Coupon Upgrade on Starlight?

I was just about to book a trip on the Starlight from Oakland to LA and use my Amtrak World Mastercard business class upgrade coupon, and then I noticed this in the fine print of the coupon.

• Offer is not valid on the following services: Adirondack®, Auto Train®, California Zephyr®, Capitol LimitedSM, Cardinal®, City of New Orleans®, Coast Starlight®, Crescent®, Empire Builder®, Keystone Service®, Lake Shore Limited®, Silver Meteor®, Silver Star®, Southwest Chief®, Sunset Limited®, Texas Eagle® and train/Thruway series 7000 – 8999.

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This seems really strange to me that I can upgrade to first on the Acela, but not up to business on the Starlight. Bummer!

desertflyer said:

I was just about to book a trip on the Starlight from Oakland to LA and use my Amtrak World Mastercard business class upgrade coupon, and then I noticed this in the fine print of the coupon.

• Offer is not valid on the following services: Adirondack®, Auto Train®, California Zephyr®, Capitol LimitedSM, Cardinal®, City of New Orleans®, Coast Starlight®, Crescent®, Empire Builder®, Keystone Service®, Lake Shore Limited®, Silver Meteor®, Silver Star®, Southwest Chief®, Sunset Limited®, Texas Eagle® and train/Thruway series 7000 – 8999.

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This seems really strange to me that I can upgrade to first on the Acela, but not up to business on the Starlight. Bummer!

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Wonder if it was printed before BC was added to the Coast Starlight. You might want to contact Amtrak and ask if you can use it. Most of those are LD trains with sleepers, so, before BC was added to the LD trains, they did not want people thinking they could upgrade to a room.

I've been wondering if this was going to be changed at any time soon. But in case you didn't know, Business Class is something that has slowly been being rolled out to various long distance trains, so it is possible that no one thought about revising the policy at the point that the coupon was designed and printed. AGR still shows the same restrictions for the 12 hour upgrade coupons that you can buy with points, however, so...

AmtrakBlue said:

Wonder if it was printed before BC was added to the Coast Starlight. You might want to contact Amtrak and ask if you can use it. Most of those are LD trains with sleepers, so, before BC was added to the LD trains, they did not want people thinking they could upgrade to a room.

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I thought the same thing, so I called and the representative (unfortunately) said that I could use it on anything except long distance trains.

desertflyer said:

AmtrakBlue said:

Wonder if it was printed before BC was added to the Coast Starlight. You might want to contact Amtrak and ask if you can use it. Most of those are LD trains with sleepers, so, before BC was added to the LD trains, they did not want people thinking they could upgrade to a room.

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I thought the same thing, so I called and the representative (unfortunately) said that I could use it on anything except long distance trains.

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I wonder if the rep knows there's BC on the LD trains now. Maybe call again and ask for a supervisor. And if the supervisor doesn't know about BC's on the LD trains, ask them to pretend to make a reservation and tell them how to find the BC (it's one of the options under premium). Of course, it might be true that you can't do it on the LD trains.

AmtrakBlue said:

I wonder if the rep knows there's BC on the LD trains now. Maybe call again and ask for a supervisor. And if the supervisor doesn't know about BC's on the LD trains, ask them to pretend to make a reservation and tell them how to find the BC (it's one of the options under premium). Of course, it might be true that you can't do it on the LD trains.

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I live walking distance from San Francisco Temporary Transbay which has a staffed ticket desk. I think I'll try to stop by there and see if they'll try to apply the coupon. I'll report back.

I do think that blurb was written before BC was introduced to LD trains. At the time, LD trains did not have BC, thus the exclusions.

It could also be the price. A business class upgrade on a LD train would seem very valuable at times.

I don't think any more than an upgrade on Acela from BC to First from WAS to BOS!

The train station attendant was kind enough to highlight the Coast Starlight and California Zephyr in the terms and conditions. :wacko: Too bad for me, oh well. Maybe they will change this in the future since these coupons are really hard to use being based in northern California.

Just got word from AGR Insider that this problem has been taken care of (as of last week) and you should be able to use the upgrade coupons for BC on LD trains now.

Since the Heartland Flyer has no Business Class, I wonder if I can use my Upgrades to move up to the cab? :unsure:

If you are successful in getting the cab ride, let me know and I will come out to OK Land for one myself!