First Trip Booked under AGR 2.0

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chakk

Engineer
Joined
May 26, 2011
Messages
2,562
Just booked my first roomette trip under the new system. All handled online. Cost 25% fewer points than under the old zone system, using amsnag.net to find the low bucket travel day within my window of 3 possible travel days. Very nice!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Update on changeover:

Got online at 12:30 Pacific time jan 24th and all Amtrak reservations were offline due to maintenance. Same at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00. At 5:00 central(6:00 eastern) reservations were back online with revamped website showing points as a payment option! However points button was not functioning. It got an alarm showing points were not acceptable as payment at this time, pay with credit card.

But after being on hold for 45 minutes, got through on phone and got our room at 29+ k points!

All is well....room B.......

Also, something new. I was tols I must have member number and a four digit PIN for AGR online. Was assigned a random PIN and can go online to change it to one of my choosing. but that doesn't seem to be working yet.

Got this email:

The following information in your Amtrak Guest Rewards account has been updated at your request:

PIN

If you have any questions regarding this change, call the Amtrak Guest Rewards® Service Center at 1-800-307-5000. A representative will be available to assist you from 5a.m. midnight, Eastern Time, 7 days a week.

Thank you for your business,

Amtrak Guest Rewards Service Center

Edited by tonys96, Yesterday, 08:55 AM.
 
I've been looking at different redemptions, and it definitely seems shorter trips cost less points than longer ones. No more long circuitous routings such as Miami to El Paso for only 20,000 points for 4 nights in the roomette. But I did see LAX to Chicago for about 22,000 points in a roomette on train 4. It also offered train 422 for about 50,000, or train 2 to 22 for about 26,000 points. But that involved getting off in SAS and waiting in the station all night. Overall, not the end of the world as I once thought it might be. :)
 
I like it overall. Some of my trips (even the NEC lower rate ones) cost less under 2.0 than before.
Though numerous members including myself have posted thusly, others choose to ignore this as they wail and whine because somebody bombed their private gravy train........even an administrator whose tiresome posts I cannot block.
 
Yup. Most of my few and far between typical trips will cost less. And I agree with the inconvenience of having moderators go on and on about their pain. Maybe they ought to get a separate normal account for bitching :)
 
It's hard to say whether I like the new version better or not. On the plus side, my LD Roomette trip turned out to be slightly fewer points. If booked enough in advance, my weekly NEC trips are cheaper. But I'm not happy with how early I have to book everything to get a decent rate and also how sure I have to be in my plans to avoid the penalty for change or cancellation.

So bottom line, it works better for me in the long term planning, worse for last minute issues. If the BoA card's TQP's can get me to S+, I can at least avoid the penalties, but that's a big if and it would be December before I got there, in any case.
 
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