Pay to Upgrade?

[njulian]

I'm sure this has been asked a million times but couldn't find it, so here goes: If I use my reward points to buy a one zone coach ticket can I pay for an upgrade to Sleeper, just like if I bought a the coach ticket and then added on the room charge?

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

Yes, but since your base fare is technically $0, you have to pay "full pull" to move up to the Sleeper.

 

[the_traveler]

As said, the onboard upgrade fare is the difference between the fare you paid and the lowest bucket sleeper fare. But since your award ticket has a $-0- fare, it would cost the difference between the low bucket sleeper (say $200) and $-0-. Thus your upgrade would cost $200!

To me, that would be a total waste of those 5,500 AGR points!

 

[Devil's Advocate]

As said, the onboard upgrade fare is the difference between the fare you paid and the lowest bucket sleeper fare. But since your award ticket has a $-0- fare, it would cost the difference between the low bucket sleeper (say $200) and $-0-. Thus your upgrade would cost $200! To me, that would be a total waste of those 5,500 AGR points!

I'm guessing Amtrak doesn't print any value on AGR tickets because they don't want anyone to confuse AGR awards with paid tickets and they don't want to take on any additional liabilities that may enter the picture if AGR tickets were given a face value. That being said, I see no reason an AGR award can't or shouldn't have some intrinsic value for the purposes of purchasing an on board upgrade. For instance, it could be assigned a specific bucket value that would then be used to calculate the cost. Still has no face value, still can't be inadvertently exchanged for cash or voucher, and doesn't become absolutely useless when someone tries to hand Amtrak some more of their hard earned cash.

 

[Anderson]

Well, I think the "full pull" might be the full low bucket accommodation charge, but I'm not sure.

 

[njulian]

Thanks for your answers. I did hear back from the AMTRAK rewards people, very quickly, which surprised me. They also said the only option was to pay for a sleeper on board, which is just silly since what if there are no sleepers and like others have said, would probably end up costing more. Soo..I'll just wait and if I don't think I'll use for train travel before expiration just get a giftcard or something.