Just Made Select On AGR

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

seat38a

Engineer
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
Messages
2,025
Location
Orange County California
So I just made Select on AGR and it came with two upgrade coupons and two discount coupons. When I enrolled, late last year, no where on the documentation did it list upgrade coupons as one of the benefits. It was a nice little surprise for me, but maybe they should update their website to show that you get this benefit?
 
Me personally would rather receive an "extra" surprise. The "only" ones who will make status are either those who travel often and/or spend $XXX on travel. Most of those either know about the benefits or don't care if they have 4,957 points for the year or 5,003 points for the year. Especially if they live in TX, CO, ND or NM. (Nothing personal against anyone from those states. )
 
In my case, since I take the Pacific Surfliner twice a week roundtrip, and with their minimum of 100 points per segment, I reached select real quickly. I guess people who are on the short corridor routes have better chance / value accumilating points.
 
Being a Tennessean I never sought reaching Select on AGR but since I traveled on CS, EB, SWC, and CZ all the full length in 2013, I apparently earned Select and received similar discount and upgrade coupons. Already booked for travel on SL, CONO, CZ, CS, and Pacific Surfliners in July/August. Also got the Guest Rewards MC so have 30,000+ points. Looks like 2015 will be my first year to book reward travel.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
In my case, since I take the Pacific Surfliner twice a week roundtrip, and with their minimum of 100 points per segment, I reached select real quickly. I guess people who are on the short corridor routes have better chance / value accumilating points.
Living close to San Francisco helps. The Emeryville-San Francisco bus counts as a 100 point segment. I remember with a weekend 50% special, AGR classified the fare as $5 RIC-EMY and $1 EMY-SFC. Still counted for 100 points.

It might be possible to game the system (like booking bus segments, canceling the train segments, and then collecting eVouchers) although I understand there have been cases where people have had their AGR accounts revoked for "abuse". I myself have never done this. I have canceled a 10-ride because I hadn't used it yet and then found out about Double Days. I doubt that's "abuse" per se. As far as I know, one is always free to take an eVoucher credit on an unused 10-ride.

From what I understand, some have tried to book trips that were physically impossible, cancel certain segments (that would overlap), and collect points. Something like SFC-EMY-SAC and another one in the reverse direction, then cancel the train portion and try to take the bus round trip in quick succession.
 
So the bus segment gets me 100 points?
Yeah. Neat trick huh?

Someone said 100 points min for each ticket, but it's more like 100 points min for each segment, since there could be multiple segments on the same ticket. They also cap it at a maximum 4 minimum-point segments that accrue points per day. I could conceivably pay for a single ticket booked as a multi-city trip with 8 segments, but at most that would earn 400 points. I understand that there were people on points runs amassing tons of points this way until they capped it.

I needed less than 400 points to make Select. So I booked the trip I referenced for Dec 30 - a Sunday with the 50% Capitol Corridor discount. $6 each way. Two train and two bus segments. Scheduled time was less than 2.5 hours. The bus arrived early and I had time at the SF Ferry Building to buy bread, get a cup of coffee at Blue Bottle and even walk around. Points posted in a day and I was at Select.
 
So the bus segment gets me 100 points?
Yeah. Neat trick huh?

Someone said 100 points min for each ticket, but it's more like 100 points min for each segment, since there could be multiple segments on the same ticket. They also cap it at a maximum 4 minimum-point segments that accrue points per day. I could conceivably pay for a single ticket booked as a multi-city trip with 8 segments, but at most that would earn 400 points. I understand that there were people on points runs amassing tons of points this way until they capped it.

I needed less than 400 points to make Select. So I booked the trip I referenced for Dec 30 - a Sunday with the 50% Capitol Corridor discount. $6 each way. Two train and two bus segments. Scheduled time was less than 2.5 hours. The bus arrived early and I had time at the SF Ferry Building to buy bread, get a cup of coffee at Blue Bottle and even walk around. Points posted in a day and I was at Select.
Nice! I'm booked to take the the San Joaquin from Bakersfield to SFO Shopping Center. So that is twice the amount of points than I was expecting.
 
I use the Keystone trains between Philly and Harrisburg once a week during Double days. With a senior discount, traveling from Elizabethtown to Harrisburg or Lancaster and Philly to Paoli and Downingtown is $11.04 round trip. During the double points promotion it is cheaper than actually buying points. I reached Select earlier this year, simply by taking these routes.

Another good ride is Martinsburg WV to Washington DC round trip. If the Capitol Ltd is late, it will eat into your time in DC,but it arrives in DC around 1 and leaves at 4PM, so it is a relatively inexpensive run on Superliner equipment, which is rare in the East.
 
Nice! I'm booked to take the the San Joaquin from Bakersfield to SFO Shopping Center. So that is twice the amount of points than I was expecting.
I've gotten 200 points just for taking the San Joaquin from Richmond to the SF Ferry Building. If there aren't any other promotions, it was actually cheaper than Capitol Corridor at $10 (now $11). I bought my kid with me, and even a child fare earned 200 points.
 
Someone said 100 points min for each ticket, but it's more like 100 points min for each segment, since there could be multiple segments on the same ticket. They also cap it at a maximum 4 minimum-point segments that accrue points per day. I could conceivably pay for a single ticket booked as a multi-city trip with 8 segments, but at most that would earn 400 points.
Almost correct.
They now cap the 100 point minimum at 4 segments per day, but any segments beyond those 4 segments also earn points. It's just not the 100 point minimum, beyond the first 4 segments the earnings are at 2 points per $. Thus a $12 segment will earn 24 points, not 100 points.
 
Someone said 100 points min for each ticket, but it's more like 100 points min for each segment, since there could be multiple segments on the same ticket. They also cap it at a maximum 4 minimum-point segments that accrue points per day. I could conceivably pay for a single ticket booked as a multi-city trip with 8 segments, but at most that would earn 400 points.
Almost correct.
They now cap the 100 point minimum at 4 segments per day, but any segments beyond those 4 segments also earn points. It's just not the 100 point minimum, beyond the first 4 segments the earnings are at 2 points per $. Thus a $12 segment will earn 24 points, not 100 points.
I understood that. I was just addressing the maximum number of minimum-point segments that would accrue per day. Outside of 10-rides, I've only gotten more than 100 points once - for NYP-EXT. Even though we had to switch trains at PHL, it only counted as one segment for 104 points (paid $52).

If you pay for it you can rack up big points quickly. However, I'm not sure if it's possible to accrue that many in a day. I could imagine someone meeting the max 4 min-pt segments in a day and then taking an LD train.
 
Back
Top