Amtrak's Acela prices to drop by 25%

It is nice to wake up to some good news for a change. I checked my inbox to find a lovely e-mail from Amtrak this morning.It read:

"Book early and ride the Acela for surprisingly low fares. Save up to 25% when you purchase a ticket on Acela Express."

Here is how prices will change on some popular Northeast routes with Amtrak's Acela service:

New York - Boston, $99 (down from about $130)
Boston - New York, $79 (down from about $110)
Washington DC - Philadelphia, $73(down from about $100)

Now while this frugal traveler still feels that these prices need to lower even more to be worth the upgraded service, I will definitely take lowering prices over rising prices when it comes to travel. I personally love using the rails for trips, but Amtrak's prices have been just too high for such mediocre service. Why does it take roughly a day to go from New York to Chicago when I can drive there in traffic and with red lights in under 11? We are so far behind Europe and Asia's lighting fast rail services. Hopefully something will change with this new administration...but I will believe it when I see it.

By the way these lower prices are through June 26, 2009 and require at least a 14-day advance purchase.

Amtrak's newly adjusted Acela prices and full route information can be found by clicking here.

Southwest to start flying out of Boston by fall

Southwest Airlines, the popular low-cost carrier, has announced that they will start service out of Boston's Logan Airport by this fall. This is great news for people that use Boston when traveling for business or pleasure. More airlines equates to lower prices for passengers.

This news comes less than a week after Virgin America started it's own Boston route to San Francisco. Since Virgin joined the fray, "Bean Town" travelers have seen a steady decline in air travel prices on that particular route.

It has not been officially announced as of this posting where exactly Southwest Airlines will fly to when they start using Logan Airport, but many airline analyst predict a Boston-Chicago (O'Hare Airport) route will definitely top the list.

Boston will become Southwest's 66th destination and make many New England travelers happy, since the only option they recently had for a flight using Southwest was in Providence, Rhode Island and Manchester, New Hampshire.

Southwest will have "a conservative number of flights" at two gates in Logan, which is the sixth busiest airport in the country. Details will follow later this Spring with more information on the specific routes Southwest will use when they arrive in Red Sox nation.

Southwest