Where is best plain-English explanation of redemption zones?

For the last half-dozen years I've focused on racking up points, mostly with monthly trips on Capital Limited between DC and Pittsburgh. Now that I'm approaching retirement, and acquired a Guest Rewards Mastercard, I'm salivating to redeem them.

But here's the question: I can't easily find a site that explains the basic rules for redemptions. Obviously, all else being equal, I'd want to trade in my points for longer and/or costlier trips. But I can't even find a simple zone table. (Something like the one at http://thepointsguy.com/2014/09/is-the-amtrak-guest-rewards-mastercard-worthwhile/, which was obviously pasted from some AGR site, but where?) The tantalizingly-titled https://www.amtrakguestrewards.com/zonemap doesn't even have a map, just redirects to the usual sparse info. Sure, I can use my rewards when I book travel; but how do I know I'm following the best "strategy"....i.e., should I pay for a particular trip with points or continue saving them for a bigger splurge?

On this forum I see various mentions of AGR 1.0 and 2.0, but I don't even know which applies to me, or where to find out.

Thanks in advance for tips.

Redemption zones no longer exist. When you go on Amtrak.com to book you can have it show either $$ or points. There are "buttons" to switch between the two.

Short answer - nowhere!

Under the old AGR system (AGR 1.0), there were zones. The border cities were TOL, CIN and ATL in the east, and ELP, DEN, WPT and every station on the SWC between TRI and ABQ in the west. If your origination and destination was between 2 stations in the same zone, it was 1 zone. Every time you got to a border city, you must add another zone to your award.

Now that AGR is under a new redemption system (AGR 2.0), there are no more zones. All redemptions are based on the current price as if you were paying cash.

Everything is now AGR 2.0.

Thanks for confirming what I suspected. (And it sounds like guest rewards are now equivalent to dollars; not that AGR publishes the "conversion rate" anywhere that I can find.) A fine example of poor information.

Trollopian said:

Thanks for confirming what I suspected. (And it sounds like guest rewards are now equivalent to dollars; not that AGR publishes the "conversion rate" anywhere that I can find.) A fine example of poor information.

Click to expand...

The minimum conversion rate is 34.5 points per dollar (39.0 for Acela redemptions). The actual rate may be higher depending on date, time of day, or other demand factors. In addition, some trains may be blacked out for AGR redemption, with Select Plus and Select Executive members possibly being able to redeem if logged in.

Trollopian said:

Thanks for confirming what I suspected. (And it sounds like guest rewards are now equivalent to dollars; not that AGR publishes the "conversion rate" anywhere that I can find.) A fine example of poor information.

Click to expand...

They don't publish it any more. When they announced it, they had a "conversion" chart but then they, without warning or announcement, introduced blackouts to their non-blackout claim and higher point costs sometimes that don't always make any sense.

PRR 60 said:

Trollopian said:

Thanks for confirming what I suspected. (And it sounds like guest rewards are now equivalent to dollars; not that AGR publishes the "conversion rate" anywhere that I can find.) A fine example of poor information.

Click to expand...

The minimum conversion rate is 34.5 points per dollar (39.0 for Acela redemptions). The actual rate may be higher depending on date, time of day, or other demand factors. In addition, some trains may be blacked out for AGR redemption, with Select Plus and Select Executive members possibly being able to redeem if logged in.

Click to expand...

Thanks, PRR, for offering a much clearer explanation than Amtrak itself does.

For anyone else who's doing that math, here's the rule of thumb that I just developed. It assumes $1,000 in spending on an AGR Mastercard, which actually describes my monthly spending pretty well (I put everything on my card and pay it off automatically). Bottom line: that spending pattern generates a little less than $30 in Amtrak travel. Not princely, but definitely worthwhile for purchases that you're going to make anyway.

• For ordinary spending, $1 yields one point. (That's based on the card disclosure at https://www.amtrak.com/earn-free-travel-amtrak-guest-rewards-credit-cards.)
• It then takes minimum 34.5 points for $1 of Amtrak travel (some blackouts; more on Acela).
• So $1,000 in spending on AGR Mastercard will yield 1,000 points and about $28.90 in free Amtrak travel (1,000/34.5).
• You get another 5% AGR rebate when you book Amtrak redemption travel (so that'd be 5% of $28.90, or about $1.45, whoopee).

Basically, all AGR 2.00 award travel is actually based on the current going price when you book. If you plan ahead and get low bucket cost for rooms it is not that bad. I just booked for April 2017, a trip on three trains end point to end point traveling on the Crescent connecting to the Capitol Limited and then connecting to California Zephyr a trip that will take me from New Orleans through Washington, DC, and Chicago all the way to Emeryville, CA. AGR point cost for roomettes on all three trains was 46,000 points. Using the old zone travel would have been more expensive. Just one caution, I did use Amsnag and booked the low bucket roomette price on all three trains. Your chosen days may be much more expensive. It's base on you actual dollar cost.

AGR 2.0 is better for short distance trips on LD trains that didn't qualify for the special rate, or short special rate trips (like LA-Santa Barbara). It is comparable for sleepers at low bucket (i.e. LA-Seattle), and of course old trips that would maximize zones are wholly noncompetitive under 2.0.

The old zone map based system used to inspire almost lunacy in trying to maximize the amount of travel for a given number of zones. It created situations where a something like a 300 mile rewards redemption across a zone boundary was a more expensive two zone redemption, but a 1200 mile trip within a single zone would require fewer points.

I guess the other important detail is the elimination of the 100 point minimum earnings per travel segment. That was the grand equalizer. Lots of discussion on this forum was about the shortest or cheapest trip to earn 100 points. I think Berkeley-Emeryville (2 miles) was established as the shortest.

The other deal is that the zone-based sleeper redemption included any number of passengers up to the room type maximum. The new cash-value based redemption means more passengers cost more points.

And this was the zone map: