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Ryan said:
dlagrua said:
Agree with Devils advocate. Much of the dingy, broken accomodations with the dirty carpets are in fact booked by travelers that use AGR point redemptions. Eliminate these passengers and the sleepers will have plenty of space available for Amtrak to attempt to sell but will they?
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What is the breakdown between number of paid passengers and number of AGR passengers in sleeping cars?
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I'd sure love to see numbers on this as well.

I was talking with Charlie and realized that, with the exception of one particularly "bad" routing (CHI-SAS-LAX-SEA), most of the "abusive" trips which have survived to the present are Florida-oriented and come down to the fact that there's no functional East-West gateway but Chicago. When AGR was started, the Sunset East (and Broadway/Three Rivers) did a lot to fill out the system and the Palmetto still went to Miami.
 
There have been several people who have argued that those of us that take the long way around on zone redemptions are somehow cheating the system and we deserved to be brought into line by the new program.

Don't forget that Amtrak advertises their long distance service as a way to see America and enjoy the ride and the scenery. If Amtrak thought their service was purely a method of getting from one place to another, their reservation system would only offer the shortest route between two points.

If I want to travel between Chicago and Seattle and I've already been on the Empire Builder (or I'm concerned that it will be disrupted by fire, flooding, or freight traffic), I should have the option of taking the Zephyr or Chief without being unduly penalized.

Sure, you could argue that Amtrak has to provide me with more service (meals, etc) over the longer trip so it should cost more points, but that's not how the airlines do it. If I want a "saver" redemption on American Airlines, it is almost never on a non-stop flight. I've see times when I tried to book Seattle-Houston and AA offered me Seattle-Phoenix-Charlotte-Houston as the only "low-bucket" award redemption.
 
SteveSTX said:
There have been several people who have argued that those of us that take the long way around on zone redemptions are somehow cheating the system and we deserved to be brought into line by the new program.

Don't forget that Amtrak advertises their long distance service as a way to see America and enjoy the ride and the scenery. If Amtrak thought their service was purely a method of getting from one place to another, their reservation system would only offer the shortest route between two points.
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Completely agree with your point!!!

I've seen the word "ABUSE" several times.

Hey, I started traveling with Amtrak because what they offered fit with my goal, seeing the country! I'm not on Amtrak to get me from point "A" to point "B"!

I've appreciated the opportunity & truly regret the changes.

I,m gonna miss it!!!
 
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City of Miami said:
JoeBas said:
I'm so glad were catching up in the race to the bottom...
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You can still have the top, first class service, if you want it.....but you have to PAY FOR IT. Some folks in present day America don't seem to want to pay for much of anything of value. Either give it to me or no dice.
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In other words I will take more, give less, and if you don't like it you can just take your private jet.

Oh, you don't have one if those? How sad...
 
AmtrakBlue said:
dlagrua said:
Agree with Devils advocate. Much of the dingy, broken accomodations with the dirty carpets are in fact booked by travelers that use AGR point redemptions. Eliminate these passengers and the sleepers will have plenty of space available for Amtrak to attempt to sell but will they?

Lets take a look at a rediculous fare.

A round trip ticket for a bedroom from CHI to DEN on the California Zephryr is $2500. A round trip bedroom fare from PHL to CHI can be $1750. Over $4000 for a trip from PHL to DEN?????? Is this the Orient Express????? You'd have to be out of your mind to pay those fares and I'll pass. In the past we would do LD trips on points, with one segment using cash, and points. A good portion of those were also purchased. It was a win-win for both Amtrak and the rail passenger. Amtrak gave away nothing for free, the sleepers were full and the revenue was high. Our tickets were always paid for with merchant purchased points and cash.

Now they want to try and suck the blood out of you. I predict that this program is going to fail miserably.
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Guess it all depends on when you want to travel. I just tried a round trip in April and it came to under $3000.
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Travel midweek off peak for only 3 grand??? WHAT A DEAL!

Netjets starts to look like a viable option...
 
Yep, and the word 'ABUSE' is very value laden in the context they are using it, as if to somehow be morally superior. :blink:

Next thing you know, and it would follow their logic, they will claim that buying points when a bonus is offered, or registering and riding when 'Double Days' (Remember TRIPLE days? ) are offered, is 'gaming' the system. :eek:hboy:
 
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Anthony has confirmed that "Saver" fares are not eligible for points redemption under the new program. If my observations are correct, this seems to affect only coach travel.

When I make test reservations for sleeper travel, Arrow seems to charge the accommodation charge plus the Value fare, even if Saver fare is available.

Is this correct?
 
Look, here's my situation:

Extended family lives in NJ, I'm in TX.

Our Amtrak use consists largely of either my immediate family making an annual visit to the extended family (with train time to prep and decompress), or my parents traveling back & forth snow birding (they winter down here for health reasons).

I've also made one side pleasure trip (football weekend) when TSA was especially egregious.

No AGR MasterCard, only other points from flowers and hotel stays - real "gamer" here, look out.

My 20k redemption for ONE one-way roomette (we need two), just to help out with cost (already was 80k for a RT), just went to 38k for next summer - for those keeping score at home, that's almost double.

Meanwhile, Frontier has started flying nonstop for $79-$129.

So I can stay, and get even less for more, or recalculate. Guess my 6yo will have to learn to not like trains so much.
 
Ryan said:
What is the breakdown between number of paid passengers and number of AGR passengers in sleeping cars?
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Yes, indeed.

The other thing that I was thinking is that it's not that AGR passengers ride "for free." Someone's paying the freight, although it might be a third party like the credit card company, the vendor that you buy from via the AGR portal, etc. So, though the passenger is not paying, someone is: Chase, Walmart, Overstock...etc.

There's an outfit call eBates. Basically, shop through their portal, and you get a significant percentage of your purchase back as a rebate (up to 15%, iirc). How do they do it? They charge the retailers TWICE that amount for going thru the portal. They keep half, and the other half goes to the consumer.

Somehow, I find it hard, in my deepest heart of hearts, to feel pity for Walmart for helping subsidize my trips.
 
JoeBas said:
Look, here's my situation:

Extended family lives in NJ, I'm in TX.

Our Amtrak use consists largely of either my immediate family making an annual visit to the extended family (with train time to prep and decompress), or my parents traveling back & forth snow birding (they winter down here for health reasons).

I've also made one side pleasure trip (football weekend) when TSA was especially egregious.

No AGR MasterCard, only other points from flowers and hotel stays - real "gamer" here, look out.

My 20k redemption for ONE one-way roomette (we need two), just to help out with cost (already was 80k for a RT), just went to 38k for next summer - for those keeping score at home, that's almost double.

Meanwhile, Frontier has started flying nonstop for $79-$129.

So I can stay, and get even less for more, or recalculate. Guess my 6yo will have to learn to not like trains so much.
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Not to mention that this last trip, my grand mom passed away unexpectedly the day we were scheduled to leave, and we had to delay our trip by a week. So in this new world of "trips cost something different depending on what day it is and what we have for breakfast", what now? Do I have to pay the points difference between the fare I had booked and the new fare? Do I have to pay a cancellation penalty of 20% to change it? If I don't have enough points to do the trip now am I just stuck? This is just bad bad bad all around.
 
I have a strong feeling the membership on this board will drop substantially next year once this program kicks in and many of us turn elsewhere for our travel needs.
 
D.P. Roberts said:
One of the things I've always liked about AGR is that it allowed us to basically travel first class for the price of a coach seat on an airplane. Sure, it took longer and wasn't really "first class", but the scenery is a lot better. To me, it was a very worthwhile tradeoff. I'm not sure if that tradeoff is going to continue to be worthwhile if Amtrak travel now costs two or three times as much as flying.
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This is exactly how I feel. I was willing to spend the time on a train when I could get a roomette to anywhere in the country for 20k points and not have to worry about paying for meals. Now those trips are looking like they will be much higher. We will burn the remianing points we have on one last "First Class" trip and then stick to day trips from now on.

Time to sign up for the SW credit card I guess. My wife and I enrolled in Global Entry so we don't have to go through the scanners at the airport anymore.
 
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OlympianHiawatha said:
I have a strong feeling the membership on this board will drop substantially next year once this program kicks in and many of us turn elsewhere for our travel needs.
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Probably the same amount it "dropped" after they removed the flowers from the diners.
 
The Davy Crockett said:
Yep, and the word 'ABUSE' is very value laden in the context they are using it, as if to somehow be morally superior. :blink:

Next thing you know, and it would follow their logic, they will claim that buying points when a bonus is offered, or registering and riding when 'Double Days' (Remember TRIPLE days? ) are offered, is 'gaming' the system. :eek:hboy:
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You used two words. I agree that "abuse" is kind of an extreme way to describe either trying to maximize points. Now "game" is a different matter and a couple of thesaurus synonyms for the way it's used in this context are "tactic" and "racket".

I fully admit to taking full advantage of the 100-point minimum (with up to 4 daily), riding heavily during Double Days, buying big tickets during Fast Track to Status (and the rules even said that multi-rides didn't count), splitting up trips, and using promotional discounts. I'm pretty sure this kind of use was known to Amtrak employees monitoring AGR and I'm frankly not surprised it was modified. I only had a few points runs, and they were primarily when I was trying to make status.

Frankly, the way AGR was set up wasn't particularly rational, and we all know it. The minimum earning points were a great equalizer for those of us who could take Amtrak for relatively short commutes, but they were also creating a situation where people were building up points with minimal spending. I haven't really accounted for how much more I spent chasing points when I could have just bought multi-ride tickets for my commute, but it was probably marginal given how I kept on looking for discounts. A few times I took my kid out on a trip to San Francisco when it would have frankly been cheaper to take BART.

However, I do get that the spin from AGR ("better engineered to fit your life") is a bit much. For myself, it benefits me only as far as I can generate points (commuter on Capitol Corridor) before the switch and then use the new redemption rules with these points after the switch. However, I can't really see myself spending $2500 a year minimum just to make Select. Heck - I'm pretty sure that I spend way less than that last year and made Select Plus. I'm just going to hit the soft landing to Select and my days of trying to get more points are over. I'll just take whatever I can. I'll still ride Amtrak, but it will be to commute.
 
"I wonder how much of the country one gets to see when going back and forth on an $11 points run to earn 250 AGR points!"

Objection your honor, strawman!

Never done that in my life and I'm getting hit for twice as many points for the same trip. Tell me again how this is not bending me over the railing and taking me wrong.

Wanna stop points runs? Easily done - cap on how many you can do within a given time frame. Without getting the entire program!
 
"AGR2.0. More for us! Less for You! If you don't like it, Tough!"

At least the 1% who can put there Acela trips on their expense account are making out better...
 
"Probably the same amount it "dropped" after they removed the flowers from the diners."

Objection your honor - false comparison! The flowers were a minor annoyance, this is a complete overhaul and change to the value proposition of travel.
 
JoeBas said:
Wanna stop points runs? Easily done - cap on how many you can do within a given time frame. Without getting the entire program!
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I was thinking maybe restrict minimum points to two per day. Perhaps reduce minimum points to 50?

I mean there were some notorious events that we recognize were abusing the system, like the guy who bought 50 tickets and had a conductor lift all of them to make Select in 10 day. However, they didn't get drastic. They just limited it to no multiple segments on the same train on the same day and then four minimum segments per day.
 
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"I was thinking maybe restrict minimum points to two per day. Perhaps reduce minimum points to 50?"

Exactly: if this is being done because of points runs, it's using a bazooka to kill a fruit fly.
 

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