Ventura might be better, I was amazed how much of a town was nearby when I made my photo stop there.
Also do you know about the multi-city trick? (You can pull off a free stopover at any Amtrak station if its under 24 hours).
If I lived in SBA and were planning on doing a points run this is what I would do and earn extra points:
Day 1: The the city bus up to Goleta and ride the train back to SBA 100 points
Day 2: Get at least 200 points on a round-trip points run somewhere south, maybe 300 or 400 by making a stopover, continuing on the next train south and/or north, before turning around and returning
Day 3: Why not end the trip with the train up to Goleta and taking the city bus back down. - 100 points
This would all requiring buying just one multi city ticket from Goleta to Oxnard (if that was your final destination) for $36, that seems extremely high to me for such a short distance (actually your spending an $1 each way for the Goleta segments, I just assumed because the stops are so close to each other the price would be the same).
There is the VISTA Coastal Express bus from Ventura to Santa Barbara for only $3 (no AGR points) to make a points run down to Ventura County (making the multi-city trick for extra points) and returning by bus.
You could do similar thinks by taking the bus to and from Carpenteria too if that's better for you. Just make sure you find the conductor on each short trip to get your ticket scanned.
Your bus ride coming back from Goleta would be free to by asking the conductor for a free transit transfer.
$18 each way though for just a points run and 200 points seems rather expensive to me. The Surfliner really isn't cheep.
I should add all of my points runs that haven't been extending trips with extra segments have been on the Keystone Corridor (400 points DOW-EXT-PAO-ARD-PHL for $6.50 I even did once, I had bought a day pass already and rode SEPTA out) or on Springfield Shuttle ($4.50 for 100 points NHV-Wallingford). Living in New York leaves me for few decent points runs without attaching them to regular trips. My main source of extra points (that is normally a free segment or a couple bucks more) is buy adding a NYP-NWK segment to trips up to the New York State or New England for the next day (I always have to find the conductor, there a little surprised and once had to beg to get my ticket scanned) that is basically costing me just PATH fare (less than $2) and an extra hour of time for 100 points.
I also like getting off in Yonkers on my Empire Corridor trips taking the bus down (a quick 20 minutes free transfer to the subway and accepts MetroCard) and returning to Yonkers the next day when I normally have to go downtown anyway. (I live in northern Manhattan). It's a similar extra hour-ish of time the next day and I find that I can get home from Yonkers faster than it takes from NYP.