Help, I’ve lost my train tickets!

Question: 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. — Diane Stephany, Des Moines, Iowa

Answer: 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.

  • Carver

    Do you really think that rail is the transportation of the future. Swing by Los Angeles and see if you still believe that.

  • Ellen

    Yay for Amtrak!!!!! It was extremely nice of Amtrak to give a voucher and they certainly were not obliged to do so. I would not have done so. There are a lot of things in life where losing the paperwork means you are out the money.

    In many places it is possible to make reservations and pick the tickets up at the station before you board. I suggest the woman in this story use that system, unless she is in one of the out-of-the-way places that Amtrak serves and there is no one at the station to issue them.

    When I think of all the legitimate problems people have that you do not get involved in, Chris, I cannot help but wonder if helping in these types of situations is a waste of your time.

  • http://Everything-Everywhere.com/ Gary Arndt

    So long as passenger rail travel is a government monopoly in the US, it will never be the transportation of the future. It doesn’t own the rails in the western US, and outside of a few routes in the North-East, most train trips are longer and as expensive as air travel.

    One of the worst experiences I’ve had traveling was a 48 hour Amtrak trip from Dallas to LA.

  • Passing through

    Last time my husband took Amtrak, he picked the tickets up at the terminal.

    At a kiosk.

    Cant lose a kiosk… just sayin.

  • Brenda

    Metro uses paper tickets here in LA for the train….if you don’t have your ticket its a HUGE fine….couple of hundred dollars…..I know~I got a ticket from LASD because the conductor called them….believe me~it was the first & last time I ever forgot my pass!!

  • MeanMeosh

    Unless the energy tax being debated in Congress currently, or some future energy/carbon tax, makes air travel either obsolete or prohibitively expensive, I just don’t see train travel being “the wave of the future” in the United States. The reason is simple – this isn’t Europe, where distances between major cities are small enough to where high speed trains take the same time, if not less than, air travel (the exception being the Northeast, where trains actually do work, sort of). Dallas to L.A. takes 3 hours by plane or 2 days by train. Americans put a high value on their time, and even with the inconveniences of today’s air travel, I don’t see many folks making the switch voluntarily with that kind of a time difference.

  • Carver

    @Ellen

    Bit presumptuous to tell someone what is a good use of his or her time, don’t you think. Besides, I’m sure that Diane doesn’t think that this was a waste of time.

    @Mean

    You hit the nail squarely on the head. Trains require a certain dynamic in order to be useful. You need to have small distances and compact cities so that when you exit the train, you are within reasonable walking distance of your ultimate destination. Otherwise, trains remain ultimately a backup to other forms of transportation, notably air and car.

  • Diane Reinig

    I have been traveling Amtrak twice a week for work for over a year. I’ve learned not to print out the tickets ahead of time. I book my trips online, then print them out just before I board at the station. Once the ticket is printed you are charged a change fee if you ever want to change the ticket, or if the ticket price actually goes down (that’s happened to me). But if you haven’t printed the ticket yet, you can cancel the ticket at no charge and re-book the trip at the lower price and avoid a change fee.

    I’ve also learned not to book round trip tickets. For example, I can get a AAA rate when I leave Sunday night, but it’s not available on the Friday night Acela. I used to book round trip tickets, and Amtrak.com would tell me AAA tickets were not available. But I discoverd if I book the tickets separately the AAA rate was available for the Sunday night trip!

  • Kathleen Eaton

    If Amtrak has a long waiting period to ensure lost tickets have not been used, why is that? If each ticket is assigned a number and is recorded in a computerized system at AMTRAK, why can’t the company simply cancel out the lost ticket when it is replaced and have the replacement numbered the same but with an additional symbol indicating it replaces the original number. Ticket collectors could be given a hand-held device which would post ticket cancellation numbers each day indicating the replacements….on any given train, there isn’t likely to be THAT many lost and replaced tickets so ticket taker wouldn’t be overburdened to check the hand-held while before collecting tickets.

  • Erik G.

    German Rail has had print-your-own ticketing since at least 2003. And their staff had the ability to print out tickets on-board in 1998. When will Amtrak get with the program?? Sigh.

  • http://ofsevit.dynalias.com:8081/ari/ Ari

    A couple years back I was taking a roundtrip from Boston to New York on the train. I printed out my ticket in Boston, got on the train to New York and, a couple days later, went to print out my ticket back to Boston. It turned out that their system is different from the airlines—you get both tickets at the same time. My second ticket printed a few seconds after my first in Boston—a few seconds after I walked away.

    I spoke to an Amtrak representative and as it turned out someone had found my ticket in Boston and turned it in, so they were able to reissue it. I was dismayed that their system didn’t mention that all tickets would print at the same time (or give the option to only print one) but was very impressed with the staffs’ response.

  • http://profiles.google.com/politicslove Martine Elianor

    And since airlines use a paperless tickets system, they never have any problems or discrepancies :-)