<strong>Question</strong>: I’m trying to get a refund for lost train tickets, and I need your help. I bought two Amtrak tickets for my sister and me to travel from Osceola, Iowa, to Denver, recently. Then I discovered that my husband, thinking that the envelope contained old information from a recent Amtrak trip I’d taken to Colorado, threw the tickets away.
When I contacted Amtrak, I was told that “lost tickets are lost money” and I would have to pay the conductor on the train for the lost tickets. If I found the tickets within a year, I could have a cash refund minus 10 percent or use them for future travel within that year.
Of course, I will not find those tickets because they went out with the garbage. Is there any suggestion that you could give me so that I do not have to pay twice for the same tickets? I’m really frustrated. — <strong>Diane Stephany</strong>, <em>Des Moines, Iowa</em>
<strong>Answer</strong>: Amtrak should be able to reissue your ticket without charging more. In fact, when I reviewed your letter, I though this must be a simple misunderstanding. How could any travel company issue a paper ticket in 2009?
Then again, we’re talking about Amtrak.
Don’t get me wrong. I think passenger rail is the future of transportation. Light rail and high-speed trains are more efficient, greener alternatives to fossil-fuel consuming cars and trucks. I take the train whenever it’s an option — which, unfortunately, isn’t very often.
Virtually all airline tickets are now electronic, meaning that you don’t get a real ticket, but a confirmation number. When you arrive at the airport, you check in and are issued a boarding pass by the airline. Amtrak should be able to implement a similar system.
Still, Amtrak is clear about its ticket policy. “Your tickets have value,” it warns on its Web site. “Please safeguard your tickets as you would cash. Amtrak is not liable for lost, stolen, misplaced or destroyed tickets.”
I checked into Amtrak’s refund rules. When you lose a ticket, Amtrak requires the purchase of a replacement ticket. Some travelers who buy a more expensive ticket are eligible for a partial refund of the second fare by filling out a lost ticket refund application, either online or through a station agent.
But there’s a $75 service fee and a five-month waiting period, to assure that the original tickets were never used.
Next time you travel by train, keep your tickets locked up somewhere safe with your passports and other valuables. Treat them as if they’re cash. I hope Amtrak can find a better way of handling tickets in the future, but until it does, you have to work within the system.
I contacted Amtrak on your behalf. As a one-time exception to this policy, it offered you and your sister a travel voucher for the total value of the original tickets that were accidentally thrown away.
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I would a nice experience for to you and everyone of not loosing the tickets for the other time. Anyway you can get back the tickets by the reciept you have got at the time while purchasing tickets.
No Aldenroff, Amtrak does not refund based on any receipt you may have received, regardless – the ticket is actually your only receipt.
There is a good reason for this. Amtrak tickets are used by handing them to a Conductor who most often does not check any ID to make sure the ticket is actually being used by the person whose name is on it. ANYONE can use those lost tickets and if Amtrak issues you a replacement set and then someone else uses the original, Amtrak is then out that money through your fault, not theirs.
It is unfortunate that Amtrak has not found a way to switch to electronic tickets, but that’s the way it is.
I traveled from Portland to Los Angeles on Amtrak last week and this week, and both times I had e-confirmations that I could print out and use to pick up my tickets at the station kiosks. So they are also using the e-ticket system. Luckily you found your mistake before you boarded the train. The on-board staff was clear that if you didn’t have a ticket, you’d have to pay for one right away at a much higher price.
If you have a paper ticket on an airline and you lose it, you will get to pay a Lost Ticket Application, buy a new ticket and then wait for a refund in a year or so. And yes, airlines still have paper tickets due to their inability to interline electronically with all of the other airlines.
Amy – you are still picking up a ticket at the kiosk. There is no true e-ticket system for checking in – you must hand the conductor a piece of paper on the train – and an email confirmation will not work. It is either the ticket itself on good old fashioned airline stock or the ticket on flimsy paper that comes out of the kiosk.
Amtrak uses a system called “Advance Payment” for credit or debit card payment. If you book directly with Amtrak (on-line or at their call center which, by the way, does NOT charge an additional fee for human help), and if you are boarding either at a station that is staffed (or an unstaffed station with an automated Quik-Trak machine) you can pick up your tickets on the day you’re traveling and thus not have to worry about losing them. It also make it very easy to cancel paid-for reservations since there are no paper tickets to return to Amtrak.
So the “advance payment” process works very much like airline e-tickets however one difference is that tickets for all travel segments will be issued, not just the one(s) for that day.
Currently travel agents are not able to use this system and have to physically issue tickets. And Amtrak issued tickets for passengers boarding in smaller unstaffed stations without Quik-Trak machines, such as Osceola, also must be physically issued and mailed.
I think it is time for the customer to take a little bit of responsibility for their actions. You buy merchandise ( a train ticket ) and loose it ;then it becomes how mean the company is that won’t just give me another one for free. Please.