mizzou miles

Hi-

Anyone know if you can use the automated machines to pick up a future date ticket departing from a different city? Will be running short on time (assuming Amtrak is ontime!) and want to pick up my Philly-NYC ticket in NYC the day prior when I head south? Is this possible?

Thanks!

HeHateY

Absolutely.

I do it all the time, and I've picked up Downeaster and Acela tickets at L.A. Union Station, as well as Cascades and Surfliner tickets at Boston Back Bay or NY Penn Station.

Just one tip, the process is easier if you book the ticket on-line first at amtrak.com, and of course the Quik-Trak machine will find your reservation faster if you swipe the same Credit Card that you used when booking at amtrak.com. If this is not possible, be sure to have your reservation number.

mizzou miles

Part II of a two part question...

Thanks for the tip...what if I have more than one reservation booked online at Amtrak.com? Will it spit out all of them? (Hopefully the answer is yes!)

Thanks!

ClimbGuy

no you have to go through the process and print one at a time. This is a good feature because you don't always want to print future tickets. Since you can cancel/change at no fee if they aren't printed but you have the 10% fee once they are printed. Not to mention the fact that you can lose them.

Train McGhee

I had a problem with this. I was trying to book a multi segment trip, from DOW to PHL in order to rack up points. The DOW station is just a waiting platform, no agents etc. Anyway, It would not even allow me to make the reservtion online, becuase it said that the tickets could not be delivered in time for me to leave. At the Machine at the station, it wouldn't let me buy tickets, except for trips orginating from PHL.

Any tips, or things I am missing?

the_traveler

I also tried to make a fake res from DOW to PHL for today, and came up with the same problem that you described.

Do you start your trip in DOW? Can you pick up your tickets in PHL? When I tried a PHL-DOW-PHL R/T, I did have the option of picking up at the station.

I usually travel on a multi going from KIN to NHV. At the KIN Quik Trak machine, each segment has a different res # (assuming you made separate res), and I can choose which one I want to pick up. It was no problem for me to pick up the NHV-KIN segment tickets in KIN.

If you do not start in PHL, but can pick up in PHL, perhaps you can make a prior res starting in PHL? (And not pick it up or use it. ) If the ticket is not printed, there is no penalty! Or, if you do this often, you could do something like trip 1B and 2A (PHL-DOW-PHL), trip 2B and 3A, trip 3B and 4A, etc...

Either way $6 (or $4.50 with H570 ) is not much to lose! (It cost me $19.50 for a multi! )

the_traveler

Correction, I see just what you mean. It happened to me today.

I tried to do a multi from SPG-BER or SPG-MDN. Everything went fine, until I tried to do the return. (Luckily, I tried that first.) I came across the error message ("there is a delivery problem"), and wondered why. Then I pulled up the station info and discovered that the BER and MDN ticket offices are only open Monday to Friday. As I was traveling on a Saturday (that morning), the tickets could not be picked up at the station - or mailed to me on time! (Any other day x Sa/Su would be OK.)

I also tried WFD - but is does not even have a ticket window - so that also was out!

It said that I could have called - but they will not let you do a multi!

I don't know what to do in your case Train McGhee.

Train McGhee

Well, I never figured it out, but with triple points over, it doesn't look like I will be doing that any time soon again. I guess I will have to plan it out far enough in advance in order to receive the tickets in the mail. Since it won't even let you make the reservation on line, then the only other option would be with a live person, who would not be so happy about all those hijinks.

Also, as a side note, I took a 4 segment trip, and only got 100 points per ticket, not the triple points. Do the triple points take longer to post than the regular points?

fastflyer

The printing of tickets function at QuikTrak machines is different from the booking function. QuikTrak only permits booking tickets that are departing from the station where the machine is physically located. However, any already-booked tickets can be printed from any QuikTrak machine (including long-distance sleepers, etc.).

So the key is to book and pay for your tickets online at Amtrak.com. Then pick up the physical tickets at a QuikTrak machine OR from a ticket window.

River in Sight

In my experience, the bonus points generally post about a day after the base points.

the_traveler

All my base points (the 100 per segment) posted 1 day. Any double or triple bonuses posted after the processing day was completed - usually after midnight! It will say something like "4663 - 15% off and triple points.....200).

Remember - you had already rec'd the base points (100), so 100 + 200 bonus = triple points!

RogerD408

Yes, the online booking only allows mailing of tickets when starting point of the reservation does not have ticket agent/machines. However, you can call the reservation in and they can tag the tickets for pickup at any station with ticket agents. AND, if you are going for the multi-segment parlee' (which may be limited), they can do more than four segments per reservation.

You also need to watch when booking online, if you start from an unmanned station, it may default to FedEx the tickets and charge a shipping charge. Got burned by that one before.

the_traveler

I've only tried once to book a multi via an agent (only because it wouldn't work online for some reason).

When I asked for station "B" to station "C", there was no problem. But when I tried to add station "A" to station "B", the agent said "No, we can't do that." The next agent I called agreed to do it - probably because it was only a 2 stop multi.

IMHO, I doubt that you could book a four stop multi with an agent, unless it is something like BOS-NYP-WAS-CHI-DEN. (But not something like KIN-WLY-MYS-NLC-OSB = the next 4 stops on the route.)

ClimbGuy

I wouldn't be surprised it they let if you if you told them it would generate more points. From what I have found when you talk with Amtrak employees they are normally happy to help. The QuickTrack machine was really slow when I was doing my huge mileage run so I gave an agent a few of the PNR and they printed them for me. Obviously they asked well more or less figured out on their own why I had so many tickets and were still happy to help.

A few 'customers' were in a huge verbal fight with each other in the station at the time. It looked like a Jerry Springer, we were laughing at that and he couldn't care less that I was about to get over 75k GR points. Then again I don't think he really realized how many points I would be getting.

the_traveler

Yes, the agent at the ticket window would probably be glad to help you and print the tickets out, as it just involved him/her basically pushing a button on the printer.

When I attempted to make my multi, the 1st agent (on the phone) gave me a price of (whatever it was) $33 from PVD-BOS R/T. But when I attempted to add the KIN-PVD segment, the fare she quoted was something like $61 R/T! When I replied that the fare from KIN-BOS was $39 R/T, she replied that she could not do it that way - since that would be building a fare! She would only give me 2 point-to-point fares!

Luckily, the 2nd agent (after alot of convincing) agreed to book the 2 segment multi for the $39 fare! ^

I wouldn't press my luck and try to book multiple 4 segment multis with an agent.