AGR B2G1 Regional question

[wayman]

The wording of the B2G1 promotion is "Take two roundtrips on the Northeast Regional between January 5, 2009 and March 14, 2009 to qualify for the FREE roundtrip." I've been interpretting that as "Take four segments (each >$50 per the fine print) ... to qualify for two free segments." But that's making two assumptions.

One assumption is that AGR doesn't care about the qualifying segments being in A-to-B, B-to-A pairs (ie, actual roundtrips), and I'm 99% certain that's a safe assumption. But I would like someone to confirm that (I thought it would be simple to get an authoritative answer from an AGR rep, but see my other thread about their hold times today!). That's the only assumption I actually need an answer to, and it does matter for me since I was planning on taking two unrelated segments as my third and fourth qualifying segments (PHL-to-WAS, and then PHL-NYC; but returning from each of those via non-Amtrak). If that plan won't actually qualify me for the promotion, obviously I'll alter my plans.

The other assumption is just a curiosity: can the reward travel be taken as two unconnected segments, or does it have to be booked as a roundtrip due to some additional constraints based on the way rewards-travel is booked? Since I'll almost certainly be taking my reward travel as a PHL-to-BOS, BOS-to-PHL trip (an "actual roundtrip"), this almost certainly won't actually matter to me. But I am curious.

 

[AlanB]

At least in past years one only needed segments that meet the minimum purchase requirements. How those segments are linked or not was irrelevant. Unless they've suddenly changed things, it should be the same. And usually the fine print does spell that out. I know that the current Acela promo is worded that way, but I can't find the documentation on the Regional promo to confirm that one. But I would figure that the rules are the same.

As for your latter question, unless AGR changes how they did things last year, the reward can be used how you like it, either one RT or two seperate trips. I did the Acela promo last year and used one segment in June to get to DC and meet up with Al (RailfanLNK), Brenda (Husker_mom), and her kids in DC. I used the other segment in July on my return from DC, after riding down to DC on Acela with Eric (GG-1).

 

[the_traveler]

The wording of the promo is

Take 2 roundtrips OR 4 one-way trips ...

So it says right there that it can be 4 trips (>$50 each) to qualify. If each was >$50, you could go A-B, C-D, C-A and D-E and qualify. At least that's how I read it. Most people would just go A-B twice, so they put in the "2 roundtrip" statement.

 

[wayman]

The wording of the promo is

Take 2 roundtrips OR 4 one-way trips ...

So it says right there that it can be 4 trips (>$50 each) to qualify. If each was >$50, you could go A-B, C-D, C-A and D-E and qualify. At least that's how I read it. Most people would just go A-B twice, so they put in the "2 roundtrip" statement.

Great, thanks for the confirmation. Don't know why I missed it in the promo wording.

It's only weirdos like me who take Amtrak in one direction but think it would be more fun to take "this commuter train to that state-run bus to some sort of community-center shuttle to this other commuter train..." in the other direction

Still haven't firmed up plans for that, given that the friend I was going to be visiting isn't free the dates we thought he would be, but someday I'll do that trip. And then you'll either read a trip report about how fun it was... or about how I got stranded in Elkton, Maryland for an entire weekend because I missed a bus transfer

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

It's only weirdos like me who take Amtrak in one direction but think it would be more fun to take "this commuter train to that state-run bus to some sort of community-center shuttle to this other commuter train..." in the other direction

While I'm not sure I'm going to disagree with that per se, my December 2008 LSL trip from Boston to the midwest ended up being BOS-SOB and then CHI-BOS; arriving at SOB turns out to work better than arriving at CHI when I'm trying to get to approximately LAF, especially if my parents want to find a parking space on a weekday when the sum of my checked plus carry-on luggage is more than I can easily carry at once; on the other hand, CHI has a much nicer lounge when waiting hours for a train when traveling in a sleeper, and for the eastbound train, the boarding time at CHI is much more convenient than the boarding time at SOB.