AGR Credit Card change (October 2022)

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Points earned for purchases on the card should show up in your AGR account on Amtrak.com a day or 2 after the FNBO statement is available on their website. Points earned directly from Amtrak (like for completed travel) have nothing to do with FNBO statement dates.
Mine shows credit card points earned 12/08/22 but not 1/8/23 which were indeed posted. Log in to your AGR account and take a look. The e-statement is not necessarily up-to-date.
Just logged into my AGR account, and it isn't showing any transactions since 12/22/22. The Amtrak tickets were purchased with the FNBO card on 1/6/23. The transaction appears in my FNBO account on their website, but no points showing yet from that transaction in my AGR account on that website - which is why I assume the points (including the bonus points) will post at the end of the current billing period.
 

AmtrakBlue

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Just logged into my AGR account, and it isn't showing any transactions since 12/22/22. The Amtrak tickets were purchased with the FNBO card on 1/6/23. The transaction appears in my FNBO account on their website, but no points showing yet from that transaction in my AGR account on that website - which is why I assume the points (including the bonus points) will post at the end of the current billing period.
Yes, they only post after the statement is “cut”.
 

Winecliff Station

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Well here’s a fun fact…. I went to buy a bottle of wine and used the AGR card, which has been working fine since I received it in October. The card was declined as being “prohibited for this type of merchant” or language to that effect. So the card is a prude and won’t work in a NY liquor store. Go figure 🤷🏻‍♀️

ETA: Must be the specific store not taking reward cards, hubby said he recently used his card at a different liquor store and it worked fine.
 
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Bob Dylan

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Well here’s a fun fact…. I went to buy a bottle of wine and used the AGR card, which has been working fine since I received it in October. The card was declined as being “prohibited for this type of merchant” or language to that effect. So the card is a prude and won’t work in a NY liquor store. Go figure 🤷🏻‍♀️

ETA: Must be the specific store not taking reward cards, hubby said he recently used his card at a different liquor store and it worked fine.
😱WOW, they must not want to pay the % ( Vigorish) thar Card Companies charge Merchants for Credit Transactions.( there's places here that give Discounts for paying Cash, mostly Mom and Pops but Gas Stations do this too!)
 

Winecliff Station

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😱WOW, they must not want to pay the % ( Vigorish) thar Card Companies charge Merchants for Credit Transactions.( there's places here that give Discounts for paying Cash, mostly Mom and Pops but Gas Stations do this too!)
Some places like our local roller rink are adding a surcharge for credit card purchases.
 

Henry Kisor

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My wife reports the local Chicago suburban Jewel Foods (big supermarket chain) cashier machines reject her AGR card every time and she has to use another card. We use the AGR card for everything else and it works fine. Can't figure out why Jewel hates AGR. In another development, In our neck of the woods more and more businesses are going cashless only and the city council of the suburb where we live is planning to make that illegal because it discriminates against poor people with no credit.
 
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😱WOW, they must not want to pay the % ( Vigorish) thar Card Companies charge Merchants for Credit Transactions.( there's places here that give Discounts for paying Cash, mostly Mom and Pops but Gas Stations do this too!)

I once wondered out loud why more businesses don't offer discounts for cash, and my former neighbor (who managed DC's three public golf courses on behalf of the National Park Service) pointed out that cash, too, has costs. It poses a risk of theft, both violently (from the public) and quietly (from in-house), has to be counted, has to be transported to the bank. Food for thought.

As a former church treasurer, too, I remember that we had all sorts of protocols about handling the weekly cash collection; basically having two ushers lock it up securely, then two "counters" unlocking it and ensuring nobody was alone with it till tallied and verified. Frankly it was a chore. Checks and automatic bank transfers were simpler. I don't think we took the AGR card ;).
 
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My wife reports the local Chicago suburban Jewel Foods (big supermarket chain) cashier machines reject her AGR card every time and she has to use another card. We use the AGR card for everything else and it works fine. Can't figure out why Jewel hates AGR. In another development, In our neck of the woods more and more businesses are going cashless only and the city council of the suburb where we live is planning to make that illegal because it discriminates against poor people with no credit.
I shop at Jewel often (1-2 times a week, at a city and a suburban location) using my AGR card. The machine usually gives a chip-misread error the first time, but I wipe it on my coat (sometimes reject-and-wipe twice) and it invariably goes through. It never occurred to me that it could be anything BUT a chip misread. ;)
 
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Haven't yet received my January statement from FNBO yet, but expecting it soon -- because the latest email from AGR this morning showed the 12K bonus points I had earned for buying roundtrip tickets on the California Zephyr earlier this month (plus the points for the dollar amount of the ticket price). Hubby has suggested that we redeem points by buying Son #1 a ticket on the Amtrak route of his choice (as a solo journey later this year). I assume this would be OK, as long as I make the purchase-with-points on his behalf?
 

Shanson

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I believe you have to speak with an AGR representative. If you book online, the names on the ticket and the AGR account must match. (I think.)

I know that if a voucher is redeemed online, the name has to be same on ticket and voucher.

Sorry admins, I know this is not a credit card question, but a points redemption question. Please move if neccessary.
 
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I believe you have to speak with an AGR representative. If you book online, the names on the ticket and the AGR account must match. (I think.)

I know that if a voucher is redeemed online, the name has to be same on ticket and voucher.
So there is a workaround to do as hubby has suggested, but with a little more work involved than booking tickets online by oneself. The only other alternative I can think of would be for our son to order the tickets online (with or without his own AGR account) and use our FNBO AGR credit card as the payment method. (Probably wouldn't do that, though, as it'll take long enough to pay off the charge for our own CZ tickets, even after doing a balance transfer to a 0% interest credit card.)
 

StanJazz

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I shop at Jewel often (1-2 times a week, at a city and a suburban location) using my AGR card. The machine usually gives a chip-misread error the first time, but I wipe it on my coat (sometimes reject-and-wipe twice) and it invariably goes through. It never occurred to me that it could be anything BUT a chip misread. ;)
Jewel works fine for me by tapping my AGR card. I have never tried inserting to use the chip.
 

Everydaymatters

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I scanned through this forum but did not see where anyone else had this happen. I decided not to get the new credit card and did not send in any papers or make any calls to get it. Once a year I get an automatic renewal of my McAfee and it is automatically charged to a credit card. I forgot it was charged to my AGR card. Yesterday I got a bill from FNB of Omaha for the renewal. It even shows an account number. So of course I will pay it, but I just thought it strange that they could accept a charge when I do not have an account with them. Has anyone else had this happen?
 

Trogdor

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I scanned through this forum but did not see where anyone else had this happen. I decided not to get the new credit card and did not send in any papers or make any calls to get it. Once a year I get an automatic renewal of my McAfee and it is automatically charged to a credit card. I forgot it was charged to my AGR card. Yesterday I got a bill from FNB of Omaha for the renewal. It even shows an account number. So of course I will pay it, but I just thought it strange that they could accept a charge when I do not have an account with them. Has anyone else had this happen?

You made no mention of cancelling your old card. Therefore, it would have automatically transferred to FNBO. This is unlike past transitions, where your old AGR card became some generic card by that bank and you had to apply for a new one. In this case, B of A sold the account portfolio to a new bank, and unless someone specifically cancelled their account more than a month (?) or so before the cutover date, they would have automatically have been given the FNBO card, and all account records and history effectively transferred over.

If you had cancelled the old card, the charge would have been declined. If you just left it in a drawer and forgot about it, never expecting to use it again, then you’d have a new FNBO account.
 

Everydaymatters

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You made no mention of cancelling your old card. Therefore, it would have automatically transferred to FNBO. This is unlike past transitions, where your old AGR card became some generic card by that bank and you had to apply for a new one. In this case, B of A sold the account portfolio to a new bank, and unless someone specifically cancelled their account more than a month (?) or so before the cutover date, they would have automatically have been given the FNBO card, and all account records and history effectively transferred over.

If you had cancelled the old card, the charge would have been declined. If you just left it in a drawer and forgot about it, never expecting to use it again, then you’d have a new FNBO account.
Thank you, Robert. I wonder if I can get the original points offer. Hmmm I'll have to call and see what they say.
 

cocojacoby

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My very first statement had a fraud charge on it. FNBO took care of it and issued me a credit, cancelled my brand new card and issued me a new one. Check your statements.
 
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My very first statement had a fraud charge on it. FNBO took care of it and issued me a credit, cancelled my brand new card and issued me a new one. Check your statements.
I have my notifications set so I receive a text message when a charge is made without the card being present (phone, online, etc.). You can also be notified everytime the card is used.
 

jis

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I have my notifications set so I receive a text message when a charge is made without the card being present (phone, online, etc.). You can also be notified everytime the card is used.
I have all my cards set up to notify me via text each time a card is used, both when a charge succeeds or fails. I do not use the cards frequently enough for the messages to become a bother, and it tends to save a lot of hassle later when I can report a problem to the card issuer very soon after it is detected by me.
 
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I have all my cards set up to notify me via text each time a card is used, both when a charge succeeds or fails. I do not use the cards frequently enough for the messages to become a bother, and it tends to save a lot of hassle later when I can report a problem to the card issuer very soon after it is detected by me.
I discovered that the reason I had a charge declined without notification or delay is that FNBO did not have a cell phone number for me. The reason they don't have my cell number is that my home (where I am 95% of the time) is in an area with no cell service. I only turn on my cell phone if I am in town, or traveling.

When I ranted about the fact that not everyone has a cell phone, or lives in an area with service, the agent told me I could just *tell* her to use my home landline for notifications (face palm). There is no way to set it up this way online, you have to *tell* an agent over the phone you want this option.

I know BoA used to call us at the number they had, without us having to tell them it was our best contact method. If they didn't reach us, they left a call-back number, and also emailed to let me know I had a certain amount of time to log in and either accept or decline the charge. We never had a charge declined without recourse through them.
 

jis

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I discovered that the reason I had a charge declined without notification or delay is that FNBO did not have a cell phone number for me. The reason they don't have my cell number is that my home (where I am 95% of the time) is in an area with no cell service. I only turn on my cell phone if I am in town, or traveling.

When I ranted about the fact that not everyone has a cell phone, or lives in an area with service, the agent told me I could just *tell* her to use my home landline for notifications (face palm). There is no way to set it up this way online, you have to *tell* an agent over the phone you want this option.

I know BoA used to call us at the number they had, without us having to tell them it was our best contact method. If they didn't reach us, they left a call-back number, and also emailed to let me know I had a certain amount of time to log in and either accept or decline the charge. We never had a charge declined without recourse through them.
I thought you could choose to get notified by email.
 

NorthShore

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I scanned through this forum but did not see where anyone else had this happen. I decided not to get the new credit card and did not send in any papers or make any calls to get it. Once a year I get an automatic renewal of my McAfee and it is automatically charged to a credit card. I forgot it was charged to my AGR card. Yesterday I got a bill from FNB of Omaha for the renewal. It even shows an account number. So of course I will pay it, but I just thought it strange that they could accept a charge when I do not have an account with them. Has anyone else had this happen?

I did have a similar situation. Though, I gladly accepted the new card for use. An old account tied to the old card attempted to auto-renew something I had set to NOT autobill, nor updated payment info. I got billed for it through FNBO, anyway, and had to call the company that billed, explaining that my intention was to allow that subscription to expire, noting "I haven't even offered you my current card details." They agreed to refund the charge, and deleted the old card entry after that cleared. Apparently, this all got lost in communication during the transition, somehow.
 

railiner

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I once wondered out loud why more businesses don't offer discounts for cash
IIRC, at one time credit card companies had more power, and threatened to cancel credit card privileges to any merchant that did that.
But then the oil companies defied that, and now it seems more and more other businesses do offer cash discounts, sometimes exceeding some “cash back” benefits offered by some cards…
 

fhussain44

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After making a dummy booking, I get presented with an offer for 20k points and $100 statement credit . I am guessing the annual fee still applies. Seems like a decent deal.
 
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I thought you could choose to get notified by email.
You can opt to receive all kinds of account alerts by email, except fraud alerts. I called because I could not find any setting for fraud alerts, and this is what the agent told me: there is no setting for fraud alerts, because fraud alerts WILL come to your cell phone.

If you don't have a cell phone listed, you will not get fraud alerts at all, unless you call a live agent and demand an alternative. I was not even told the alternative existed, until I had ranted for a minute or two...
 
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