(CNN) A Chicago-based disability activist group won't have to pay $25,000 to get its members to a conference on Wednesday in Bloomington, Illinois, a trip that normally costs $16 a person each way.

Access Living said it got the $25,000 round-trip quote last month, after it told an Amtrak agent that five of the 10 people making the trip are in wheelchairs.

"We were shocked, we thought there was a mistake in the email they sent us," Bridget Hayman with Access Living told CNN.

In an email exchange obtained by CNN, an Amtrak agent explained that the train only had three spaces for wheelchairs, so it would have to take a car out of service and remove some seats to accommodate the group. Amtrak can't sell seats in the car until it's returned to its regular configuration, so that contributed to the cost, according to the email.

The agent told the group that Amtrak had absorbed the cost of reconfiguring the cars in the past but said that policy had changed last year.

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