We Score a Bedroom Upgrade! Chicago to Fargo on Amtrak's Empire Builder 4K

Stay tuned for a surprise twist and an unfortunate blooper in today's video.

This is the return leg of a brief trip we took to Chicago on the Amtrak Empire Builder. For us, the trip originated in Fargo, North Dakota a few days ago and, today, we are returning to Fargo ND. We will pick up our car at the free parking lot of the Amtrak train station and drive three hours north to our home in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada.

The twist, as implied by the video's title, is that we were successfully upgraded from our Coach seats to a pricey Bedroom suite.

As you will know if you have booked Amtrak tickets online, once a train ticket has been purchased, a new page appears allowing you to bid on an upgrade to a higher grade seating option. In our case, we could upgrade from our Coach seats (which were purchased on a 40% seat sale) to a Roomette or a Bedroom. You can make a minimum bid (Amtrak sets the minimum) or a higher bid of your choosing. We always go for a minimum bid. Why not? In this case we decided to skip the Roomette option and try for a Bedroom with the lowest possible bid of about US $220. If we were lucky, we'd have a brief opportunity to try out an expensive Bedroom at a very low cost.

On our Fargo to Chicago leg, we got the bad news, via email, that our bid was unsuccessful (Amtrak lets you know, yay or nay, about your bid's success some 36 hours before the train departs). But we got much better news on our last day in Chicago: our bid was accepted!

Some of the benefits we received were: a much larger room with bathroom and shower; a free three- course dinner and complimentary alcoholic beverage (each); and, before even entering the train, access to the comfy Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago's Union Station to relax and enjoy some snacks, gratis...followed by priority boarding.

As for the blooper, well, you'll just have to watch the video!

We hope you enjoy our little adventure.

Gail and David

Useful links:

Amtrak: https://www.amtrak.com/home