolkiennut
I'm still consistently having trouble with the scanner (ironically an iPhone) lifting the barcode from my iPhone using the App... when I use the PDF and blow it up, it works fine.
This is a 4gs phone in question.
I'm about 1 for 8 in getting scans to work on the app... anyone else having trouble?
I am, at least on my one and only try. Couldn't get it to read a couple of days ago on a Regional EWR-PHL, even with the brightness turned all the way up (iPhone 4). Ultimately, the conductor just typed the code in.
I printed the boarding document out at PHL and used that for my connecting Keystone train.
For today's Pennsylvanian to PGH, I had the conductor scan it off of the PDF on my laptop screen. Absolutely no issue there. Good to know the QR code on the PDF scans on the iPhone screen when blown up, too. (I wonder if a screenshot of the Amtrak iPhone app slightly zoomed in to blow the QR code would work in a pinch, too.)
Originally Posted by
tolkiennut
Second boarding didn't go as smooth as the first. After the first boarding was so seamless, I didn't bother to print my tix this time, and by the time the conductor got around to scanning, it was 10 minutes past ticket date, and the ticket had "fallen off" the iphone app... Or is there a 7 ticket display limit (because I had 8 under reservation, and this was the first of 8).
So long story short, I had to log into my email, search through to find the reservation, and pull it up that way... not exactly convenient...
And btw, this was on an unreserved keystone... so if the ticket does in fact "fall off" after ticket time, I can't imagine how unreserved riders will cope...
AGR Insider - can you give us any indication if this is a ticket timing issue or an app display issue (with 7 reservation display limitation).
I discovered something similar today. I had booked a multi-city trip with a couple of unreserved Keystone segments connecting to a reserved Pennsylvanian segment (booked before e-ticketing came online). I ultimately opted to drive to HAR and pick up the train there rather than taking (as I had reserved) a Keystone to HAR and having a 2.5-hour layover to connect to the Pennsylvanian. When I showed up at HAR, the trip didn't display in the iPhone app. I then tried the QT machine, and it said the ticket wasn't available at a kiosk. Fortunately, I had clicked the "Send PDF" button in my reservation the day prior, so I checked with the agent and he said just to show that on my phone and that's all I needed. (I ended up showing it on my computer screen as noted above--figured the matte would read better than the glossy.)
Since I deal with a lot of unreserved Keystone segments (including segments booked on a multi-city reservation that are not all always used the same day), I'll need to be sure to organize the PDFs and keep track of which PDFs I've used and for which segments. It's going to be a bit difficult. Amtrak's reservation system has always made it seem like unreserved segments were something bolted on (the fact they disappeared from the website and couldn't be accessed, changed, or canceled after the "reserved" date of travel), but it was easy to deal with them just by printing the paper ticket and keeping a file of them. Now, the new system makes the whole unreserved thing really apparent and a real mess. It's probably asking too much of Amtrak to rebuild the system to better accommodate unreserved segments, but it would be nice to ensure this is on the long-term roadmap.
Also, is there word on whether the conductor's scanner will lift the correct segment of a multi-city reservation, especially if the cities are in close succession? In other words, does the scanner have a pretty accurate GPS that knows it is 0.5 miles west of the PAO station and to thus lift only the PAO-EXT segment and not the PHL-PAO segment or the EXT-LNC segment?