New to Amtrak and New to FT... Questions
 

Hello!

I joined FT because I read a thread about Amtrak and know nothing, so I wanted to ask the "experts."

I need to travel on the Lincoln train from Springfield to Columbus, WI and the price seems rather high ($86.) My sister's in-laws always seem to travel on Amtrak for some piddly amount and I've never seen the cheap deals everyone is talking about.

I can get a student discount but that takes the fare down 15%.

Is there a primer for the new and clueless on how to save with Amtrak? Or...if you all would be so kind, could you tell me where to learn what you know about getting all of these deals I keep reading about? Thanks so much!

:)

Hi GoddessSusie, welcome to FlyerTalk!


Amtrak uses a bucket system for ticket prices. So the first block of tickets will be sold for one price, then it goes up and so on. By and large they don't use dynamic prices the way airlines do.

So for example
the first 100 tickets will be $40
The next 100 will be $55
the next 75 will be $75 and so on


So always try and book as far in advance as possible. Since you can almost always cancel your reservation and get a full refund as long as you don't print the ticket, you should make a reservation whenever you think you might need to travel.

When I look a few months out it looks like you can get a ticket for about half the price you found. So try and plan your next trip in advance.

Also check the Weekly Specials under the Deals tab on the Amtrak home page.

From Amtrak.com, select Deals and choose Advertised Specials. There you'll find a number of route/city specific discounts.

There are also many discounts (promotion codes, etc.) not advertised on Amtrak's website. You can find a pretty complete list at: http://www.railserve.com/amtrak_coupons.html

For example, there's currently a 20% off discount for most routes in the Midwest.

Also, if your dates and/or times are flexible, check other trains.^

Without looking at the schedule, I'm just making these times up. The 1 PM train may have a different price than the 8 AM or 6 PM train! And the 6 PM train on the 12th may have a different fare then the 6 PM trains on the 11th or 13th!

And trains #422, #322 and #22 all may have different fares - even though they are the SAME train! Likewise, trains #7, #27 and #807 may have different fares, but they are the SAME train also! ;)

One thing no one has pointed out here is that the "Lincoln Service" trains do not serve Wisconsin. So, to travel to Columbus, WI you will need to transfer to the Emipre Builder in Chicago. The Empire Builder is a once-a-day long distance train. The "piddly" fares you may have heard about, I'm guessing, do not involve a connection but are rather for "local" travel to places like Chicago or St. Louis.

I checked a hypothetical travel date for your route several months in advance and a non-discounted round-trip prices out at $84. So if the "$86" fare you found is for round-trip travel, it's about as low as you will get unless you qualify for one of the discounts mentioned here.

Keep in mind also that due to the need to connect in Chicago, the travel time on Amtrak between Springfield and Columbus, WI, will be significantly longer than the time it would take to drive between the two cities.

Welcome to FT ---

One thing you might want to try is the AAA discount.

Also, because the 'Builder' is a long distance train, there is always a chance of a misconnect in Chicago if the EB train encounters a significant delay.

Bob H

Bob H

AAA discount is 10%, student discount with that $20/yr student advantage is 15% off, plus if you enroll in the AGR, you get 1000 bonus miles.

Best discount Ive seen so far is Amtrak family members ~50%