Ordinarily, if you book sleeper accomidations in advance, the cost of your rail fair is reduced to the lowst available bucket for that trip.


However, what happens if you've already paid for your ticket at let's say $100 for a one way fair. Let's assume $100 is the highest bucket and $25 is the lowest bucket.

If you upgrade to a sleeper while on board, are you credited any difference in rail fair or a prorated difference if the upgrade occurs in the middle of your trip?

How does the crediting work since you've already paid for your initial coach ticket at the higher cost?

I believe that the conductor on board will offer you the sleeper at the lowest bucket fare for the sleeper! It doesn't matter what the fare that you paid was.

If you booked the sleeper with the ticket agent at the station just before you boarded (assuming it was available), you might pay the highest fare bucket for the room. But if you could get the same room from the conductor on board 5 minutes later, you would pay the lowest fare bucket for the room!

I know that the conductor will sell the sleepers at the lowest fair on board.
However, if I got on the train with a coach ticket that was at the highest fair bucket and then upgraded to a sleeper on board, would my rail fair also be reduced retroactively?

I don't believe so.

It's just like you can buy a "C" bucket seat fare and a "C" bucket room fare, or a "B" bucket seat fare and a "C" bucket room fare, or a "B" bucket seat fare and a "B" bucket room fare. Each is independent of the other.

No, you can't do that. If you buy a room prior to boarding, regardless of what bucket the room price is in, the seat fare will always be the lowest bucket no matter what. Even if Amtrak never even sold that low bucket seat price because it was a holiday, you'll still get the lowest seat price

Turning to diesteldorf's question, I honestly don't know. It would certainly be easy enough for Amtrak to do so, simply by taking whatever the normal low bucket fare for the room is and subtracting from that the difference between the lowest coach fare and what was actually paid.

I suspect however, that Amtrak probably does not bother to deal with that, figuring that you already got the lowest price on the room so you are still ahead of the game.