Sadly, yes, only Cdn or US addresses.
As far as I know, as long as you have a US or Canadian address - you can sign up!
Hmm, I had thought you needed to be a US/Canada citizen.
The Terms & Conditions page makes it pretty clear:
Ah, that sounds like what I'd read before. I suppose if you have access to an address you could try it, but they might tell you to go away.
I personally think that if you use a US or Canadian address, it is assumed you are a US or Canadian resident. I think one of the main reasons they want a US or Canadian address is that AGR will mail out the award tickets if the trip is more than 1 month in the future, and AGR doesn't want to pay the postage to the UK or France or South Africa or Japan or ...!
I think that's probably the real reason. Maybe if/when Amtrak gets their planned electronic ticketing system going, we can suggest they look at changing this policy...
There is no logical reason whatsoever for what AGR does. Consider, one can make a normal paid reservation months in advance and just leave it sitting in the computer as little electronic blip. Then pick up real tickets less than 5 minutes before departure without issue. Also consider that in an effort to save money, Amtrak will not mail out paid tickets unless you are departing from a station that doesn't have a ticket office that is open upon departure or a Quik-Trak machine, for free. Otherwise you have to pay to get the tickets mailed. This was a cost saving measure on Amtrak's part.
That policy has since changed.
Which policy, as there are two contained within my post? :unsure:
The AGR policy of mailing tickets. You can now book travel months in advance, and pick your tickets up 5 minutes ahead of time.
Do you know as of when that policy was changed? Or any place that we all go to and see this change being reported?
The policy was changed roughly 4-6 weeks ago. It is not advertised, but if you ask an AGR rep about it, they can confirm it.
I made an award trip for September-October about 1 month ago, and they mailed me the tickets. I had to cancel, so I had to mail them back.
So how is that different to frequent flyer schemes for airlines? The principal is the same.
All this would probably become a non-issue if Amtrak would get with the program and start doing e-ticketing. Heck even Indian Railways allows me to get on the web make a reservation and get an e-ticket and print out a boarding pass on my printer and just go and board the train on the appointed day. I can't understand why it is so difficult for Amtrak to do the same.
As long as Amtrak does not have a registered office in those countries they do not have to deal with anything. I think this one is a red herring more or less. In the worst case said country might simply say you can't do it. I am not aware of any country that requires such filing for airline award tickets at this point in time. Not even China or Singapore or India!
