Enough guest rewards?

[TimM]

Just as a thought, what can I do with guest reward point earned for the following routes:

Chicago to Seattle

Seattle to Portland

Portland to Los Angeles

Los Angeles to San Diego

I'm a complete outsider and a tourist, so not sure if I could benefit from these points.

 

[Trogdor]

Points are awarded at 2x/dollar of fare, with a minimum of 100 points per segment.

Check the award chart at Amtrakguestrewards.com to see if the points you earn are redeemable for anything. Some awards start as low as 1000 points on short corridor services, so if you come back and ride again some times, you might get a short segment for free. Or, perhaps you have a friend who will be taking the train on one of those short corridors, and you could book a free trip for them.

There are also non-Amtrak awards you can redeem for, all shown on the AGR website.

 

[the_traveler]

Or you could give the points to me! I never have enough!

(j/k)

As said, look at the awards charts on the AGR site. There are different rates for coach, business class, special routes, roomettes, bedrooms and the number of zones. Note that these are all one way, and except for sleepers, are per person. (Sleeper awards are the same for 1 or 2 and include rail fare, meals in the Dining Car and the room for all in the reservation.)

 

[TimM]

1500 worthless points. I see that I can't do anything with it. More than happy to give them away to someone here on the forum.

 

[the_traveler]

1500 worthless points. I see that I can't do anything with it.

Where do you live? :huh:

1,500 points is good for BC on a Special Route - if BOOKED by 3/29/12 (you can book up to 11 months in advance ) or coach on a Special Route after 4/1/12.

Or of course, you could leave them as is. The points are good for 36 months, or until the next Amtrak travel. Then ALL the points are good for another 36 months!

But if you still want to get rid of them (which I really hope you do not), send me a PM.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

1500 worthless points. I see that I can't do anything with it. More than happy to give them away to someone here on the forum.

Even giving your points away will cost you money. No joke. Pretty useless indeed. Unless you're regular commuter on Amtrak it's really not worth the effort to earn points by actually riding Amtrak as they've made it too tedious and expensive to do it that way. Half the time I never get points for my rides anyway because my account number vanishes whenever I change something and I forget to ask them to put it back again. Instead I simply focus on earning points through credit cards and through direct points purchases during bonus periods. That way a $1000 sleeper ticket only winds up costing me $550 or so. Still more expensive than flying, but I guess that's just how things are.

 

[the_traveler]

1500 worthless points. I see that I can't do anything with it. More than happy to give them away to someone here on the forum.

Even giving your points away will cost you money. No joke. Pretty useless indeed.

Not necessarily!

If Tim were to redeem those points from his account for (say) a Special Route in BC (which is 1,500 points) in someone else's name, there would be no cost involved at all! (You can redeem from your account in anyone's name!)

It only costs money to transfer them, but not to redeem them!

So I would say that those 1,500 points are not worthless or useless and will not cost money!

 

[RRrich]

1500 points? Enough to get me from STL - CHI for National Train Day I'd be glad to have them.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

1500 worthless points. I see that I can't do anything with it. More than happy to give them away to someone here on the forum.

Even giving your points away will cost you money. No joke. Pretty useless indeed.

Not necessarily! If Tim were to redeem those points from his account for (say) a Special Route in BC (which is 1,500 points) in someone else's name, there would be no cost involved at all! (You can redeem from your account in anyone's name!) It only costs money to transfer them, but not to redeem them! So I would say that those 1,500 points are not worthless or useless and will not cost money!

There's no Special Route where I live so for me they would be useless. But, I suppose any use is better than no use at all. Just to be clear to the OP, the points will need to be at least 1500 for a one-way coach trip on a designated "special route" starting April 1st. If you're even one point below that level you will not be able to use the points for train travel.

Special routes are limited to the following.

Blue Water®, Wolverine®, Cascades®, Pacific Surfliner®, Capitol Corridor®, San Joaquin®, Hiawatha®, Downeaster®, The Lincoln Service®, Illini Service®, The Carl Sandburg®, Missouri River Runner, The Illinois Zephyr®, The Saluki®, The Hoosier State®, The Pere Marquette®, The Piedmont®, and The Heartland Flyer®.

 

[TimM]

I live in Europe and do not to plan back to travel and/or live through/in the US before 2014 (finishing PhD). Let's see after the trip how many points I have and I'll a random person that responded to one of my threads for a free Amtrak ride.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I live in Europe and do not to plan back to travel and/or live through/in the US before 2014 (finishing PhD). Let's see after the trip how many points I have and I'll a random person that responded to one of my threads for a free Amtrak ride.

If you don't mind playing the credit card bonus game you could have enough "free" points by 2014 to travel all over the country in nothing but sleepers. That's the way to use AGR for true benefit.

 

[the_traveler]

1500 worthless points. I see that I can't do anything with it. More than happy to give them away to someone here on the forum.

Even giving your points away will cost you money. No joke. Pretty useless indeed.

Not necessarily! If Tim were to redeem those points from his account for (say) a Special Route in BC (which is 1,500 points) in someone else's name, there would be no cost involved at all! So I would say that those 1,500 points are not worthless or useless and will not cost money!

There's no Special Route where I live so for me they would be useless. But, I suppose any use is better than no use at all.

Believe it or not, the world does not revolve around you or SAS!

Maybe the OP lives on, or will visit within the next 11 months, a Special Route!

And even you could redeem those points for a non-travel item!

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Believe it or not, the world does not revolve around you or SAS! Maybe the OP lives on, or will visit within the next 11 months, a Special Route! And even you could redeem those points for a non-travel item!

I'm entitled to my opinion and you're entitled to yours. Agree or disagree as much as you please, but there's really no need to make this personal.

 

[Exiled in Express]

Los Angeles to San Diego is on the Pacific Surfliner, a special route. If there is enough of a delay (2-3 weeks) between that and your other trips to allow for the points to post that one could be a redemption.

Also you may want to look at buying reward points to fund that leg as well as the Seattle=Portland segment, at current rates it works out cheaper than actually buying the ticket.

 

[the_traveler]

Believe it or not, the world does not revolve around you or SAS! Maybe the OP lives on, or will visit within the next 11 months, a Special Route! And even you could redeem those points for a non-travel item!

I'm entitled to my opinion and you're entitled to yours. Agree or disagree as much as you please, but there's really no need to make this personal.

I'm not making this personal. You were the one who mentioned that these points are worthless and they cost money to transfer. I just pointed out how they could be redeemed for no cost and (if you really wanted to) I found a carbon offset redemption for 1,000 points!

So maybe they are worthless to you, but not to everyone. I personally would let them sit and accumulate.

[Moderator's Hat On]

I am not going to discuss this further.

[Moderator's Hat Off[]