How Airlines Quietly Became Banks (Airline Rewards)

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jebr

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I'm posting this in the AGR forum because there's quite a few similarities between how the US airline rewards programs (explained in the video) operate and how AGR operates. It's a fascinating watch and makes me wonder how much revenue AGR brings in each year, particularly from the Bank of America card and the few other earnings opportunities.

 
I'm posting this in the AGR forum because there's quite a few similarities between how the US airline rewards programs (explained in the video) operate and how AGR operates. It's a fascinating watch and makes me wonder how much revenue AGR brings in each year, particularly from the Bank of America card and the few other earnings opportunities.


After watching this (and becoming more infuriated with United and company regarding how difficult it is to earn points), I am actually pretty grateful how generous Amtrak is regarding AGR.

An average Amtrak traveler (albeit on the NEC) can make select plus without too much trouble. A couple of Acela tickets and a couple of long distance trips and it can happen.

That said, if Amtrak were more like the airlines, perhaps they could get some extra cash and put it to good use.
 
An average Amtrak traveler (albeit on the NEC) can make select plus without too much trouble. A couple of Acela tickets and a couple of long distance trips and it can happen.

That's overstating it a bit. (Well, maybe not if those LD trips are $2,000 sleeper fares.) A round trip Baltimore to New York on the Acela will yield about ~625 TQP. You would have to take 16 round trips per year between Baltimore and New York to make status. A first-class round trip between Baltimore and Boston would yield about 1,800 TQP. That's paying $300 for a ~400 mile, 6-hour trip each way. But it would get you status after 5 or 6 round trips. Northeast Regional trips would yield a lot less -- Baltimore to New York low bucket is ~$70 or 140 TQP, 280 TQP for a round trip. Actually, you can occasionally find Saver tickets at $49, which is great, but you'll only get 100 TQP.

I made Select Plus before I retired because I used to ride the Northeast Regional home from Washington to Baltimore two evenings a week. That's 8 trips a month. Low bucket fare was $15 (30 TQP), but I would usually buy right before boarding, so the fares were more like $25-$35 (or 50-70 TQP). That would give me 400 TQP per month, on average, or 4800 TQP. It also helped that I would occasionally buy business class tickets where the typical $35 fare would yield me about 90 TQP for the ride, and a bit more if the fare was a higher bucket. I would also occasionally ride 67 southbound if I got to the station late and missed my usual MARC train, and I would usually go business class for the 2x1 seating and free coffee and another 90 TQP.

I would take about 1 or 2 LD sleeper trips a year, which cost on average about $400 - $600 or 800 -1,200 TQP. In order to make S+, I would have to take several more NEC trips to New York or Boston, hence my herring runs to the Grand Central Oyster Bar. Also, when I started doing this, the minimum TQP was 100 points, even for rides that cost less than $50. That meant that my 8 trips a month yielded me 800 TQP, or 9,600 TQP per year, so it was indeed pretty easy to get status. That's probably why they shut down that little loophole.

After they ended that little gravy train, getting the AGR World Card helped me make S+ with the 4,000 TQP for my first $20,000 spend each year. Since I've retired, I don't ride the NEC daily, like I used to. I managed to do my $3,000 ticket spend (well a bit less because a lot of my rides were in business class) in 2019 because I was working for a couple of months at the beginning of the year. I hardly did any riding in 2020 (I wonder why?), but they just kept everyone at status for the next year. I think I only made S+ this year because of the double TQP promotion. If they don't run that promotion next year, I'm going to have to take a lot of Amtrak rides to keep my status.
 
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