You have FOUR DAYS to spend $2500 on rail travel to get Select Plus. YOU CAN DO IT!!
:blink: :blink: ... but you know, the possibility had occurred to me, I have to admit.
I can definitely see using the companion coach fares from Select Plus, should I reach that for the following year, if they work as it sounds like they do. (I can go anywhere in coach and a companion travels free... regardless of distance of travel? Or is it just for a single leg? Regardless, this covers PHL-BOS or WAS-CHI, which is the route I'd be most likely to have friends happy to take me up on; and if it would cover all of PHL-CHI in a single companion fare, so much the better.)
I'm sure I'll enjoy taking advantage of the two first-class upgrades on Acela PHL-BOS myself! But as I understand it, if I make Select Plus, I (should) only get a total of three upgrades (for S+) and not five (S and then also S+)? But it sounds like some folks have gotten Select and Select Plus packets for a single year, which would (if it happened to me) give me five upgrades?
Part of why I took all the extra travel was just to get the first-class upgrades and the 25% bonus, but that was less than a third of the incentive; it was more "take advantage of the double-points promotion as much as possible, since I could really maximize it on these short trips" and "hey, by doing so, I'll get really close to that two-zone roomette" and "you know, this will actually save me a lot of driving mileage and gas purchases, since I really can do almost all of my regular shopping by Amtrak". I think I've bought gas twice since early November, instead of every ten days or so.
So the benefits from attaining S+ are probably worth taking weekly shopping trips over the course of 2008, in the end.
Several round-trips to Boston before New Years this year, um, well, NO! :lol: