@creekland, did you by chance ever ask to speak to a manager/supervisor? I’ve found that most times the first person you speak to is unlikely to solve the problem.
I recently had an issue where a bed frame I ordered from Amazon was returned to the warehouse and marked delivered. Amazon rep blamed UPS and UPS said it was Amazon’s mistake. Amazon was refusing to budge. The two reps (from first call, then second call after UPS couldn’t help) gave me the run around and offered nothing other than refund. Meanwhile, my son had nowhere to sleep (off campus house with no furniture yet) and we timed the delivery for the day he was arriving. Long story short, I got a supervisor on the phone. He tried to get an overnight delivery for me but due to location, could not. Instead he gave me credit for 1/2 the cost ($40) in addition to the refund. He was very understanding and apologetic and really tried to find a workable solution to get the frame there for me.
Don’t mean to go off topic, but I would call and ask for a supervisor. And if you don’t get any resolution from the supervisor or your email, blast them on their twitter.
I did ask to speak with a manager (Guest Relations - Dude 2) and was told one wasn’t available. When I asked how long I’d have to wait, he said they’d gone home for the night. I called about 4:30pm and with as long as everything took (still on the phone at 6pm), that’s possible.
At this point I’m content choosing other vacations. We’re not out anything except having been unable to see the sights we thought we were paying to see (not from this phone call, but from their unstated policy on the CA Zephyr).
The whole thing just mystifies me. Such a simple problem with an easy, no real cost, solution, but they’d rather lose a customer. It annoys the heck out of me that I spent so much time with them last night.
The post on here can serve as a forewarning to anyone else starting with Amtrak who, like me, might not have realized whoever is listed first is THE person - anyone else is chattel. Make sure that person is the one who makes the decisions. In our family as it relates to travel, that’s not H, but our male dominated society had the lady at the other end who made our reservations assume he was - even though I was calling - and it was my credit card.
It’s common to do that anywhere in the US and usually means nothing, so no big deal - so I thought. I was too new to realize that would be a problem with Amtrak.
Fortunately the world is big, and I’m personally hoping Canada opens new rail lines in the US for sightseers as they have in CO/UT. The scenery is, indeed, gorgeous and one can see different scenery by train than car.
For those of you who like to travel on trains, Amtrak is offering 50% discount on both coach and Acela business fares for fall travel: https://www.amtrak.com/fallflashsale
Ugh sorry for the frustration with Amtrak. The first person always gets the credit for the room. I travel more on Amtrak and DH had a ton of points because he was lead on several room reservations. I thought you could transfer points between members?
I have the same problem with the airlines. I paid for plane tickets but when we get ecredits they give each person on the reservation their own amount for their ticket to spend. Oh and redeeming them is such a pain as you have to do it for each individual person!!!
Rather than blasting on Twitter, you could try messaging through it. Some companies are more cautious about bad relations there than with regular customer service; no idea if Amtrak cares but it’s worth a try. I’ve had luck a couple of times using that route to settle problems. Other times they just referred me back to customer service.
Not on Alaska if you have their mileage account! The account that is used to buy tickets gets the credit which can be used on any future tickets for anyone. I recently used my cancellation credit to buy a ticket for my kid.
That’s awesome. Ours was Delta. There are airlines that have household accounts. I like those. I use Southwest Rapid Shopping Rewards, get the points and then buy tickets for others.
If you pay them you can. Lady-1 told us it would be free. We tried it. It’s not. I have no problem with how they do points, but I have a problem with being new to the system and having them do it the way they did, then saying I should have known and asked for it to be done the way we wanted it.
Plus I’ll admit to still being miffed about how much we anticipated the trip, extended the trip, made different plans due to conditions, etc, then finally got to the point of the best scenery only to be told, “Oh, you can only see 2/6 hours of it in the Observation Car. The rest has to be in your room where you can only see half.” Then, when they changed it after we had been banished, we were in a car where the announcements didn’t work… I have very low tolerance and admiration for Amtrak at the moment. It’s a completely different opinion than we had prior to the CA Zephyr experience. However, even if that had gone well, I’d be saying WTH about the points.
I’m not on Twitter but I just got a form e-mail from the CEO today saying as of Nov 1st all employees need to be vaccinated because they “care.” I’m toying with spending time figuring out how to send him a “How You Lost a New Customer” email if the “case” they opened doesn’t get solved adequately.
He actually should know IMO, esp if he truly cares - about clients and the income for Amtrak. Had H and I continued on with what we were planning on the first half of the trip we’d probably have at least a couple other trips lined up by now. (Besides wanting to see other scenic lines ourselves, I think my Aunt whose H died last Dec would love to go on a trip with us and we were planning on discussing it with her.)
Now we’re plotting other (non-Amtrak) trips - and already have one planned/paid for.
I don’t know if we’ll be able to get tickets or not. Time will tell. I kinda expect them to go super quickly and we’ll have to wait for a second round. However, if I can snag tickets… we’ll be going. I just talked with H and he’s on board. Watching their video reminds us so much of our youth together.
Flew to visit my dad, a short, domestic trip but through Covid hot spots. I thought the policing of correct mask wearing was more vigorous than it had been. Flight attendants were more aggressive about telling people to put their masks on right. Travelers were more likely to be wearing surgical or kn95 masks than fashionable cloth masks. Planes and airports full.
Returning from a trip from CA to New York for the US Open. Both flights were full. Mask wearing on airplane, subways, taxi’s, stores was very close to 100%. The US Open and all the restaurants we went to required proof of vaccination. I didn’t wear a mask outdoors and definitely the majority of people I saw outdoors were not wearing a mask. We stayed at a private home and spent most of our visit doing outdoor activities (Highline, Central Park, US Open, etc…). We survived the storm on Wednesday evening without incident).
I was in Tahoe in August with the bad fires, and we had the storm in NY. I am starting to think I am bad luck. I am hoping there are no disasters when I go to San Diego next week.
Scratching San Diego off our places to go next week…
Seriously though - glad you had safe trips and hope you enjoyed them even with the “stories” you can now tell afterward about the rain/flooding and fires/smoke.
We had 7 inches of rain from Ida at our house. It took our 1 acre pond from being very low to flowing over the dam - probably a 3 foot rise before it even got to the dam, but otherwise, “we” had no damage - hardly any branches came off trees due to previous storms pruning them already. But around us roads/basements were flooded and east of us toward Philly things were (and still are) a mess.
