WASHINGTON — Amtrak is holding a sale on sleeping-car accommodations through Monday, June 10 — but this time is including bedrooms and family rooms in the promotion.
The sale waives companion rail fares when two people travel together in sleeping accommodations on trips booked between Aug. 1, 2019, and March 31, 2020. Similar prior sales [see “Dissecting Amtrak’s roomette sale,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 6, 2018] had been limited to roomettes, while bedrooms and family rooms (on Superliner-equipped trains) are discount-eligible in the latest offer.
Further details and a direct link to booking are available on this page on Amtrak’s website, or with discount code V540. Some sample city pairs are San Antonio-New Orleans on the Sunset Limited and New Orleans-Atlanta on the Crescent, both daytime trips in each direction that include three meals for each passenger (but only if the trains happen to be on time — see “Diving into the Crescent’s woes,” July Trains).
Each Viewliner sleeper only has two bedrooms on each car, so those rooms are always in high demand on the Lake Shore Limited, Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Crescent, and Cardinal; the Chicago-Cincinnati-Washington-New York Cardinal has been allocated only one sleeping car, so sleeper space is sold out for most dates through the summer.
As in most previous flash sales Amtrak has been offering lately, there are no blackout dates. Roger Harris, EVP, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer, tells Trains News Wire he’s not in favor of imposing them.
“Blackout periods always have days when demand isn’t as strong as other days and you don’t want to lose the ability to sell (the weak demand) days; it’s way better to control fares through inventory allocations,” Harris says.
The sale is part of Amtrak’s latest “Get Carried Away” advertising campaign which mostly utilizes 15-second spots that can be “served” digitally and clicked on, bringing potential customers directly to the Amtrak website. (A sample is available here.)
Harris tells News Wire that the “Share Fare” initiative, which offers discounts of 15%, 60%, and 70%, respectively, for the second, third, and fourth passengers traveling together in coach on National Network and Northeast Regional (not state-supported) trains has boosted family patronage since the discounts were introduced in late April. Markets outside the Northeast Corridor that have shown big gains using the fares are Chicago-St. Paul, Minn., on the Empire Builder and Chicago-Memphis as well as Memphis-New Orleans on the City of New Orleans.
