My Plan=How Many AGR Points?

[jim55]

My wife and I would like to redeem pts for the Texas Eagle from Chicago to LA, spend a couple nights then board the Coast Starlight to Portland. We want to spend a couple nights in Portland, then board the Empire Builder back to Chicago. Is there some strategies we should know? Will they force us onto the SWC, if so, could we book to Palm Springs and buy a coach fare to LA. How many total point are needed? Roomette, all legs. Thanks, Jim

 

[AlanB]

It should be bookable as planned, but you will in effect be using three awards to do it. Grand total would 55,000 points for a roomette on all legs, 20,000 for the Eagle and the Builder, 15,000 for the CS.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

My wife and I would like to redeem pts for the Texas Eagle from Chicago to LA, spend a couple nights then board the Coast Starlight to Portland. We want to spend a couple nights in Portland, then board the Empire Builder back to Chicago. Is there some strategies we should know? Will they force us onto the SWC, if so, could we book to Palm Springs and buy a coach fare to LA. How many total point are needed? Roomette, all legs. Thanks, Jim

If you don't have enough points to book all three segments with AGR, or even if you think you might want to take future trips on Amtrak that you could use AGR points for, you might look at how many dollars you'd need to buy each segment with dollars, and how many points, and try to use the points for the trips where the points to dollars ratio makes that most advantageous.

Note that the points for roomettes include as many people as you're allowed to book in the roomette, whereas when you're paying in dollars there's a charge per person, plus the accomodation charge for the roomette. With dollars, the distance you travel affects the price in a much more fine grained fashion than with points, and with dollars, how full the train already is will affect the prices.