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Train Trip Houskeeping
Jul. 31st, 2021 12:10 pmWhile reviewing the Worldcon Train Trip reservations (six reservations, seven total one-way legs) and looking through my Amtrak account, I realized that I'd made two mistakes.
1. On two of the "revenue" trips, I had forgotten to enter Lisa's Rail Passengers Association (former National Association of Railroad Passengers) membership number, thus not getting the 10% discount off the rail fare. (The discount does not apply to the room cost.)
2. I had two "companion fare" coupons, good for a one-way free companion fare except on certain blackout dates. (And as it happens, we're traveling on one of those blackout dates.)
So I called Amtrak, waited through the queue, and asked the agent if she could retroactively apply these things. Somewhat to my surprise, she could, and did, applying the refund back to my Amtrak credit card. Net savings: $243.60.
( Do I Feel Lucky? )
Ignoring the fact that the points aren't free, but were earned through a credit card program, I calculate that using Amtrak Guest Rewards points points and coupons that go with the related credit card program saved about 58% over purchasing all of the trip as revenue tickets. Of course now there's almost nothing in the AGR account and it's time to start accumulating points again for another trip someday. It will take some years before I accumulate enough points for a "big win" like this one.
Incidentally, although getting through to agents has been a massive wait, I must say that every Amtrak agent with whom I worked on this cross-country odyssey has been nice to work with and was able to accomplish most of what I wanted. There were a couple of times where what I wanted wasn't possible — AGR devalues their points during certain holiday periods, as I've discussed here ‐ but I don't blame the agents for having to tell me this. They were all polite and helpful. There just aren't enough of them, and they're massively backlogged as people are trying to book tickets, especially given that the Amtrak web site rarely seems to actually work for purchasing a ticket.
1. On two of the "revenue" trips, I had forgotten to enter Lisa's Rail Passengers Association (former National Association of Railroad Passengers) membership number, thus not getting the 10% discount off the rail fare. (The discount does not apply to the room cost.)
2. I had two "companion fare" coupons, good for a one-way free companion fare except on certain blackout dates. (And as it happens, we're traveling on one of those blackout dates.)
So I called Amtrak, waited through the queue, and asked the agent if she could retroactively apply these things. Somewhat to my surprise, she could, and did, applying the refund back to my Amtrak credit card. Net savings: $243.60.
( Do I Feel Lucky? )
Ignoring the fact that the points aren't free, but were earned through a credit card program, I calculate that using Amtrak Guest Rewards points points and coupons that go with the related credit card program saved about 58% over purchasing all of the trip as revenue tickets. Of course now there's almost nothing in the AGR account and it's time to start accumulating points again for another trip someday. It will take some years before I accumulate enough points for a "big win" like this one.
Incidentally, although getting through to agents has been a massive wait, I must say that every Amtrak agent with whom I worked on this cross-country odyssey has been nice to work with and was able to accomplish most of what I wanted. There were a couple of times where what I wanted wasn't possible — AGR devalues their points during certain holiday periods, as I've discussed here ‐ but I don't blame the agents for having to tell me this. They were all polite and helpful. There just aren't enough of them, and they're massively backlogged as people are trying to book tickets, especially given that the Amtrak web site rarely seems to actually work for purchasing a ticket.
