Is it necessary to book your train tickets ?
 

Is it really necessary to book your train tickets while you're in U.S? How difficult is it to obtain them at the train station on the day you're leaving? P.S. Thank you all for your generocity in sharing wonderful informations!

It depends on which route you're traveling. On the east coast, trains along the Boston/New York/Washington routes do sell out in advance, especially around holidays; we were on a sold-out train last Thursday and our return on Monday was nearly full.

When booking Amtrak, look for trains that are "reserved" coach rather than "unreserved"; you aren't guaranteed a specific seat, but at least you'll get a seat!

Once I traveled couch during holidays, and the conductors were assigning non-reserved seats as the train was sold out. It all depends on when, where, at what time you're travelling. By the way if you book on-line you'll save.

For my next short trip I couldn't get a return ticket on-line, called 800 number, they said it's a holiday schedule, the bus was cancelled, so I sent an e-mail to Amtrak through their website, they advised to book as multi-city trip. It worked! And I will travel to/from unmanned stop, I will have enough "surprises" without ticket problems!

Unless you think you may have to cancel the trip, it's always better to get the tickets in advance. I think 7-day advance purchase required before the price goes up. Play with the reservation page on Amtrak website keying in different dates, you'll see.

"the conductors were assigning non-reserved seats as the train was sold out."

Could you clarify what this means?

Usually you can take any available seat. Once I was assigned a seat in a couch because everything was sold out. I got a pass with a number, and I couldn't take any seat, only the one assigned to me.

Amtrak gives discounts for advance purchases? I've never seen that. Is that true along the NE Corridor or only other areas?

As a rule, I always just show up and book tickets on the next train. But I've never traveled the holiday weekends via train. For those I would definitely try to book a reserved seat in advance.

I have traveled on Amtrak about 100x up and down the East Coast. What Faina says definitely does NOT apply to east coast routes (is the West Coast different? I have no idea).

The prices are set. They do not go up. Amtrak's Acela trains are faster, and cost nearly 2x as much than the "regular" Amtrak trains, and save roughly an hour on a NYC-Washington DC trip.

Yes, you can buy tickets at the station, and they will cost the same as buying them online. However, often trains do sell out, especially the cheaper/slower(non-Acela)/reserved trains, and especially during peak times and holidays. There are unreserved trains which I believe do not sell out (because they don't guarantee seats for everyone).

Sometimes the Amtrak website offers discounts, like 3 people get to travel for the price of 2, so it is worth checking out.

Thanks for the reality check, suzanne -- I just did a Boston/DC round-trip this past week, and I'm quite sure there are no seat or row numbers/letters on those trains that would make it possible to assign seats!

As suzanne mentioned, there are lots of specials -- be sure to check out not only the Amtrak home page, but also the "Rail Sale" link that appears at the top of the reservations screen. Last year they had a 25% discount if you paid with Master Card.

There are some permanent deals, too. Kids always go half-price, AAA members get 10 percent off, etc. etc. One of the less-known deals is that high-school juniors and seniors who are going to look at prospective colleges can buy a full-price ticket and bring a parent along for free -- essentially, a half-price fare.

Almost all my Amtrak travel has been from Albany area to Montreal, Boston, and south to Williamsburg. I often find changes in prices, most notably in the routes AWAY from the NYC/DC corridor.

Yes, recently I'm seeing conductors assign seating in non-reserved cars that are close to full. That is so that when there's 2 seats, or even 4 seats they can save them for groups traveling together, while they assign solo travelers to those individual seats scattered throughout the train.

It amazes me how often ONE person will try to "claim" all 4 seats where there are the "2 facing 2" seats usually near the ends of the cars. "One ticket, One seat!"

That's a great service, saving up the pairs and 4's of seats. They certainly didn't do that on the Boston/DC trains I took last week; as the train got really full, they just made an announcement to that effect, asking people to take their belongings off of adjacent seats, and IIRC the conductor spoke to a couple of spread-out people.

There are always groups who are really upset that they can't sit together, though I can't imagine how they could expect to, given their mid-route boarding on a train without reserved seating.