Cross Country Trip, Partial Upgrades & Companion Coupon

[FreeskierInVT]

Hi all,

I'm planning a speculative cross country trip for this summer and first off am wondering if an AGR companion coupon can be used while also paying for partial roomette upgrades (meaning coach for the majority of the trip, but a roomette for one or two of the overnight sections). If not, I would probably travel by myself entirely in coach with some of my AGR points.

I've pieced together a possible itinerary for the date I might be able to make this happen in between my summer class and the start of the fall semester, working around roomette availability on the Empire Builder and some of the high roomette buckets on the Cardinal and Zephyr. I am of course open to suggestions on altering this, but I would like to stay on the Cardinal if possible for at least one direction

Sunday-Monday

Cardinal 51 NYP-HUN - Coach

Cardinal 51 HUN-CHI - Roomette (+~$150)

Monday-Tuesday

Empire Builder 7 CHI-WGL - Coach

Tuesday-Wednesday

Empire Builder 27(15) WGL-PDX - Roomette (+~$200)

Portland Wed-Mon (Glacier skiing at Mount Hood)

Monday-Tuesday

Coast Starlight 11 PDX-SAC - Coach

Tuesday-Wednesday

California Zephyr 6 SAC-DEN - Coach

Wednesday-Thursday

California Zephyr 6 DEN-CHI - Roomette (+$270)

Thursday-Friday

Cardinal 50 CHI-NYP - Coach

There's also a good possibility I won't be able to make this happen this summer, but I'm itching to travel!

 

[PaulM]

On thing is certain, in order to split coach and sleeper on one train, you will have to use the multi-city option. I would call AGR and see if you could apply the coupon to one of the coach segments. If not, I would break the itinerary down in to multiple reservations in such a way that one would be all coach and at the same time having no chance of a unprotected misconnect. In any event, you will have to call to reserve at least the coupon part of the trip.

Example, break off NYP to HUN. It's pretty hard to misconnect on the same train. On the other hand, if you broke off PDX to SAC or SAC to DEN, you would have to worry about connecting at SAC. Same with breaking off CHI to NYP.

Your post was helpful to me because I've got some of those companion coupons, almost useless because we usually only take sleeper (which may be disallowed) or very short Midwest corridor trips (where it's not worth much after disallowing the senior discount). You've given me any idea how to make it worthwhile.

The relevant rules are

Coupon valid for one (1) free companion rail fare with the purchase of one (1) regular (full) adult rail fare. Free companion and paying passenger must reserve at the same time and travel together at all times.

Offer valid for Coach class travel only. Upgrade to Business class or First class (excluding sleeping car accommodations) is available upon full payment of applicable accommodation charges.

The 2nd rule is a masterpiece of confusing AGR-speak. I'm sure it would disqualify using the coupon for the rail fare portion of a sleeper trip, although it doesn't really say that.

There's nothing that says you can't apply the coupon to a coach only part of a trip. But it really depends on what the computer will allow even good agents to do.

 

[SubwayNut]

The coupons also can't be used with multi-city tickets, just straight one-way or round-trip tickets.

An example is that a friend and I went down on a whirlwind trip to do North Carolina's Piedmont Corridor. Our ticket on the coupon had to be after I tried to book it multi-city NYP-CRT (Carolinian down, Crescent back to save the hotel night). We bailed in Raleigh on the way down and paid cash for a few Piedmont Corridor tickets as we moseyed through North Carolina.