Safest is to go online and cancel explicitly which I try to do but when I've forgotten I've gotten automatic refunds. Maybe this doesn't always happen.

Didn't know about the 10% fee for refund. Is that new?

Most important point here is don't print out the ticket until you're ready to board the train! For round trips I always book two one-ways so I don't pick up the return ticket until I'm ready to go.

NO You can't
 

The train number & the date must match these days

almost everywhere and they can ask for ID as well

They have multiple fare buckets on each train just

like the airlines and although you have a chance to get

by with a sob story to a kindly conductor or assistant

more than likely you would have to pay the fare difference

(if any) and an onboard penalty

I have only been riding Amtrak for about 5 or 6 years. I has been in place that entire time.

I'm looking to buy a ticket on the Pacific Surfliner between Oceanside, CA and Burbank Airport, CA. When I give my desired travel dates and times on the reservations page, it wants me to select my desired train, but says the seat is Unreserved Coach. Is this one of the lines where I can switch trains with no penalty? TIA

Peace.

Other than around the Thanksgiving holiday when the trains go to reserved status, yes, this is a train where you can board any other train with no penalty and no need to obtain new tickets. One other exception to that would be booking for the 15th and then trying to board on the 14th, as your tickets wouldn't be valid until the 15th. But you could book for the 15th and travel on the 17th if you wanted to do so without changing tickets.

I have a ticket for the Keystone here in PA which is an unreserved train and it has that it is valid from16th July (the day i am planning on traveling) until 11th of Sept, So i would assume i can use it at any time in that time frame. I also have one for the return trip that has some more restrictions on it, basically not valid over peak times sun \ fri, and not valid on holidays. It was also a lower price so I assume that's why. I would guess yours would be the same way.

Thanks AlanB and jftino for your responses.

How does this work for award tickets? Can I cancel it whether I've printed the ticket or not? How long does it usually take for the points to go back into my account? Is it as easy to switch around award tickets at the counter?

Thanks!

If you haven't printed your ticket yet, you can call the AGR service center and cancel your ticket. Your points should appear in your account immediately (or within a few minutes).

If you have printed your ticket, you can still get a refund (and, unlike paid tickets, you should be able to get a full refund) by calling the service center, at which point you'll be given a mailing address (in Minnesota, I believe) to send your physical tickets to. It obviously takes your points much longer to appear this way, and we've seen lots of people worriedly post with the question of how long it should take for those points reappear, but they eventually always do (it can be several weeks).

Excellent. I'm starting to realize that Amtrak is much more flexible than airlines, and I should change my reservation habits. In particular, so far I've been saying "I don't know which train I'll want, so I'll buy the ticket when I get there", but the better strategy is "I don't know which train I'll want, so I should buy the one I'm most likely to want, and if I turn out to want a different one I can trade up at the station and pay the difference". That way I have at least some chance of getting the cheap fare.

Amtrak is fine with refunding/changing tickets for trains that have already left, right? None of those "no value after takeoff" clauses like on airlines?

Correct. In fact, I believe if you don't initiate the cancellation yourself within a certain period of time (48 hours after departure?), Amtrak will cancel it automatically and refund your money.

And your first paragraph is right on the money! :D

Ah ha. So in fact the better strategy is to either print the ticket that I bought if that's the train I want, or buy a new one right there if I want a different one, and then cancel the original ticket online sometime later (or just wait for it to autocancel if I'm feeling particularly trusting). No need to find a counter then.

Correct. The general rule of thumb is to wait as long as possible to print your ticket. There is no real reason to print your ticket any time before the day of departure, although you should allow yourself enough time that if the QuikTrak machine is broken you can still wait in line at the ticket counter and have them print it before your train departs.

Actually you must cancel the reservation before the scheduled departure if you wish to do it online. Once the train has left the station, it is no longer possible to cancel online and get a refund.

Additionally, Amtrak does not automatically refund an unprinted no-show reservation. You'll have to call Amtrak to get that money refunded back to your credit card if you don't go online to cancel prior to departure or otherwise visit an agent.

Uh oh. So which is it? :)

(Is calling Amtrak that bad? Certainly if I had no status on United I would dread calling their international call center and hoping to get somebody who understands what I want to do.)