Lowest fare?

[benale]

I've been taking a trip or two each week between Elizabethtown and Harrisburg, Pa during the Double Days promotion. Minimum points is 100, so a roundtrip is 400 points. It's $6.50 each way and with a Senior Discount it comes to $11 round trip, pretty close to what you would pay to buy points.

Trying inexpensive one stop trips from Philly to Paoli is the same. North and South of Philly and any point from New York,Baltimore and Washington is quite a bit more. For example. if I wanted to go to Alexandria from DC a one way trip costs $16. Does anybody know the lowest price between any two Amtrak stations? Even Milwaukee to the Airport costs $7.50. Just curious.

 

[jimhudson]

St. Louis to Alton, IL. is $2,50 each way but don't know if anyone besides Misty would take a Day Trip to Alton,, there's not much happening in Alton! :giggle: Possibly some of the Surfliner Trips in Cali are Cheaper than what you pay on the Keystone (and my $6.37 Senior Fare to Taylor on the Eagle) but California has raised Prices on Everything Lately since they are Broke??? :help:

 

[the_traveler]

A member who used to post a lot from the LA area got mucho points on his commute into LA on Amtrak, and IIRC each trip was only like $2 or $3!

 

[BCL]

I'm trying to figure it out on my normal runs.

Between the two Santa Clara stations (SCC-GAC) is $6. I was thinking of Berkeley to Emeryville should be cheap since it's only two miles, but that's $6.50.

I missed on the Capitol Corridor 50% off weekend promotion, which includes associated thruway buses along the route. I looked it up on the last weekend, and one could actually get $6 for Richmond to San Francisco, which counts as two segments. I think Berkeley to San Francisco might have been less at $5 (from the regular $10). The only caveat for AGR is that there's a chance that a conductor might not pull a ticket in that short distance.

 

[SubwayNut]

The $6.50 Keystone fare is valid from Philly to Ardmore or all the way to Downingtown, and you can break it up into four segments (the ) with stopovers (DOW-PHL during the PM rush hour on a weekday has a schedule that works out perfectly to about an hour at each place) in Exton, Paoli, and Ardomre.

 

[BCL]

The $6.50 Keystone fare is valid from Philly to Ardmore or all the way to Downingtown, and you can break it up into four segments (the ) with stopovers (DOW-PHL during the PM rush hour on a weekday has a schedule that works out perfectly to about an hour at each place) in Exton, Paoli, and Ardomre.

I've been to/through a few of those stations, and I can't think of any place that I'd least like to hang around for an hour waiting for the next train than those places. Not that it's unsafe of anything, but we waited for someone to pick us up at Exton, and there was zero around there except for the parking lot.

If I'm going to do one of these runs, I'd hope there would be something nearby to kill time.

 

[SubwayNut]

The thing that makes these layovers work for me is that I have my hoppy photographing railroad stations and yes Exton doesn't have anything around but I did get my photo essay. I can't say I'd go there again soon (except with an Independence Pass on me to get to another station during the layover). I've spent longer in places with even less around, my nearly two hours at Madera, California that is in fields is probably my biggest extreme.

 

[benjibear]

The Keystones are perfect for cheap points run. It would probably be one of the cheapest lines to get select or select plus. Why don't you try going the other direction to Lancaster?

 

[calwatch]

The low bucket San Joaquins also have good fares but again, you get into the "nothing to do" problem.

 

[benale]

I do go to Lancaster from E Town once in a while to break up the sameness. Same price. Sometimes I take the Megabus from Harrisburg to Philly and back for $2.50 and with six hours in Philly I go to Paoli or Downingtown and back. I've earned almost 2,000 bonus points since late March. The Megabus stop in Philly is next to 30th St,. Station

A little over a week to go before they expire. Next week I'm going from Elizabethtown to Harrisburg and back in the morning,taking Megabus to Boston from Harrisburg later that day ($2...Harrisburg-Philly, Philly-Boston)..walking to North Station and taking a round trip on the Downeaster to Wells,Maine(half price Senior rate)...back to Philly($1) that night..five hours in Philly to do another Philly-Paoli run and back to Harrisburg on Megabus. Sounds crazy,but I enjoy it. I figure 1200 points in three days and a little adventure.