Last Years Point Purchase 50% Bonus Offer?

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I'm not sure, but it was targeted (not a general open offer). I did not receive it, but others did.
OOOHHH! I didnt remember that it was targeted, but I got the offer & took it!!! I guess I shouldnt count on seeing it again anytime in the near future!

That was a sweet deal, I used it for last month's roomette trip, PDX - DEN!!!
 
Wonder if we'll ever see that offer repeated? I used it to get to 40.000 points quickly when I had 37,000 or so for our trip for next June. 50 percent on every transaction, I bought 2,000 points and got that 1000 point bonus. This was the only time it was better than taking The Keystones during Double Days,which I normally do.
 
I got that offer in June, and bought 10,000 points on my wife's account. At the time, they offered a 50% bonus of 5,000 points if you purchased the full 10,000 points, and a lesser bonus (20-30%, I believe) if you purchased points in smaller increments.

I just received an e-mail today with a similar offer, but it's capped at 30%.

I have a related follow-up question - did anyone else here participate in that offer? If so, do you remember seeing a different expiration date for those points?

I'm wondering because the Terms and Conditions on the AGR site says that points will expire after 36 months if no Amtrak travel is taken. However, my wife just got a statement in her e-mail saying that her points all expired at the end of September, and she now has a balance of zero.

Needless to say, we're very upset. Why in the world would the points expire in three months instead of 36?

Edit: Here's the extra weird point, in case anyone is curious. My wife has had her account since 2007. She earned a small amount of points in 2007, but they expired 36 months after that. We have not touched her account since 2007, until this past June when we bought these points. I cannot figure out why they expired.
 
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DP: you need to call AGR and get this corrected! This is clearly an error on the part of AGR and that's too many points to give away! ( and remember if you have the Chase AGR MC your points don't expire!)
 
Charlie and I got the 50% offer last year. We both, IIRC, dove at it since we crested into SE after the offer went out.

I rather doubt that a 50% offer would be repeated for SE members...that would lead to some of us walking away with the store.
 
DP: you need to call AGR and get this corrected! This is clearly an error on the part of AGR and that's too many points to give away! ( and remember if you have the Chase AGR MC your points don't expire!)
Thanks for the vote of confidence - we sent an e-mail last night, hopefully we'll get good news soon...

We do have a Chase AGR card, but it's tied to my AGR account, instead of my wife's. We rarely even use her AGR account, since almost all of our travel is on AGR points on my account (purchased, earned on the AGR card, or my personal favorite, points for shopping). We only used her AGR account this time because of the 50% bonus. Even if we get this worked out, I'll be wary of using hers again...
 
Why not just open a chase account for her too? If you could manage the $500 spend it would get you 12K points. In any case $0 annual fee seems worth the price to protect those AGR points.
 
DP: you need to call AGR and get this corrected! This is clearly an error on the part of AGR and that's too many points to give away! ( and remember if you have the Chase AGR MC your points don't expire!)
Thanks for the vote of confidence - we sent an e-mail last night, hopefully we'll get good news soon...

We do have a Chase AGR card, but it's tied to my AGR account, instead of my wife's. We rarely even use her AGR account, since almost all of our travel is on AGR points on my account (purchased, earned on the AGR card, or my personal favorite, points for shopping). We only used her AGR account this time because of the 50% bonus. Even if we get this worked out, I'll be wary of using hers again...
When was the last time your wife was on a paid trip. Just wondering.
 
Why not just open a chase account for her too? If you could manage the $500 spend it would get you 12K points. In any case $0 annual fee seems worth the price to protect those AGR points.
Plus, any points in her account will not expire! You don't even have to use that card. (But I would use it like once a year to buy something small like coffee or a paper just to keep it active.)
 
No, my BIL is an authorized user on my card but has an account in his name also! (Just for that reason - with the sign up bonus and travel years ago, he had 63K he didn't know about!) :)
 
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I will wait for the 50% bonus offer. I am very patient. if they offer I buy, and if not, I walk . IIRC the 50% offer was only made twice, once in 2014 and once in 2012. Its still an expensive outlay at $279.00 or is it $259.?
 
I will wait for the 50% bonus offer. I am very patient. if they offer I buy, and if not, I walk . IIRC the 50% offer was only made twice, once in 2014 and once in 2012. Its still an expensive outlay at $279.00 or is it $259.?
Its $275 for 10k. Never received the 50%, only 30% past several years. Same with my wife...only 30%. Already made my 13,000 purchase this year.
 
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If my wife is already on my AGR MasterCard, can I get *another* card for her? Do I have to remove her as an authorized user first?
Nope. "Account holder" and "authorized user" are two very different things.
 
My friend is an authorized user on my AGR credit card and also has his own credit card and AGR account. Thus his 60K points will never expire! (And I just discovered he has 60K in his account - even though his last ride was like 4-5 years ago or more.)
 
I do not believe we have ever received an email about buying points but when I check the buy points area there have been chances to buy at 30% bonus a couple times during the year. I do not expect to receive a 50% offer and so we grab the 30% and are happy with that.

Which reminds me, its time to buy some points before the Feb deadline runs out.. :)
 
I think 50% is probably limited away from higher-end members...an SE user with a 50% offer that didn't have a limit would be a serious risk to the program. Can you imagine someone hauling in 55.5 points per dollar on a buy like that (you'd get 15275 points: 10000 from the base buy, 5000 from the bonus, and 275 from the credit card)? Moreover, consider the possible use of those points on a one-zone from NYP-MIA...after the 750 point rebate comes into play you're looking at an effective cost for such a ticket of $256.55 one-way (I believe that low bucket is $360.60 in a roomette with an AAA discount for one person, and $490.20 in a roomette with an AAA discount for two people). High bucket for two goes for $837.20, and extending that to Boston for two would run $913.20.

The risk of a group of members buying out 300,000 points apiece ($5500), doing 20 one-way trips for two in roomettes like the NYP-MIA example (median value $663.70, total median value $13,274) and still having 20,500 points in the bank...well, let's just say that I can see how such a move (which absent a devaluation would basically mean free annual Florida vacations for five years for a family of four) would seriously risk the stability of AGR. AGR would basically be on the hook for over twice the paid cost of those points.

Now imagine that ten or twenty members do that...and suddenly you're looking at in excess of $150k in net losses from such an offer. Even as things stand, buying points at base value can still be cheaper than actually buying a sleeper ticket...going to a 50% bonus just seems like a recipe for disaster (and a probable trigger for a major devaluation).
 
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