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How to Get Amtrak's Student Discount | Frommer's Amtrak

How to Get Amtrak's Student Discount

The United States' national railway service, Amtrak, offers a student discount to young people aged 17 to 24. It's not hard to get, but there are a few rules.

Amtrak's student discount deal gets travelers 15% off the price regular adult fare that has been booked at least one day in advance.

Getting the deal requires that you show the conductor a valid student I.D. on the train—make sure you have the original and not an image.

The student discount is accepted on Acela trains, but only for Coach or Acela Business tickets, not for higher classes or sleeping cars.

Amtrak won't allow the student discount to be used for the following services: the Lincoln Service and Missouri River Runner, Hiawatha service between Chicago and Milwaukee Wolverine, the Blue Water between Chicago and Kalamazoo, the Pere Marquette between Chicago and Grand Rapids, the Illini, Saluki, or Illinois service between Chicago and Carbondale, the Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg between Chicago and Quincy, the Pacific Surfliner in Southern California, the San Joaquins between San Francisco and Southern California, the Capitol Corridor in California's Bay Area, the Keystone and Pennsylvanian services between New York City and Pennsylvania, and the 7000-8999 thruway series. 

A few of those excluded services do offer multi-ride passes with student discounts

You have to book using Amtrak's website: www.amtrak.com/student-discounts, and sometimes the tickets allotment will sell out.

The tickets must be booked via Amtrak.com. (In the past, the mobile version did not offer the deal, so if you have trouble using the mobile site, try the desktop version.) If you're using the Amtrak app to purchase student discount tickets, you must use discount code V814.

If that code doesn't work to lower your rate (the Amtrak site can be as creaky as its carriages), consult the Promo Code page of the independent website RailServe, which lists different discount codes that might work instead.

The deal joins a few other good Amtrak railway discounts, including 10% off for people over 64, and 10% off for military personnel and their families, 

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