Originally Posted by BeantownFlyer
What's worse is that you can book and not ticket and Acela reservation if you call a travel agent or Amtrak direct, and then there is no penalty. But if you want to book online - you must ticket immediately and will be hit with the penalty.
Okay, I just tried testing this "loophole" and actually it doesn't work.
I called to try to book my thanksgiving travel to Boston. I used the automated "Julie" system, and at the end she recited a bunch of policy info, one of which stated that I must call back to
purchase the reservation by Oct. 31st or else the reservation will cancel out.
I transferred to a live agent to ask for clarification and they told me that all phone reservations must actually be paid for within 1 to 7 days of when you call to book it over the phone.
The one good thing she mentioned is that the cancellation policy that applies to any particular reservation is
the policy that is in effect at the time of booking. In other words, since this new "improved"
policy goes into effect on Nov 1st, as long as you book a new reservation BEFORE Nov 1st, even if your travel dates are after Nov 1st, the old cancellation policies still apply.
I plan to call them a few more times to see if I can consistently get this same answer re: old-policy-as-long-as-booked-before-Nov1 before I actually charge anything to my credit card.
HTH any fellow NE corridor travelers!