Train News

Amtrak throws winter flash sale with trips to and from Dallas

Amtrak train on the move.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

With the imminent holidays, traveling is on the rise, and Amtrak is ready to get you to your winter getaway. For a limited time, the transportation company is offering a National Winter Travel Flash Sale, with up to 40 percent off, including Coach Class on some of Amtrak’s most popular trains, and Business Class seats on the Acela.

Reduced fares on many routes nationwide are available if you make a reservation between Thursday, November 7 and Thursday, November 14, 2024, for travel between Monday, December 2, 2024, and Saturday, March 15, 2025.

Other than a few blackout dates, the sale fare applies to trips departing Monday through Thursday and Saturdays.

Amtrak departs out of Dallas at the Eddie Bernice Johnson Union Station.

Called The Texas Eagle Texas Eagle, it runs from Chicago - St. Louis - Little Rock - Dallas - San Antonio - Tucson - Los Angeles.

The Texas Eagle part travels between Chicago and San Antonio, through major cities from Austin to Dallas. Connecting service between San Antonio and Los Angeles is available via the Sunset Limited. Passengers traveling to and from points between Chicago and Los Angeles have a layover in San Antonio, ranging from 2 to 5 hours in order to accommodate train coupling operations.

How cool would it be to leave Dallas at 11:50 am and get to Los Angeles the next morning at 6 am?

Sample one-way fares include $87 for a trip from Dallas to Los Angeles.

Offered on most Amtrak trains, Coach Class features reclining seats with legroom to stretch out, no middle seats, and large windows for the best scenery on display while creating a smaller carbon footprint.

Acela Business Class provides an upgraded experience with reserved seating, free Wi-Fi, expanded tray tables and the new Cafe Acela menu with local and health-focused options including sandwiches, salads, charcuterie, mac & cheese, and a vegan BBQ burger.

The National Winter Travel Flash Sale provides up to 40 percent off regularly priced fares for trips departing Monday-Thursday and Saturdays, excluding December 24, 2024, December 26, 2024, January 1, 2025, January 17-21, 2025, and February 17, 2025.

The discount is valid for travel on all trains except the Auto Train (53), Borealis, Carolinian, Lincoln Service, Hiawatha, Illini/Saluki, Illinois Zephyr/Carl Sandburg, Keystone (PHL-HAR), Missouri River Runner, Pacific Surfliner, Piedmont and Winter Park Express.

The discount can be combined with Amtrak’s everyday discounts. Availability is limited, sale fare rules and restrictions apply. For full terms and conditions and to make a reservation, visit Amtrak.com/wintersale or the Amtrak app.

“Discounts offered during the National Winter Travel Flash Sale provide guests the opportunity to take convenient, comfortable and more sustainable trips between the biggest cities in the country — New York City, Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Boston — aboard the Acela or experience some of the country’s most spectacular landscapes on other trains to Chicago, Los Angeles or Dallas,” says Amtrak Executive VP and Chief Commercial Officer Eliot Hamlisch. “Whether you’re joining us for the first time or as an Amtrak Guest Rewards member, our aim is to ‘Retrain Travel,’ providing a better way to reach winter destinations — away from traffic, tolls and tedious lines — where the journey is part of the getaway.”

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Uptown News

Euro-style Hotel St. Germain in Uptown Dallas closed after 33 years

Google Maps / Flashback Dallas

Hotel St. Germain

A darling boutique hotel in Uptown Dallas that was Dallas' first B&B has closed: Hotel St. Germain, which occupied a turn-of-the-century home at 2516 Maple St., closed its doors and auctioned off its furnishings in an estate sale that took place November 8-10.

A friend of the family that owned the hotel confirmed that it had been closed for nearly a year, and that the property was recently sold to an undisclosed buyer who intends to maintain its lodging status.

It's in a prime location, since Maple Avenue is currently going through a major turnover from bumpy little street to the home of big projects like Maple Terrace, the 22-story residential tower at 3003 Maple Ave.

Hotel St. Germain was opened in 1991 by businesswoman and former New Orleans resident Claire Heymann, the granddaughter of a Paris antiques dealer, who did exactly what preservationists dream about: She took a crumbling old home built in 1900 and transformed it, giving it a stunning makeover and filling it with fine art and antiques: one-of-a-kind sleigh beds, spindly antique desks, amber wall sconces, vintage bathroom fittings, and sparkling crystal chandeliers.

The property had only seven rooms, each unique, and was Dallas' first bed-and-breakfast inn. It also had a quirky in-house restaurant featuring acclaimed chefs of the day such as William Guthrie.

It's disappointing to have missed the sale with its assortment of leaded glass windows, vintage sinks, chandeliers, and French antique furniture.

Flashback Dallas shares a history of the structure, and food writer Mark Stuertz (who co-authored Fork Fight!, the memoir by Pei Wei co-founder Mark Brezinski) wrote a great review of the restaurant in 1997, recounting its colorful past.

"Heymann discovered the property in the late '80s, then a foreclosed, boarded-up hovel facing a wrecking ball, while scouring the area between McKinney and Turtle Creek for an old house worthy of conversion into a small, stylish hotel similar to those she had visited on numerous jaunts to San Francisco," he wrote.

Heymann named it for the St. Germain area of Paris, and filled it with elegant furnishings, many from her antiques dealer mother. Stuertz called the result "an odd mix of romance, quaintness, European-style finery, and antique-collector busyness," "stuffed with fabrics fussily pleated, puddled, lashed and tasseled, as well as handsome furnishings seasoned with art deco accents and shabby chic touches."

The closure was due in part to the fact that Heymann has been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and is in a nursing home.

Gary Bellomy, who worked at the hotel, posted an elegy on Facebook, calling her "one of the most complicated and brilliant women I have known."

"Hotel St. Germain, her mad, brilliant brainstorm joins the ranks of Dallas’ unique history," he said. "Many of you will mourn. It is unlikely we will ever see this level of French sophistication in this spot we call home."

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Uptown News

Euro-style Hotel St. Germain in Uptown Dallas closed after 33 years