# Advice on traveling long distance by Amtrak

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-traveling-long-distance-by-amtrak/950896>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 19, 2021, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-traveling-long-distance-by-amtrak/950896 "2021-09-19T00:42:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 20

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**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-traveling-long-distance-by-amtrak/950896/20 "2021-09-19T23:03:11Z")

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> [@Philliam](#):
>
> Finally gave up and opted to use ‘customer service’ to get an agent to purchase a ticket - after nearly 2 hours on hold I gave it up as a lost cause and got a bus ticket in about 15 minutes.

Yeah, their live-person number sucketh mightily. The couple times I have had to use them, I take the option to leave a call back number. So far (knock wood) the time for the CB has been about forty-five minutes – not good but I can do something to occupy the time.

> [@Kropotkin](#):
>
> Any tips on Amtrak’s “dynamic pricing”? Do the fares vary drastically depending in season/day/sunspot activity? Planning a trip for (we hope!) 2022, Seattle to Chicago, and can take advantage of good pricing.

I call it airline pricing – it can vary wildly depending on the dates selected. [I posted](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-high-speed-rail-is-a-terrible-idea/939404/344) an experiment I did in June and the range was $101 to $248 for the same trip on the same day of the week.

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