Take ten trips

Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I

Ispolkom

Engineer
Joined
Nov 27, 2007
Messages
3,060
Location
St. Paul, Minn.
Wow, the fall promotion was worth waiting for. Take ten trips by 12/14 (limit 2 per day), and you get double points on each trip plus 10,000 bonus points.
 
Without the $40 minimum spend requirement, I could've done it for a total of $81. Works out to 0.675 cents per point for 12,000 points. I would've seriously considered going for it. At $40 per ticket just riding for the bonus points would cost $400. That's 3.333 cents per point. Cheaper to just buy 10,000 points if you haven't reached your yearly limit ($275 for 10,000 points). Cheaper still if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa: buy 5,000 points per month for $125.

Also, monthly passes and multi-ride tickets don't qualify.

Nice bonus if you're gonna ride anyhow. But not worth going for it just for the bonus.
 
Darn. I hadn't noticed the $40 minimum. That's what I get for posting before my morning coffee.

I already have 4 $40+ trips in that period, but it's not worth it to book 6 more. But, as Long Train Running wrote, double points is still a nice promotion.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I can understand why Amtrak would want to weed out mere "points runs" from this promotion, but IMHO they've missed the mark significantly with a $40 threshold.

A trip from Chicago to Galesburg, Springfield, Champaign, or Milwaukee (or vice versa) wouldn't qualify. Neither would a trip from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara or San Diego. Neither would a trip from Philadelphia to Harrisburg.

Those are all trips that are popular with "regular" passengers (not points-mad railfans :giggle: ) for "legitimate" reasons (business, day trip to the destination city, etc.) but are effectively excluded from this promotion by the $40 minimum.
 
Since I can't get into AGR don't have the specifics/small print! I will sign up when able, I do make some $40 trips but would rather spend the money on point runs since as a previous poster pointed out you can buy/transfer points cheaper than this promo! Again the business travelers and those that ride the NEC trains get another break over us poor schlubs out here in fly over country! Damn! And I was hoping for triple points! :angry2:
 
Jim,

Here is the fine print.

10 trips = 10,000 bonus points. Plus, double points along the way. Take Ten-the celebration starts on Friday, October 1, 2010. It's the ten-year anniversary of Amtrak Guest Rewards, and we're celebrating our members with more ways to better serve you, including an improved program, extended service center hours, a better online experience, mobile site, and the new Take Ten promotion. Earn with Take Ten from 10/1/10 through 12/14/10 - 10,000 bonus points when you Take Ten trips - Double points on all Amtrak® travel - Plus, the points you already earn for Amtrak travel

Terms & Conditions

Must be an Amtrak Guest Rewards member and register for this offer online or by calling 1-800-307-5000 to participate. Once registered, all qualifying travel during the promotion period will be eligible to earn double points and count toward the Take Ten and earn 10,000 points promotion. Cancelled or refunded reservations/tickets will be deemed ineligible. Members must include their membership number when making reservations for travel to qualify. Offer expires at 11:59 pm Central Time on 12/14/10. Other terms and conditions apply. -Take Ten qualifying one-way trips on Amtrak between 10/1/10 and 12/14/10 and earn 10,000 bonus points. Minimum spend of $40 per one-way trip required. Limit of two qualifying one-way trips per day. Travel with a monthly pass or using multi-ride tickets does not qualify for this promotion. Only one 10,000 bonus point award may be earned per member. Bonus points will be awarded within 4 weeks following your tenth qualifying trip. -Earn double points on qualifying Amtrak travel from 10/1/10 and 12/14/10. Double Points earned through the promotion will post with regular point-earnings. Allow up to 4 weeks from completion of travel for points to post to your account.

I can appreciate the $40 threshold. The program will cost Amtrak and the main purpose of the program is

to boost paid travel during a normally slow period of the year. There was no mention of blackout periods,

so I would assume blackouts will be in force during the Thanksgiving holiday.
 
That type of requirement is pretty standard on ALL of their promotions, at least on the NEC. Some of the special ones that they have require an $80 roundtrip or some other minimum spend. Sometimes it is $80 one way on the acela. It is actually pretty frustrating to have that $40 minimum, for example I am taking NEC regional to New Haven next week from PVD and it is $36. That is a legitmate 2.5 hour trip - not just a point run between BOS - PVD - and very frustrating that it is almost always excluded from every promotion. Even acela PVD - NHV can be under $80.
 
Although it may not be the best possible deal for us it's still a reasonable set of restrictions in my view. Although most of us may not receive the primary bonus we can still benefit from the double points portion and for those folks who would normally ride seven or eight times it might help convince them to take a couple more trips just for the heck of it. Any increase in Amtrak passenger numbers helps make the case for continued funding, but giving away points too easily can eventually dilute or even reverse the benefit entirely by hurting the bottom line. I'll sign up just for the system-wide double point offer, which is actually pretty generous compared to offers on other carriers. :cool:
 
AWESOME!! WHAT AN AWESOME PROMOTION!!!! HATS OFF TO THE NEW AGR!!! :hi:

I think I had 6 of the 10 trips planned already!!

#1 & #2 : Riding CHI-STL on 10/15 and 10/16 to get in the rare detour miles back N/B on that Saturday morning (The only tickets I could snag for that were #422 which was at the highest bucket; over $40)

#3 & #4: Acela points run BOS-NYP and back on 10/28

#5: Lake Shore Limited BOS-CHI on 10/29

#6: Cardinal (with the dome car of course!!) CHI-NYP on 10/30

Only have to squeak in 4 more trips in Nov and early Dec... I think I can do it!!!

RT
 
So the double are available on all travel and the 40 and over only applies for the 10,000 bonus points. Also can this be combined with the 100 bonus points for business class. I am planning another one of my SEA-PDX points runs, normally I get 200 points, with double points thats 400 with the business class bonus I could get 600 points.
 
I'm also wondering what is considered a "one-way" over $40 dollars. Say you go from St. Louis to Milwaukee for a total of $50. That would count, but since you are using two tickets; STL to CHI and then CHI to MKE, one ticket might be only worth $28 and the other $22. Therefore it wouldn't count.

It does indeed stink about the $40 anyhow. I can see making it $20, but $40. This means a roundtrip from Chicago to Milwaukee normally costing $44 won't count toward this promotion. They should at least have some combination language in there. It would suck to spend $39 going one way and then another $39 going the other way, and not get the bonus.
 
daxomni said:
Steve4031 said:
Still have to spend 40 each way to get double points.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm hearing from Amtrak customer support as well.
Click to expand...
Not according to the AGR website. When you click the link to register it actually shows it as a two-part promotion. Part 1 is the '10 trips for 10K' part with the $40/trip requirement and Part 2 is 'Double points for ALL Amtrak travel'
 
Cristobal said:
daxomni said:
Steve4031 said:
Still have to spend 40 each way to get double points.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm hearing from Amtrak customer support as well.
Click to expand...
Not according to the AGR website. When you click the link to register it actually shows it as a two-part promotion. Part 1 is the '10 trips for 10K' part with the $40/trip requirement and Part 2 is 'Double points for ALL Amtrak travel'
Click to expand...
Both the website and the email are vague on this matter and it could be interpreted either way. That's why I called AGR before I responded to the other poster. According to what I was told, AGR considers the $40 minimum spend to be a requirement of both offers. I made it very clear exactly what I was asking, so I'm assuming I received an accurate answer.

Must be an Amtrak Guest Rewards member and register for this offer online or by calling 1-800-307-5000 to participate. Once registered' date=' [b']all qualifying travel[/b] during the promotion period will be eligible to earn double points and count toward the Take Ten and earn 10,000 points promotion. Cancelled or refunded reservations/tickets will be deemed ineligible. Members must include their membership number when making reservations for travel to qualify. Other terms and conditions apply. -Take Ten qualifying one-way trips on Amtrak between 10/1/10 and 12/14/10 and earn 10,000 bonus points. Minimum spend of $40 per one-way trip required. Limit of two qualifying one-way trips per day. Travel with a monthly pass or using multi-ride tickets does not qualify for this promotion. Only one 10,000 bonus point award may be earned per member. Bonus points will be awarded within 4 weeks following your tenth qualifying trip. -Earn double points on qualifying Amtrak travel from 10/1/10 and 12/14/10. Double Points earned through the promotion will post with regular point-earnings. Allow up to 4 weeks from completion of travel for points to post to your account.
Click to expand...
Now, the question I have for my fellow AU members is in regards to stacking. If I buy a ticket from SAS to SND and another from SND to ELP on the same day, am I able to then count that as two one-way trips for purposes of the 10,000 points so long as they were on separate ticket stock?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
daxomni said:
Cristobal said:
daxomni said:
Steve4031 said:
Still have to spend 40 each way to get double points.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm hearing from Amtrak customer support as well.
Click to expand...
Not according to the AGR website. When you click the link to register it actually shows it as a two-part promotion. Part 1 is the '10 trips for 10K' part with the $40/trip requirement and Part 2 is 'Double points for ALL Amtrak travel'
Click to expand...
Both the website and the email are VAGUE on this matter and it could easily be interpreted either way. However, if you bother to call you'll hear that AGR considers the $40 minimum spend to be a requirement of BOTH offers.

Must be an Amtrak Guest Rewards member and register for this offer online or by calling 1-800-307-5000 to participate. Once registered' date=' [b']all qualifying travel[/b] during the promotion period will be eligible to earn double points and count toward the Take Ten and earn 10,000 points promotion. Cancelled or refunded reservations/tickets will be deemed ineligible. Members must include their membership number when making reservations for travel to qualify. Other terms and conditions apply. -Take Ten qualifying one-way trips on Amtrak between 10/1/10 and 12/14/10 and earn 10,000 bonus points. Minimum spend of $40 per one-way trip required. Limit of two qualifying one-way trips per day. Travel with a monthly pass or using multi-ride tickets does not qualify for this promotion. Only one 10,000 bonus point award may be earned per member. Bonus points will be awarded within 4 weeks following your tenth qualifying trip. -Earn double points on qualifying Amtrak travel from 10/1/10 and 12/14/10. Double Points earned through the promotion will post with regular point-earnings. Allow up to 4 weeks from completion of travel for points to post to your account.
Click to expand...
Now, the question I have for my fellow AU members is in regards to stacking. If I buy a ticket from SAS to SND and another from SND to ELP on the same day, am I able to then count that as two one-way trips for purposes of the 10,000 points so long as they were on separate ticket stock?
Click to expand...
IF they are not on the same train #, then yes.

But in the case of the Sunset, you er, might be out of luck.....I think that's only a one train per day, EVERY OTHER day.
sad.gif
sad.gif
 
rrdude said:
daxomni said:
Now, the question I have for my fellow AU members is in regards to stacking. If I buy a ticket from SAS to SND and another from SND to ELP on the same day, am I able to then count that as two one-way trips for purposes of the 10,000 points so long as they were on separate ticket stock?
Click to expand...
IF they are not on the same train #, then yes.

But in the case of the Sunset, you er, might be out of luck.....I think that's only a one train per day, EVERY OTHER day.
sad.gif
sad.gif
Click to expand...
You could book train #1 SAS-SND and #421 SND-ELP and it should come up on the system as two separate trips. However, it looks like Amtrak has blocked out all seats and accommodations on 421 (local travel) except for the highest bucket, e.g. SND-ELP is $100 on every train 421 (even testing May 2011) while on train 1 it is $51 even on trains later this month.
 
I'm going after this sucker. LOL My tentative plans

A round trip to STL on Veterans day 40 each incuding upgarde to BC. A trip to Cleveland to see a buddy. An out and back to Cleveland on a Friday Night.

A round trip to Carbondale on the CONO. Ill think of one more.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top