I went to the Amtrak forum last night and found a discount promotional code for unreserved Philadelphia trains. I think the code was V707 (with the Miles forums down now, I'm just guessing).

I plan to take the train to Philly from Penn Station New York Sunday morning. I want to take the 11am unreserved train which gets in at 12:20pm. The train which leaves at 9am, however, is a lower fare than the 11am and thus, the promo code will of course get me an even better fare than I could get for the 11am with the same promo.

If I buy the ticket online for the 9am unreserved train, can I use that same ticket for the 11am? Or will it be deemed no good? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Amtrak tickets are generally fully changable.

You can buy a ticket for one time and use it on another.

If you change it at the ticket desk, you will have to pay the difference.

But if you simply go to the train, you can show it to the conductor as you are getting on. The conductor will 80% of the time wave you on through, so long as your earlier ticket is for the Unreserved train and not for Acela Express or Metroliner.

In other words, you can't use your unreserved ticket on a reserved train (Metroliner or Acela Express), but you can probably use it on another unreserved train, even if the time is different.

The conductors have a lot of discretion here.

Don't try this without showing it to the conductor as you get on.

BTW, just to be very clear, your ticket is probably for the Acela Regional unreserved train (although it may not say that).

The Acela Express is an all-reserved train with a confusingly similar name and more than 2X as pricey but not all that much faster.

Neither of these is Acela Express. The 9:00am is train #155 which is a "regional service" train from NYP to Phila. It begins at NYP and ends at 30th St Station. It has a cheaper fare than the train I want.

The train I want is the 11am train #643 which is a "Keystone" from NYP to Harrisburg. Since they are both unreserved, am I ok to get a ticket for the former with the promo code and use it on the latter?

I did this the other day. I just got on and showed the ticket to the conductor who said I was fine.

The fare on the unreserved train between PHL and NYP is the same whether you are on the Keystone or the Acela Regional.

The difference is the times, which is printed on the ticket, but the conductors usually don't split hairs over that. They are mostly concerned about unreserved tickets being used on reserved trains.

You should be fine with the ticket as is, on the later unreserved train.

On unreserved trains you can usually get on with any unreserved ticket. On the reserved trains you have to have that train on the ticket.

You know if you enter your AAA number if you have one the rate will go down ever more for the unreserved?

Dear Moderator:

Please put this where it belongs, in the Amtrak discussion.

I got a better discount using code V707 than one I could get using my AAA card; it was 20% off.