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[quote user="oltmannd"] Is there a good reason (or even a bad one) why Amtrak does not participate?  [/quote] Amtrak's main sell points are its station agents, supported by automated ticketing machines, telephone reservations, internet reservations, and travel agencies.  Its website is as good as any site that I have used.  And I make all of my travel arrangements on the web.  I have not used a travel agent since 1967. If Amtrak engaged Travelocity, as an example, it would have to pay them a fee similar to the fee that it pays its travel agents.  Moreover, until the recent economic downturn, persons making their travel arrangements through Travelocity, as well as the other popular on-line travel agents, had to pay a small albeit annoying booking fee.  Engaging the popular on-line travel agents would probably drain customers away from its travel agents and other sell points.  Thus, Amtrak management would have to determine if using on-line travel agents would produce a greater gain than the potential negative impact on the other sell points, i.e. alienate long established travel agent relationships, diminish the scale and efficiencies of its on-line reservation system, etc. I lived and worked in Dallas for 31 years.  Travelocity has it headquarters in a Dallas suburb.  From time to time I would run into some of their accounting and auditing managers at area professional meetings.  If I remember correctly, about a decade or so ago, one of them, knowing of my interest in trains, told me that Travelocity had considered approaching Amtrak about using their services, but they decided that there was not enough money in it.  This is also the reason that they don't carry the intercity bus companies on their site.  Outside of the NEC, as well as the California and Illinois corridors, Amtrak is not a factor in America's travel scheme irrespective of what NARP and other enthusiasts say.  Most people in the corridors probably know that Amtrak has an excellent website, and they use it.  They are not likely to whistle up Travelocity for a trip from Hartford to New York.
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