How many points do I need?

[SweetSue]

My husband and I took our first Amtrak trip 2 years ago on the Southwest Chief. We are hoping to plan a trip on the EB, CS and CZ this September leaving from and returning to Chicago, and I have close to 20,000 AGR points. We had a roomette before but really want to treat ourselves to a bedroom this time. What will the 20,000 points get me? Would it be worth it to buy more points? Thanks for your help.

 

[amamba]

Link to AGR Reward chart: https://www.amtrakguestrewards.com/index.cf...=zone_chart.cfm

Basically, all reward travel is booked in zones. if you travel within one zone, a roomette is 15,000 points and a bedroom is 20,000. If you are going from Chicago to the west coast, that is a two zone award and a roomette is 20,000 points and a bedroom is 30,000 points. Please note that these are ONE WAY fares, so if you want to go there and back you would need to book TWO award tickets.

Lastly, you can buy up to 10,000 points a year.

 

[the_traveler]

We are hoping to plan a trip on the EB, CS and CZ this September leaving from and returning to Chicago, and I have close to 20,000 AGR points. We had a roomette before but really want to treat ourselves to a bedroom this time. What will the 20,000 points get me? Would it be worth it to buy more points? Thanks for your help.

What amamba said is true. If you look at the reward chart, you look to see what zone you begin in and what zone you end in to determine how many points you need. You mentioned you would like the EB, CS and CZ and you said leaving from and returning to CHI. If you want to just ride and not stop to sightsee (to much), have I got a deal for you! h34r:

As I said, look at the zones. A trip from Omaha, NE (OMA) to Columbus, WI (CBS) begins in the midwest zone and also ends in the midwest zone! Thus, it is a 1 zone award - and a bedroom "costs" 20,000 points! But due to the timing of the trains, an overnight would be required in CHI. So a loophole routing exists!

You take the CZ from OMA to SAC (Sacramento, CA), layover IIRC about 8-9 hours, take the CS from SAC to PDX (Portland, OR) and then the EB from PDX to CBS! This will give you 5 nights in a bedroom for only 20,000 points! All you have to do is buy a COACH ticket from CHI to OMA and buy a COACH ticket from CBS to CHI. (There's a good chance you can occupy the room before OMA or after CBS, if you speak to the SCA and/or Conductor!)

 

[SweetSue]

That would be great, but we do plan to stay awhile to see Yosemite and visit family in LA, so we would be driving between Sacramento to Yosemite and LA.

 

[the_traveler]

That would be great, but we do plan to stay awhile to see Yosemite and visit family in LA, so we would be driving between Sacramento to Yosemite and LA.

In that case, as mentioned, the awards are one way only. You would need a 2 zone award for each direction. (That's 20,000 points for a roomette or 30,000 points for a bedroom - each way!)

 

[Ispolkom]

If I understand the OP correctly, the itinerary is Chicago to Sacramento, the Los Angeles to Chicago via the Coast Starlight and the Empire Builder. If you want to travel in bedrooms and have 20k points to use, I think your best strategy is:

1) Buy your tickets Chicago-Sacramento on the California Zephyr. This will not be cheap.

2) Drive Sacramento-Los Angeles via Yosemite. Visit Kings Canyon Nat'l Park as well. It's worth the effort.

3) Buy tickets Los Angeles-Albuquerque.

4) Use your 20k AGR points for a one-zone bedroom trip Albuquerque-Los Angeles-Portland-Columbus, Wisc.

5) Buy coach tickets Columbus-Chicago.

Instead of 3 and 4 you could also get a 20k award LAX-PDX-Wolf Point, but it would cost more to buy a ticket Wolf Point-Chicago.

You might get an AGR agent who doesn't want to book the ABQ-LAX-PDX-CBS award (even the charming Mrs. Ispolkom had difficulty booking ABQ-LAX-PDX-MOT). Be polite, hang up, try again another day with another agent.

 

[SweetSue]

Thanks for the suggestions! Since this will be my first time using AGR points, I certainly need help getting the most miles for them.

 

[Guest]

Just by the 10,000 pts you need and use them for LAX to CHI via PDX.

 

[Guest]

Another thing you could do is take a trip to New Orleans with it all. Then do the Slidel loophole to get you to the west by booking the award to Chico, CA for 2 zones. You do get booted from the bedroom at 4AM so that kind of sucks, but you get to do a whirlwind around the country. The beauty of this is that the City of New Orleans can be filthy dirt cheap if you find the right date. Then priceline a hotel in downtown NOL (if you pick minimum 3 star downtown you can't go wrong). Go see the french quarter, when you get to DC see a few sights during the layover, wash clothes at home in the Chicago layover, and off you go to the west coast.