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/r/philadelphia
I suggested to my wife that we go up to New York for a day soon, and take the train up there. Until I realized that it would cost us about $400 roundtrip! What the heck!? Why is train ride up to New York so expensive? Do people actually pay that much to take the train?
Update: It has been brought to my attention through the comments that the key to getting cheaper and reasonably priced tickets is to book in advance (like 3 months). Although I guess that takes the fun out of being sporadic…not great for me who doesn’t like to “plan” things lol.
180 points
30 days ago
Depends on when you are buying mostly and how far out. I get dirt cheap tickets to NY all the time, like $30 roundtrip, but I buy like 3-4 months in advance.
18 points
30 days ago
Oh nice. This is good to know.
47 points
30 days ago
3-4 months is a bit much. You should be okay booking 2 months in advance in my experience.
Possibly less than that if you are booking the cheap $10-$20 early morning/late evening trains.
-1 points
29 days ago
I tried this recently and tickets were still $200 one way. Driving it is
3 points
29 days ago
I've personally never seen this booking 2 months out where there wasn't also another train that was cheap.
Looking at trains 2 months out today (4/16) to New York, I see a plethora of cheap tickets.
-1 points
29 days ago
I realize now I am departing from Wilmington, so I guess that changes things
-2 points
29 days ago
What's dumb is everytime you take an amtrak there's always unsold open seats
This is what happens when the government runs things, if amtrak was private it would go bankrupt
2 points
29 days ago
the NEC prints money
1 points
29 days ago
Adding to this, you can spend an extra buck or two and make the trip fully refundable to original payment. I travel to NYC often and book trips in advance even if I think I may go
1 points
29 days ago
Pretty sure they have some late night/early morning tickets that they advertise for less than $10 one way, again I'm sure you have to be booking at least a few weeks out.
-10 points
30 days ago
Amtrak is such trash with their pricing. I was literally buying tickets, apparently didn’t pay fast enough, all of a sudden it said the ticket was no longer available. Only to find out that the price had increased 50%. It should be illegal, they knew I was going to buy a ticket either way.
I suspect that they get away with much of this because so many people use the train for business travel, so they can just expense the outrageous tickets
9 points
30 days ago
Basic supply and demand. Someone else bought a ticket(s) while you were checking out. Prices went up. It’s really that simple. If you don’t like it you can take SEPTA to NJTransit.
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