Amtrak points can now be transfered 1:1 to Air Canada, Alaska, America

Amtrak Guest Rewards has a new redemption option: 5,000 Amtrak points convert to 25,000 Choice Privileges Points, which in turn convert to 5,000 miles with Air Canada, Alaska, American, Continental, Delta, Mexicana, Northwest, United, and USAirways.

Even more impressively, 50,000 Amtrak points can be converted to 100 Southwest Rapid Rewards credits (through Choice Privileges), which yields up to 12 free round trips (6 for you and 6 for your companion). That's a value to rival redeeming AGR points for sleepers.

Click here for more details.

Also, 5,000 AGR points, when converted to 25,000 Choice Privileges Points, will get you 4 free nights at hotels like Sleep Inn and Clarion. Not a bad deal either!

These are perfectly legitimate transactions, but the title of this thread is a bit misleading. You cannot directly transfer AGR to the mentioned airlines. You must launder them through Choice Hotels first. That is a significant difference in that it removes Amtrak from the transaction to the desired destination and relies entirely on Choice to make it happen. Having said that, this is sure a clever way to get a bunch of SWA flights.

It occurs to me that this is also very good news for people with a bunch of Continental miles, who can now "launder" them to other airlines at a 1:1 ratio (or better, as is the case with SWA) by doing Continental --> Amtrak --> Choice Privileges --> Any of the aforementioned airlines.

There is still a limit of 25,000 points out of AGR in a calendar year, but one can always transfer out 25,000 at the end of December and another 25,000 in the beginning of January for a total of 50,000.

Perhaps you'd be the only one here interested in wasting 50k AGR points to get some crappy Southwest flights... most of us are more interested in getting miles *into* our AGR accounts, not out.

If you can run this the other way, I have some airline miles that could score some nice train trips....