Sleeper fares - Reasonable or "Otherwise"?

I continue to be amazed at how high the sleeper fares are on Amtrak! I've always wanted to ride the Southwest Chief, so just out of curiosity, I priced a trip from NYP to LAX, taking the Lake Shore Limited and then the Southwest Chief. I went with a standard compartment on the Lake Shore, and a deluxe on the Chief (I'd want a private toilet and shower for a trip that long!). Without quoting specific fares, let's just say I could fly to LA and back several times for what they're charging, and even splurge for first class! Even taking a standard compartment on the Chief, the fare is well into 3 figure territory!

I know about demand pricing and the "operate like a business" philosophy, but I'm amazed that there's still demand at the prices Amtrak charges. I'm a single guy making a decent salary as an aerospace engineer, and the prices seem way out of my range. Who's paying these fares? Wealthy retired folks? Wall St investment bankers? People who are bad at math? I can't see too many middle class families shelling out the kind of cash Amtrak is demanding!

let's just say I could fly to LA and back several times for what they're charging, and even splurge for first class!

Several times? And first class? I'm going to have to see some kind of quote to back that up.

More to the point, New York to Los Angeles is not a typical long-distance train trip. If we want to make some kind of generalization about sleeper fares, it will take more than a single data point way out on the end of the bell curve. Otherwise we're just copying from Wendell Cox's playbook.

Outrageous.

Even compared to first class airline travel, sleeper upgrades are indeed quite expensive! True, first class in an airliner doesn't offer a private bed, but then an airliner doesn't take 3 days to cross the U.S. either!

But let's go by this standard: The average working American probably makes, what, $25k a year? (I know the average isn't very high.) Someone making $50k or $60k a year is still barely middle class, and most likely doesn't have thousands in spare cash to spend on travel. So, my question is simply this - are most sleeper passengers on Amtrak wealthy? Are they people making over $100k a year? Are they retired people with a lot of disposable income? I just don't see how Amtrak's long distance trains can be affordable to the lower and middle class.

<edit>You want sample airline fares? I don't know if that would go against the forum rules, but I'm quite confident that I could get airfare that would be in the "couple hundred" range rather than the "couple thousand" range. So, we're talking about an order of magnitude difference!

No Amtrak train will seem "affordable" cross country in a deluxe bedroom during peak travel periods. This is not a typical trip. It makes no sense to compare an atypical trip to a "typical" income.

You want airline fares?

Yes, I want to know what, if anything, that loopy claim is based on. It's a little late now to wonder about what's "against the rules." No need to get all dodgy. Do we stand by our words or don't we?

mattfels wrote:No Amtrak train will seem "affordable" cross country in a deluxe bedroom during peak travel periods. This is not a typical trip. It makes no sense, Wendell, to compare an atypical trip to a "typical" income.

What, then, is a typical trip? When I looked into taking Amtrak to Fort Worth to visit relatives, the fares were ridiculous. I flew instead.

Granted, coach fares are more in line with airline fares, but who would sit in coach for 2 or 3 days when they can fly and get to their destination in a few hours? Sleeping accomodations, and dining and lounge facilities are IMO necessary to make long distance train travel a viable alternative, given the airlines' comparative speed advantage.

So, once again, typical trip or not, my question is this: who is paying these sleeper fares? Is it wealthy individuals, or is it middle class folks who are willing to spend ten times what they would spend on airfare for the experience of riding a train?

Flew instead? Good, more questions. Which carrier? How far in advance? First class or coach?

By the way, I hear the rent in New York is outrageous.

mattfels wrote: Yes, I want to know what, if anything, that loopy claim is based on. It's a little late now to wonder about what's "against the rules." No need to get all dodgy. Do we stand by our words or don't we?

Okay, how's this? $301 round trip on US Airways from EWR to LAX from expedia.com.

mattfels wrote:Flew instead? Good, more questions. Which carrier? How far in advance? First class or coach?

ATA, reservations made maybe 3 months in advance, coach, with a layover in Chicago.

mattfels wrote:By the way, I hear the rent in New York is outrageous.

Indeed it is. Fortunately, I live in northeast PA where my rent is much more reasonable!

ATA? Booked three months in advance? Compared head to head with first class accommodations on Amtrak? I thought as much. Outrageous.

How much was the FIRST CLASS fare New York-Los Angeles? Remember the original claim:

I went with a standard compartment on the Lake Shore, and a deluxe on the Chief [flush] Without quoting specific fares, let's just say I could fly to LA and back several times for what they're charging, and even splurge for first class!

I'm assuming we're talking single occupancy, yes?

mattfels wrote:ATA? Booked three months in advance? Compared head to head with first class accommodations on Amtrak? I thought as much. Outrageous.

How much was the FIRST CLASS fare New York-Los Angeles? Remember the original claim.

In fairness, I'm basing my Amtrak fares on three months in advance as well! And I guarantee that even first class airfare will be much less than what Amtrak is charging!

"Guarantee"? Oh, please. A guarantee means nothing on a forum that allows aliases.

This would have been a single-occupancy trip, right?

mattfels wrote:"Guarantee"? Oh, please. A guarantee means nothing on a forum that allows aliases.

This would have been a single-occupancy trip, right?

Okay, I assert that I could fly first class for considerably less than Amtrak's sleeper fare. Better? And yes, this would have been single occupancy. But even sharing the sleeper cost between two people, I don't see how people find it affordable.

This seems to bear repeating (again) as I did in another thread on a similar topic. (With all due respect to the original poster, with the current shortage of sleepers on Amtrak and how quickly they sell out, 3 months in advance is not much to speak of.)

My repeated post:

Yesterday I posted information that directly refutes the above. But I'll repeat it since it seems appropriate here. I have meetings in Chicago on September 14th and 15th. Had I reserved a sleeper a month ago I could have saved money vs. the costs of getting to the airport (Philly), flight cost and the extra hotel stays (night of 13th and 15th) necessary to fit with reasonable flight times and when my meetings start and end.

Granted, if I could reasonably depend on arriving at the scheduled 7:45 AM for train #41 on the day my meetings start, the price advantage would have been even better because I could eliminate a hotel stay on the night of 9/13 from all of my calculations. But even with a hotel stay that night, so I could arrive on Amtrak a day early and not worry about being late for my meetings, a month ago Amtrak sleeper was still the less expensive option - even vs. Southwest's $99 fares now that they're flying out of Philly.

Unfortunately for me, I waited too long to reserve a sleeper and the price has gone up because demand for the lone sleeper car on #40/41 has risen. That's how business works right? As demand rises on an item in limited supply, prices rise accordingly. Makes sense to me.

Now I am looking at flying out to Chicago on the 13th because that is the less expensive option. However, it is still less expensive for me to take the sleeper home because I can leave the night of the 15th (when my meetings end) and be at the train station a mile from my home the next afternoon/evening. I'm more flexible in my arrival time coming home so some lateness on Amtrak's part isn't as much of an issue as it would be in the opposite direction.

If I were flying home, I'd have to wait until the 16th and incur an extra night in the hotel - not an inexpensive prospect in downtown Chicago - plus have the additional expense of getting from the Philly airport to my house (albeit by SEPTA and Amtrak since that's how I'm getting to Philly for my flight to Chicago).

And beside the price benefit, I get a sleeper to myself where I can watch the scenery go by, watch a movie on my laptop, have dinner with some fellow travelers, etc. etc. - all of the "intangibles" of travel by rail.

The major flaw I often see in the "cars or planes are cheaper than Amtrak" arguments are that those price comparisons don't take into account ALL of the costs. Sure, Southwest and some other airlines offer some great fares, but you still have to get to the airport, park, deal with security, crappy in flight food, etc. etc. When you drive you can't read a book, sleep or watch a movie. You also have to deal with accidents, highway construction, traffic jams, etc.

As I said in my earlier post, Amtrak is not always the best choice for time or money comparisons, but sometimes it is. It certainly is for me on my daily commute - even when gas was at $1.20/gallon. Amtrak should be supported - and expanded for LD service - precisely because it should be a travel choice that more of America can take advantage of.

hsr_fan wrote:I continue to be amazed at how high the sleeper fares are on Amtrak!

Geez. Didn't we just go through this with someone whining about the fares on the Three Rivers?

I've always wanted to ride the Southwest Chief, so just out of curiosity, I priced a trip from NYP to LAX, taking the Lake Shore Limited and then the Southwest Chief. I went with a standard compartment on the Lake Shore, and a deluxe on the Chief (I'd want a private toilet and shower for a trip that long!). Without quoting specific fares, let's just say I could fly to LA and back several times for what they're charging, and even splurge for first class!

Without quoting specific fares, let's just say that I chose a random date in June (the 26th) and found that 49-3 in Standard/Deluxe respectively costs less than a one-way first-class ticket on American Airlines from JFK to LAX. So, perhaps you could fly back and forth between LA and NY, but not in first class. Granted, I didn't check another airline, so maybe there's somebody else out there with first class for less.

Even taking a standard compartment on the Chief, the fare is well into 3 figure territory!

Three figures, big deal. A round-trip from Milwaukee to Detroit in coach usually breaks three figures for me.

I can't think of any sleeper I've booked in the last two years, with the exception of the City of New Orleans, where the fare wasn't into the 3-figure territory. A two-night trip on a long-distance train in the middle of the summer is going to guarantee a high fare.

I know about demand pricing and the "operate like a business" philosophy,

So, what's the complaint?

but I'm amazed that there's still demand at the prices Amtrak charges.

Well, you know what? There is. In fact, for my "random search" above, the first date I tried had no sleepers available at all on 3, and the second date had no deluxes. I had to choose a third date to even do the comparison you made above.

I'm a single guy making a decent salary as an aerospace engineer, and the prices seem way out of my range. Who's paying these fares? Wealthy retired folks? Wall St investment bankers? People who are bad at math? I can't see too many middle class families shelling out the kind of cash Amtrak is demanding!

I've met a few families in the sleepers during my trips. I've met a few retired folks, a few businessfolks, etc. You get all kinds. Remember, some of them may only be going half way, and someone else will get in that room for the rest of the trip. That doesn't quite cut the fare in half (booking a room from A to B and then B to C is more expensive than booking direct from A to C), but it still brings it down.

Fares are lower in the off-season, naturally. In the summer, there's tons of demand. Taking a random guess, I'd say there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people "wanting" to take a trip on the SW Chief on any given day. Unfortunately, Amtrak only has 40 rooms to sell (2 sleepers @ 20 rooms ea.). So, something's gotta give.

And finally, who cares what kind of person spends four figures for a deluxe room from Chicago to LA? If you're single and on a budget, a deluxe room probably isn't going to be your first choice of accommodation anyway.

There have been a bunch of times where I've wanted to take an LD train trip by sleeper, but the price tag has scared me away a bit. Sometimes, I'll go coach (I can handle it, though it's not always fun), sometimes I won't go at all. One time, I even splurged and paid the high-bucket fare for a sleeper. It's a bit tough to take, sure. You can't do it every week, or you'll go broke, but if you're going for the journey and not just the transportation, it's worth it.

It's funny how many people (on this board, especially) say "I've always wanted to ride such and such a train." Then they look up the fare and say "screw that, flying's cheaper." So, is the experience of the travel an important part of the trip, or is getting there the only reason for going there? If it's the former, save up your pennies, book your ticket, and have fun. If it's the latter, then quit your whining, keep your money, and save the room for someone who's willing to pay for it (and at this time of the year, there's no shortage of those "someones").

RMadisonWI wrote: Three figures, big deal. A round-trip from Milwaukee to Detroit in coach usually breaks three figures for me.

I can't think of any sleeper I've booked in the last two years, with the exception of the City of New Orleans, where the fare wasn't into the 3-figure territory. A two-night trip on a long-distance train in the middle of the summer is going to guarantee a high fare.

Okay, you're right. I actually think the coach fare is very reasonable, being in the "couple hundred bucks" range. But by adding sleeping accomodations, it seems you're not just doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling the fare. Instead, you're generally increasing the fare by an order of magnitude! So, I really should have said 4 figures! Going from a "couple hundred" to a "couple thousand" is a bit steep for me.

My purpose was not to start an argument over whether or not the sleeper fares were justified. I was simply curious as to what kind of people are able to afford these fares! Because, whatever line of work they're in, maybe that's what I should be doing!