I agree Paul. There is no reason, in 2020, not to take Visa, MC, Discover and American Express. Everyone should accept them for all payments (memberships, gift shop, tickets, food sales, etc.).

Make it easy for people to give you money!

I am (barely, I would have been 11 or 12) old enough to remember when it was a notable item of interest at one of the first railroad club meetings I ever attended (so about 1968 or '69), that C&O/B&O was going to start accepting a credit card for payment for dining car service - Diner's Club, of course! If they weren't the first U. S. railroad to do that, they were one of the first. I believe this was one of Paul Reistrup's Hail Mary innovations to try and bring some profitability to their passenger service right before Amtrak was formed. Interesting how far we have come in a little over 50 years, huh?

The railroads had their own credit card: the Rail Travel Card, introduced in 1947 and lasting into Amtrak. It was not plastic; it was paper and the Ticket Agent or Dining Car Steward had to do a lot of paperwork for each transaction.

Phil Mulligan

Just avoid Groupon. You get very little of the ticket price paid. Their verification system is a mess as well. People show up with the confirmation on their cell phones, ready to board at train time, and we have nothing in our system.
Beats me how many free rides we've given because of that.

Groupon is just like the online ticketing systems, they will sweet talk the marketing director / general manager and sell them on the benefits. In reality, as p51 mentioned above, it becomes a hassle for the ticket agents and the money goes mostly to Groupon.

The theory is that customers will visit on a Groupon voucher and either sign up for a membership or return for a higher priced event like a dinner train.

Just like online ticketing systems, it can work for some operations. Especially if the goal is to get memberships and you don’t have any capacity issues.

Apparently, WhistleTix was bought by etix. I have no experience with etix so disregard my previous “endorsement” of WhistleTix. I can’t tell you if the system is the same, worse, better or just different.