jackal

The simple answer is that Amtrak does not sell bulk fares in business class to United. If Amtrak wanted to and United were willing to, they could, but they don't.

Not that Amtrak Regional business class is anything of note. Half the time, it's a coach car with a piece of paper taped over the word "Coach" and the word "Business" written in with a sharpie. You get a free soda with that.

I will have to leave the UA vs. LX question to others (and it might be better reposted outside this thread where folks familiar with the topic may be more likely to read it). In 3-cabin F, I would certainly choose LX, even with the stop. Having not flown in any of LX's premium cabins, though, I cannot say one way or the other about their business product.

joshwex90

This probably deserves it's own thread, but I happen to like both LX and UA.

The seats on LX are slightly narrow and the seat is very hard. PMUA seats are much more comfy from a cushion aspect, followed by PMCO, then LX. IFE is also not nearly as good on LX than it is on UA.
Privacy on LX is much better though.
Service with UA really depends on the crew. It's much more consistent on LX. Very good, but I've always found it a bit cold (not mean, not bad and not rude - just very Swiss!).

Can't compare food as I don't eat the regular meals. I like the stop in ZRH to stretch my legs. BUT, because you are transiting from outside Schengen to outside Schengen, you only have access to the Panorama Lounge, which is not good. To get to the better Business/Senator Lounges (which have showers and hot food optins), you need to go through passport control and take the tram, which takes some time (though the tram is only about 3 minutes and leaves every few minutes).

Chiro1979

Awesome. Thanks so much for your response. Very helpful ^

kenny23692

ZVE TO SEA.

The first half is by train which says its still operated by United. Would I still get mileage for this?

JPG3392

The train is actually operated by Amtrak. According to United's website, you will receive 250 miles for the rail segment if travelling in economy, 325 miles if travelling in first or business class.

pewpew

I'm thinking of booking ZFV-EWR-YHZ. I'll have anywhere from 1-3 bags, so ZFV-EWR is pretty iffy. UA only serves YHZ ex-EWR. Do you think they'd let me SDC to PHL-ORD/IAD-EWR-YHZ or something similar at T-24?

If not, NYC-YHZ is cheaper (even EWR-YHZ + Amtrak PHL-EWR is cheaper), but I'm not sure how to get 3 bags (worst-case scenario) with me to NYC from PHL. Any suggestions?

aacharya

Literally no chance (see the SDC thread) of getting ZFV to go to PHL absent IRROPs.

You can take bags on Amtrak, but three is going to be tough, and annoying, as you well-know.

Jim Robert

I apologize I'm sure this has been answered but 101 pages is quite a lot to read over. What has been the success rate lately of booking a ZFV-EWR-XXX, using amtrak's online check in but not actually gtting on the train and showing up at ewr for your flight?

CaptainMiles

I don't know that anybody had tabulated this to calculate success rate, but perhaps you could do it. If by "lately" you mean the past 12 months, you'd only have to go back 7 or 8 pages, not 101. Quite doable, if you are so inclined.

joshwex90

In the past few months, I know of a bunch of people who tried and failed (flight was canceled).

The shorter the connection, the better the shot at the flight not being canceled, because not enough lag time. The inverse though is that if it DOES get canceled, you won't have a lot of time to fix the issue.

Someone in this thread said they got to EWR and went into the train station and asked the conductor to scan the ticket because it wasn't scanned. Don't remember if that worked.

OR, you can ride the train. After all, that's what it's there for

SAPriorityTag

Thoughts and prayers to any United-Amtrak codeshare fliers traveling on United Express #3172 last evening. I'm surprised but yet not 'surprised' that United has been pretty mum on this service interruption. I think it's pretty distasteful that all the codeshare "flights" still list as on schedule

God Bless!

smn

I'm surprise no travel waiver has been issued. Anyone booked on this route the last few days and try to change it?

I'm on the redeye into EWR then to ZFV sat morning. Looks like they may be operating by then, but also not sure what will happen if it's not and I try to get united to change (or just drop the legs)

SAPriorityTag

SMN, while I can't speak in absolutes you could have surprising success with this (I would hope especially in a time of crisis like this!) Last year I booked a connection out of ZFV and it allowed me to select an illegal connection time at EWR, which I actually didn't notice at the time of booking. Shares would not allow them to switch me to an earlier train, so I asked if they'd just let me begin my trip from EWR and they made a "one time exception". On the return trip I just went to the United Club at EWR and had them cancel the train segment (rather than no-show).

Good luck!

smn

Amtrak just said it's likely it won't be operating until Monday at the earliest. That leaves me with 2 options:

1) Keep reservation in tact. Get Amtrak ticket at EWR and use it on NJTransit (which said it would honor them) to go to Trenton (which is what I was going to do on Amtrak anyway. On the way back, get to Trenton early and hope that the Amtrak ticket booth is open and can deal with getting the ticket for me there.

Risks:
a) Even though I pick up ticket, it's not scanned by Amtrak and thus UA cancels remaining legs
b) Ticket booth in Trenton on way back is closed or too busy and can't get my ticket and (a) occurs as a result as well

2) Get United to drop ZFV legs, but then I still have to pay for NJTransit for the 2 of us RT which is $64. However, don't have to worry about legs getting cancelled (and losing the exit row for my 6 hr transcon flight). (I also highly doubt I'd be able to get any sort of refund for this)


Thoughts? What would you do?

jackal

Where did you hear that?

Last I heard, Amtrak was saying there was a good chance they'd be up and running on Friday. A service alert on Amtrak.com does not say anything about service being canceled on Saturday.