How To Get Discounts Buying Amtrak Tickets

hey guys welcome back to the channel today we're going to share with you how to get discounted amtrak tickets all right so a lot of people as they're looking at tickets uh on amtrak one of the things they run into is they it's a little bit it can be a little bit cost prohibitive so one of the things to think about is are there options for discounts and the answer is yes right yeah um there are and there's actually a tab that says deals on the amtrak website that you can click and you'll be introduced to all different kinds of things right exactly you've got you know 20 different deals they list on there at any given time and it's really the first place you should look because it's all different kind of oddball deals like never the same thing so it might be um saturdays in virginia if you're trying to do a weekend getaway there's a 20 off of that or seniors in california might get 15 off there's also a military discount for active military there's a veteran's discount there's a passengers with disabilities discount so all different things and you may not qualify for all of them but you probably will qualify for at least one of them so if there isn't uh another deal going that you want to do go to that deals page and probably find something good there for yourself okay and as you're looking at those is there do you know if there's like a separate deal senior discount yes there's a standing senior discount on amtrak which is good for 10 off any train except for the auto train so if you're going from virginia to florida you can't get the discount on that one uh and to get this senior discount you do need to be 65 years old or older except for if you're going to canada then you only need to be 60. um so okay you get a little bit of a break there the age is five years younger in canada so you know you can benefit from that now interestingly when you're booking your senior discount a lot of the people have trouble with finding where you actually put that in to the price and you do that before you pick your train so right as you're putting in your departure and your destination and how many travelers you have it's in that same drop down box when you click travelers below that there's a place for discounts that's where you can pick senior discount or a military discount or whatever discount you want to qualify for so once you get beyond that page you can't put in the discount right no and that's the problem that a lot of people have is they'll be like i couldn't figure out where to put in the code there is no code it's just a drop down okay and you have to do that before you have to select it which runs counter to most hotel bookings systems where you put a code in right at checkout this you have to do before you even search for your training uh what about triple a discounts because that's a really great option for travel booking yeah aaa discount has been taken away oh so in 2018 it was taken away and it was a 10 discount across the board also but uh the you know that's the same as a lot of these other discounts and so you'll probably find another one that you can qualify for that is just as good and another thing i want to mention about these discounts is that they are it's one or the other so you can either get one of these discounts or one of the buy one get one free the bogo sales are doing so if they're running a bogo sale you're much better off taking that one than the senior discount or the uh you know the military discount so you can't combine those can't combine them so if there is no bogo sale then take the 10 or 15 whatever it is if there is though definitely take the buy one get one free because this isn't going to be a 50 discount okay and in another method that we use when we're usually booking airline travel wondering if it's the same way with train travel the closer you get to a departure date uh will it be cheaper more expensive does it even make a difference if you book closer to your departure or further away you will not save money by waiting unless they happen to drop a buy one get one free deal okay right when you're happening so the way that amtrak works is as the train fills up the price also goes up so the very first day that you know your travel dates is the best day to book if you have to go on those days but if you have some flexibility in your dates and it's kind of a ways off you may want to wait and see if they run a buy one get one free sale because you could luck out and get that so but you kind of are risking the cheaper price if you do that because if a bunch of people booked that train then the price is going to kind of look if you don't get the sale then yeah then you're just paying a higher price rolling the dice on that one yeah um and in mentioning airfare is it cheaper just to fly well i think it depends on your situation a little bit but okay for the most part i think amtrak is cheaper because of the bags how many bags do we have oh yes yes because we each take a bag we each have a big bag that we travel with in a backpack so that would get it gets pretty expensive most airlines right now are charging anywhere from 25 to 50 dollars for a bag and a lot of them started charging for carry-on bags as well which our backpacks would qualify for because they're too big to be a personal item but you can bring two check bags right yeah on the train and two carry-ons per person that's a lot of bags you could move on amtrak it's a lot of package yeah that's that's way too many bags to take on the train but you can take it and they are included they are free and the other thing is with the ticket prices is amtrak is generally cheaper it's been generally priced by distance so if you're only going from like miami to orlando it might just be 20 bucks okay and you're not gonna pay your bag fees but if you tried to fly from miami to orlando it's not going to be twenty dollars and you still have to pay the back now an amtrak train from going from orlando to seattle that would you have to take a couple different trains that's probably going to be cheaper just to fly yes but the most part amtrak is cheaper i would think okay and then um is it cheaper to buy amtrak tickets online or maybe just go to the station and bypass all the trouble of online yeah is it cheaper we get that question a lot if they can just wait and and it kind of goes back to what we said earlier which was the longer you wait the more it's going to be so it won't be cheaper at the station it'll be actually the most expensive you could do and you might not even get a ticket if you just show up there and just say okay i want to go so you don't want to just show up to the train station and that happens a lot to people because that is something that people do in europe they just show up but here in america that's not not a good idea right [Laughter] and it is since we were comparing airlines or flying and amtrak is it um is it cheaper to um to buy the the amtrak tickets on a particular day kind of like sometimes it's cheaper on certain days to buy airfare is it cheaper certain days to buy train tickets yeah they don't fluctuate like airline tickets so uh you're not gonna get a better deal like on a tuesday than on a saturday it really just goes back to that once they fill up it goes up to the next price range so that's that's all you really have to look for don't be worried about right waiting for a deal unless you're trying to get that bogo sale which is yeah kind of the grand deal yeah and that's that's what i was gonna say is that that's basically like the deal of all deals when they have the bogo sale um because that's when we scoop up and get you know we've always got like a running plan and that's basically when we swoop in and and buy everything that we that we kind of have planned out because we're going to get the best deal especially if you're going across the country or all the way up and down the east coast or the west coast um it's going to be a lot cheaper yeah to do you know to do a round uh do the buy one get one free and uh so let's talk about that a little bit we do have a whole video um telling you a lot more about the buy one get one free on amtrak uh which we'll link below in the description but anything else we want to add here about the buy one get one for you yeah the buy one going free people always just want to know the price so i'll tell you what we paid actual dollars uh we we did the california zephyr on the bogo we did the co-star light and the empire builder right yes and at the time of booking the normal price on the empire builder and the california zephyr it was a little over a thousand dollars okay if we just booked a room at for the whole way for two and we ended up for two people yeah and we ended up paying about five hundred and fifty dollars so a little bit more than half sure just a few dollars more than half okay and then on the california's effort it was going to be 600 and something dollars and we ended up paying 400. so that was about 33 off on that one which i'm not really sure how to buy one get one free but however the math works out that's how it works out that was the price so it was a really substantial savings way more than you get on the uh the the ten percent or twenty percent normal and the way the bogo does work is they'll drop it they'll announce it with no warning and then it'll be live for about ten days normally and you can book travel two to three months out with it so you really do you can't just wait for the bogo and then be like let's see what we're gonna do kind of have an idea of where you want to go and start and then if you can wait and just kind of if you're flexible when it when it drops you just go ahead and jump on it yeah because it is a i mean that's a it's a very generous offer like you said it's you can you know get it for several days for like you know like you said about 10 days and you can use it for several months which a lot of sales don't run like that so it is very generous it's just you know you just don't really know when they're going to do it it just kind of like surprised today's the day um but a lot of people ask you know is there a way to like how quickly can i find out if they're doing the bogo what what are some things that people can do in order to kind of find out yeah because it might not other than asking us if no one sees your question five days in the sale is almost over um so the best way the way we do it is sign up for amtrak guest rewards on their website there's a tab on their website uh for guest rewards that'll not only earn you points when you when you travel which is good for free travel uh they'll email you anytime they have a sale and so you'll be the first one to know and you'll kind of see in the comments section of some of these videos when they do it people say hey i just got my bogus sale email and just letting everybody know it's out there today and so if you are signed up for that you'll be the first one to know and you can be letting other people know once you get your tickets and and yeah so we have a if you want to know more about the prices the exact prices we paid we have a blog about that on our website too at groundlifetravel.com get you more information on exact prices routes we have a listing on there for every single route on amtrak to give you the details because it is kind of hard to figure out where you want to go but that'll really help you if you're doing some trip planning go to the website that'll really be a good place to start yes yes i think that's probably like the best way i think to plan it is to go to the blog and go you know to the line that you're looking to start at wherever that is and click on that one and go down to the trip planning section and it will tell you what are some options you can do in order some places you can go and see we've got a lot of information on on the blog so definitely a great place to get your questions answered as well as in the comments section if you have any questions leave those for us in the comments section that's the best place um obviously stuff gets lost in our emails sometimes we don't get those but um leave us questions down there in the comment section any either we or someone who's got a lot of great knowledge too we'll help you out there in the comments section um thank you guys for watching this video don't forget to subscribe to the channel give us a like on this video and guys we might run into you on the rails

Channel: Grounded Life Travel

Views: 134,608

Keywords: amtrak, amtrak tickets, buying amtrak tickets, amtrak discounts, amtrak discount, amtrak discounts sleeper car, amtrak discounts aarp, amtrak tips, amtrak travel tips, amtrak tips and tricks, amtrak sunset limited, amtrak southwest chief, amtrak sales, amtrak empire builder, amtrak coast starlight, amtrak california zephyr, amtrak lake shore limited, amtrak cross country, amtrak roomette tips, amtrak bogo sale, amtrak bogo, amtrak military discount, amtrak senior discount

Id: a3WyAefLSBI

Length: 13min 17sec (797 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021