Train part way to the plane
 

CO has some attractive fares from Philadelphia via EWR, where the PHL-EWR leg is actually an Amtrak train from ZFV (Phila. 30th St) to the EWR train station. As often happens in the screwy world of airline fares, the connection is cheaper than originating at EWR.

One of my relatives is thinking of taking one of these. She lives near Trenton, so could she take the train from there? It appears that the CO train segment is turned into an Amtrak ticket that you pick up at an Amtrak quik-trak machine, so would it work if she picked up her ticket in Trenton? The conductor onboard doesn't care so long as you have a valid ticket when they check you, but would Amtrak or CO's computer get upset if she picked up her Philadelphia ticket at a machine in the Trenton station?

If I recall correctly you can pick up a ticket at another station a day in advance. I've done this for Amtrak GuestRewards tickets (purchased from someone else's acct in my name, though I became Ms. ralfp), but not CO tickets. Do it in advance (say the day before; no harm done if you fail) and you can always argue that you got on in PHL 30th St. Station. Do it 45 minutes before departure from PHL and it might be tough to argue for miles/cancellation of the return. Do it after the train leaves PHL and you might be screwed out of more than miles.
Try getting the tickets the day before.

The problem is that Flyertalk now limits searches to four letters or more. You used to be able to just search for "ZFV" on the continental forum to find the relevant threads.

Now your best bet is to use google. Try googling "site:flyertalk.com zfv" (without the quotation marks).

You can also search for ZFV*; the * is the fourth character. Or go to the advanced search and then scroll to the bottom and use that interface, which does allow 3-letter terms.

My 1st suggestion is to read up on the other ZFV threads.

2nd I wouldnt buy a ZFV-EWR-XYZ and not board at ZFV, CO will know where the tkt was picked up at and most likely will cancel out either the flight from EWR or at a min the whole return portion.

its no different then buying a BWI-EWR-LAX tkt and boarding the BWI-EWR flight say in CLE. even thou the BWI-CLE-EWR flight is the same 1 must fly the BWI-CLE part as well.

Can a person do as you asked and board at Tenton Yes,will the conductor care, not at all as long as they are booked to be on that train, will CO care YEP and most likely will cancel out some or all of the flights.

Are you sure about this? I have never done it, so I cannot claim to be an expert, but everything that I have read shows that there is no integration between Amtrak's and CO's systems and that they have no clue if you ever picked up the ticket and took the train or not. They certainly don't find out quickly enough to cancel your EWR leg between Trenton and EWR.

99.99999999999% that is unless CO changed things since their computer started talking to Amtraks a couple of yrs ago.

Try doing a search using amtrak as ZFV wont work, it has been spoken about from top to bottom, and that was when the Amtrak trains were Unrestricted , they are now Restricted, meaning get onto a train other then the 1 on your tkt, you will be thrown off at the next stop. If the next stop is where you wanted to get off any way then no problem.

And Yes a number of people had their flights canceled out on them including the original outbound for not having gotten the tkt at ZFV and for not gettingonto the train they were suppose to.

But its been awhile and Im sure alot of folks over here would LOVE it if someone wants to be a Vol and see if CO is still on top of things

For those who are search averse, the thread can be found here.