Replying to Can I upgrade on my AGR?

We decided to not to upgrade.. I want to save the points for later trip maybe next year to DC or NYC.

Thank you to all of you who replied to this post!

One additional thought. You could reserve an available bedroom using a credit card today. That will take the room out of inventory. Then, cancel your AGR roomette reservation and send in your tickets. When the points are returned to your account, call AGR. AGR can then cancel your paid bedroom (with a full refund back to your card) and issue the AGR bedroom. There is a very, very small chance that your bedroom will get lost if someone happens to reserve it during the nanosecond between the cancellation and AGR grabbing it, but realistically, that will not happen.

That's a great ideal PRR! I will talk to my partner and see if he still wants to upgrade into the bedroom.

TraneMan,

You mentioned "both ways", so I'm assuming that you are talking about a round trip. That brings up the question of is the round trip on one reservation or do you have two reservations? If you have two separate reservations, read no further. If you have only one reservation then this complicates things.

I'm not sure if AGR can just cancel the one room. It may be possible, I'm just not sure. In other words, you may well have to send both sets of tickets back to them so that they can process things. And then they'll have to return the one set to you, along with the new tickets for the Bedroom.

So if you indeed go ahead with this and everything is on one reservation, first I would call to verify if you need to return both sets of tickets or just the one's in question for the upgrade. Additionally, be sure to include a note when you return the tickets explaining exactly what you what done and enclosing the paid reservation number so that they can find it. Finally, as I noted earlier, don't send the tickets back by conventional mail. I highly, highly recommend at least 2 day service, if not next day!

One additional thought. You could reserve an available bedroom using a credit card today. That will take the room out of inventory. Then, cancel your AGR roomette reservation and send in your tickets. When the points are returned to your account, call AGR. AGR can then cancel your paid bedroom (with a full refund back to your card) and issue the AGR bedroom. There is a very, very small chance that your bedroom will get lost if someone happens to reserve it during the nanosecond between the cancellation and AGR grabbing it, but realistically, that will not happen.

That's a great ideal PRR! I will talk to my partner and see if he still wants to upgrade into the bedroom.

Now I was thinking, if I earn points when I pay for something, so if I did upgrade into the bedroom, I'd earn points on that right? So it may be a wash in a way?

It's not really a wash, its a huge loss of points. Because you already paid 15K (or 20K or wahtever) points for your rommette, and you will only receive 2 points per dollar spent on the upgrade. So say the upgrade costs $500, you will receive 1,000 points. But you already spent 15,000 points for the roomette. So your net for the trip is -15,000 points + 1000 points = -14,000 points.

One additional thought. You could reserve an available bedroom using a credit card today. That will take the room out of inventory. Then, cancel your AGR roomette reservation and send in your tickets. When the points are returned to your account, call AGR. AGR can then cancel your paid bedroom (with a full refund back to your card) and issue the AGR bedroom. There is a very, very small chance that your bedroom will get lost if someone happens to reserve it during the nanosecond between the cancellation and AGR grabbing it, but realistically, that will not happen.

Yes, you'll earn points.

A 1 zone roomette is 15,000 points.

You're not going to earn anywhere near that number of points when paying for an upgrade, so it's more "taking the sting out" than a "wash". You'll still come out far behind.

Now I was thinking, if I earn points when I pay for something, so if I did upgrade into the bedroom, I'd earn points on that right? So it may be a wash in a way?

No, you won't get any points for the trip. That said, technically, you do earn points. The trip will show up on your
account. However, since you earn points by multiplying what you paid by 2, 2 X $0 = 0 points.

Thanks Alan! Guess I will have to keep in mind for a trip w/ Promo like last weekend, and pay for it.

No, you won't get any points for the trip. That said, technically, you do earn points. The trip will show up on your
account. However, since you earn points by multiplying what you paid by 2, 2 X $0 = 0 points.

Alan, since I got your attention... Do I earn rail points since I got my trip though AGR? A friend of mine didn't think using AGR points will allow you to earn rail points, only way a person can get it is when the have purchased the tickets.