Updated December 19, 2003 -- Amtrak's secret discount codes help you knock big bucks off the price of rail fares. They're taking a but of a break for the holidays, but there's still one code that can slash fares on the railroad's most popular trains.
To use an Amtrak discount code, start booking your ticket online. On the screen with the list of trains, you'll see a space for "Promotion Code." Enter the code there.
The big code right now is V729, which saves you 20% on trips all over the Northeast Corridor, as far north as Albany, as far south as Virginia Beach, as far west as Harrisburg and as far east as Boston. It applies seven days a week, on unreserved trains only, from Jan. 5-April 7 and and April 13-May 27.
Code V143 also knocks 20% off the price of trips throughout the Northeast, as far north as Albany, as far south as Virginia Beach, as far west as Harrisburg and as far east as Boston. It's available on all unreserved trains and on weekend high-speed express trains. But you're running out of time to use this code: it's only good on trains from Jan. 5-11.
Travelers over the age of 62 can also get 15% off most Amtrak fares by asking for the senior citizen's discount. Even better, the senior discount works in combination with the discount codes for a super-discount.
There are two other places to find heavily-discounted Amtrak fares: Amtrak's Rail Sale page (http://tickets.amtrak.com/Amtrak/railsale), with its swiftly rotating collection of deeply discounted tickets, and, oddly enough, eBay (www.stores.ebay.com/id=56190638&ssPageName=L2), where you can pick up a round-trip, cross-country ticket for $79 or a round-trip between any two points between Philadelphia and Atlanta for $25. To see a complete, downloadable map of all Amtrak routes, go to www.amtrak.com/pdf/national.pdf.
We'd love to hear from all you fans of rail travel. Just go to our Rail Travel Message Boards to tell us what you love about taking the train. And if you'd prefer to get there any other way besides the train, we'd like to read about that, too.
