Spend $126 and get 8,700 points!

[gpayer]

Question: How does Amtrak know if you actually travelled on the trains? What keeps you from purchasing these tickets online at Amtrak.com and then going to your local Amtrak station and printing out the tickets through QuikTrak. In my past trips on Amtrak it doesn't seem like Amtrak "tracks" that ticket stubs. Therefore, once the ticket is "printed" wouldn't they assume it was "used" and credit the bonus?
Furthermore, let's assume that they don't automatically credit your account - couldn't you fill out the missing credit online form with your ticket numbers (or alternatively mail in copies for credit)?

Just wondering.

After the conductor collects your ticket, he turns it in at the end of the run. Eventually that ticket which contains a barcode on it, is scanned into the computer system at one of several places in the country. When that ticket is scanned, it triggers information to be sent to the Guest Rewards computers, which then record your points.

Fail to turn in the ticket and you'll get no points. Just printing the tickets out does not help, not to mention that you're technically wasting your money if you don't take the ride.

And missing points requests always backtrack to see if the ticket was used.

Interesting. Thanks for the answers.

That may explain why a connection that Amtrak moved us over to a Motorcoach for has never been credited. I am not sure that the Amtrak CS took our stubs when they moved us to Motorcoach and those points have never been credited.

 

[wayman]

Jeez!! See ya on the Hiawatha between now and 3/31.

How 'bout this math? Bottom line: 6,000 AGR for half a penny per point.

I'm aiming for S+ this year.

PHL-ARD-PHL costs $10.80 for S+ qualifying 200 AGR (I'll call them QAGR), so "buying S+" costs $540 for 50 of these trips (not counting that at least some of those trips are practical shopping trips, save gasoline, etc).

But I'll do other travel in 2008 no matter what. Probably 3 PHL-WAS-PHL, 2 PHL-LYH-PHL, and 1 PHL-BOS-PHL(Acela) at a minimum (the Acela so I can enjoy my upgrades). That's about 2,120 QAGR, which I'd get anyway. Knocks me down to needing 40 PHL-ARD-PHL trips, lowering the "buying S+" cost to $432.

Now say I'm up for one PHL-PAO-CRH-PAO-PHL every two months, for 600 QAGR a pop. Six of these, plus 22 Ardmores, gets me up to S+ for a "buying" cost of only $413.40. That's a pretty good deal for S+, I'd say!

But wait, there's more, or as dear ol' H.Ross Perot would say, "Now here's the deal!"...

If I take a weeklong trip to Chicago on the Capitol, again not an unreasonable "travel I'd do anyway" since I've got friends and family nearby and love Chicago (a little over 200 QAGR, knocking another one ARD run off, leaving me needing 21, knocking the "buying S+" down to $402.60), and then spend a couple days maxing out the Hiawatha special...

Figure I've got eight days in greater Chicagoland. Spend one of them departing CHI at 8:25 AM, returning to CHI at 7:14 PM, having ridden five round-trips to Glenview.

Later on, rent a car in Chicago, drive to Madison, visit family for a few days. Drive from Madison to Milwaukee, park near MKE (the lot at 432 W Clybourn has $3 daily rate, if I can get into it!), take three round-trips to MKA, I'm done by 4:44, have dinner in Milwaukee to avoid traffic, then drive back to Chicago. (Or, rent a car, drive to Milwaukee in the morning, do this, then head over to family for dinner. Few days there, then back to Chicago. Might make more sense.)

All I need after that is one round-trip CHI-GLN and I'm done. Total cost of the Hiawathas (and parking in Milwaukee): $127.20, exactly $30 more than the 9 round-trips to ARD this replaces. So that $30 is the effective cost of the 6,000 bonus AGR.

That's *half a penny* per point (ain't no one keepin' score? )

6000 AGR is three-tenths of a 2-zone roomette award, which planned well and taken with a friend is easily worth $1,000; three-tenths of that is $300, for which I'm paying a measly $30, which makes this a venture with a 900% profit!

Wow.

If that particular lot is filled, it looks like there are plenty of others charging under $6/day, but obviously the $3 (or free street parking, if it exists on weekends, say), is ideal for getting to say I spent half a penny per point.

Yeah, all the math gets thrown off a bit, probably making the effective cost of the bonus points more like .6 or .7 cents (maybe even a whole penny), if I deviate from this plan in any way (by say, taking an extra trip to Boston or something), but still....

And this whole deal gets me roughly 10,000*1.25 (Select) plus 6,000 (Hiawatha) = 18,500 on the year... toss in the "you made Select!" magazine bonus, and it's a full 2-zone roomette reward. Wowzers. Don't even have to buy another pair of shoes :lol: