Ok you win. I promise I’ll give up after a few more comments. I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with razzing the conductor to be sure to scan my ticket.
One of the worst abuses of the transfer program occurred just at the end of last year. Amtrak and Choice Hotels got together when then announced the deal in the first place and offered a bonus. If you moved points between AGR and Choice, you got a free bonus. Move 10,000 points out of AGR and you ended up with 30,000 Choice points.
Do I get this straight? Choice gives free lodging and Amtrak get money? If Amtrak finds this inappropriate, why not just rethink all the silly aspects of the point swapping agreements that lead to the gamesmanship?
It's also necessary to understand that while the program is sponsored by Amtrak and carries its name, Amtrak doesn't actually handle the day to day operations of the program.
First of all that’s no excuse. Subcontracting something out doesn’t absolve Amtrak of responsibility, especially weirdness. Secondly, under the conductor scanning scheme, Amtrak is involved in day-to-day operations.
If you don't actually travel, then it opens up all kinds of problems. AGR now has to basically go by hand to make sure that you haven't refunded the ticket before they could post the points.
Under my scheme, you basically have 3 transactions: 1) purchase ticket => post points, 2) refund ticket price => deduct points, and 3) redeem points => deduct points AND flag all purchases for which points are used as non-refundable. A slight change in the computer program; but I’m sure the required data is already stored. Of course, the two completely separate systems (Amtrak’s and AGR’s) would have to talk to one another. But have to do that now.
Now, exchanging my financial analyst hat for an operations analyst one, I’ve got questions about how the conductor scanning system will work?
1) Will each station have a scanner similar to the airlines, will they bolt the scanner to the dining car table where conductors usually hangs out, give them portable devices about the size of computers some European conductors carry to calculate on-board fares, or all of the above?
2) Will the data be a) transmitted by wireless to the AGR people, b) copied to a thumb drive (or I could sell Amtrak a large quantity of floppy drives?) and mailed, or c) printed out and then the report mailed?
If the answer to the previous question is a) or b), will the data be entered automatically, or will it be printed and then reentered by hand?
How do conductors feel about more paper work?
How many on-board staff will be cut or real diners decommissioned to pay for the hardware, software, communications, training, maintenance, etc?
As Einstein is reputed to have said, All great scientific and engineering breakthroughs are simplifications. It looks like problems caused by a complicated system (AGR swapping and whatnot) is to be fixed by adding more complexity (conductors scanning tickets). But of course creating complexity may the whole point. One of the reason for the Pentagon’s $100 toilet seats, or whatever, is the whole thing is too complex for anyone to understand.