So unless there has been some very recent change, or you were using the AGR credit card and not the membership card, you should not have needed your reservation number.
Two month old res for travel in two days. Inserted AGR (not credit) card. Was prompted for PNR after selecting to pick up AGR tickets. It's always been this way for me.
In this case it was for tickets for my parents, but the behavior is the same as when I pick up tickets for myself. And yes, my name is spelled the same way in my AGR account as on my Amtrak.com account.
Is there someway to bypass the screen used to enter the PNR #?
If the tickets were for your parents and, presumably, had your parents' name on them, then the PNR was in the name of one of your parents. Even though the reservation was paid from points out of your AGR account, the QuikTrak needed something with the name on the PNR, or the PNR itself. If the PNR was in your father's name, his credit card would find it.
The easiest way is to simply enter the PNR, or alternatively, scan the barcode on your confirmation. I usually write the PNR on the back of a business card and put it in my wallet. Then, if the QT does not like my credit card or AGR card, I just enter the PNR and collect my tickets.
[sTORY TIME]By the way, all of the above fails if Amtrak has fiddled with your reservation. Last summer I travelled with a group to Florida on the Silver Star. When we reserved the trip (in my case, seven months in advance), the Star was booking three Viewliners. Then, Amtrak decided to run the Star with two Viewliners. When they made that decision, they took all the previously made reservations and rebooked them as needed into the two cars. When they did that, my on-line reservation simply disappeared from the system.
The "My Reservations" screen on amtrak.com, which I was checking every couple of weeks, now said I had no reservations. The QuikTrak, even when I entered the PNR, said the reservation did not exist. Very nice. I had to interact with the fine folks at the PHL ticket counter (and I mean fine - they were great), who were able to find the reservation and print my tickets. That same thing happened to several of us in the group. Had I done what I usually do and wait until the last nanosecond to print my ticket before boarding the train, I would have been SOL. Even worse, had I been boarding at a station with QuikTrak only, I would have been double SOL. This is all to point out that QuikTrak, good as it is, is far from foolproof. Amtrak stored reservations are not quite as bulletproof as airline e-tickets.[/sTORY TIME]