so Sleeper still gets nothing

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Actually, I'm happy that Amtrak offers a reward program. I can recall when there was no program. The new program seems quite fair to me...
 
Amtrak's money center is the NE Corridor, so rewarding extra points for Acela and business class is keeping with their philosophy. The Long Distance trains are money losers for the most part, even though we love them, so no bonus even for spending thousands of dollars on a family sleeper.

Sad,but true.
 
abcnews said:
Actually, I'm happy that Amtrak offers a reward program. I can recall when there was no program. The new program seems quite fair to me...
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All rewards programs are essentially paid for by the customers. Either that or the business is willing to spend money. In a competitive marketplace I suppose it's needed. I'm not sure if Amtrak really needs it given there's no real competition save perhaps buses.

Of course there are those (like me) who will miss some of the features such as the 100 point minimum. We all knew that it made the system unbalanced.
 
Lest we forget, AGR was created to compete with airlines on the NEC. It's extension to the whole system was a natural thing to do. The desire to compete with airlines on the NEC and possibly on additional corridors still remains an issue.
 
jis said:
Lest we forget, AGR was created to compete with airlines on the NEC. It's extension to the whole system was a natural thing to do. The desire to compete with airlines on the NEC and possibly on additional corridors still remains an issue.
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I suppose the irony of airline loyalty programs was that the most loyal are often business travelers where the fare is paid for by an employer. Yet somehow the points can be used by the employees - or at least at one time they could. I understand that some employers insist on the points being made available to the company.

For the most part I can't see an employer on the west coast allowing an employee to travel by train (as a business expense) until maybe HSR is available. However, it does make a bit of sense in that part of the country.
 
I do like the bc 25% and its counting towards status. I wonder if giving a bonus for sleeper travel would increase sleeper travel at off peak times? Wouldn't erase kisses but might mitigate them a bit.
 
Steve4031 said:
I do like the bc 25% and its counting towards status. I wonder if giving a bonus for sleeper travel would increase sleeper travel at off peak times? Wouldn't erase kisses but might mitigate them a bit.
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But then it might be like the end of the world or something. :p
 
BCL said:
Ryan said:
In other words, almost exactly what we had before.
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It was different. I'd even say appreciably different. The 500/750 point minimum for specific Acela city pairs was typically more generous. And if it wasn't one of those city pairs then there was no bonus.
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Hence the almost, and more detail about what was different and what remained the same (I.e. Sleepers, a.k.a the topic of the thread).
 
BCL said:
For the most part I can't see an employer on the west coast allowing an employee to travel by train (as a business expense) until maybe HSR is available. However, it does make a bit of sense in that part of the country.
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Of course I've been retired quite a while; and back then sleeping car costs where about the same as the airline coach fare, but no employer ever told me I couldn't travel by train.

My favorite story is frequently traveling to the west coast for a major aircraft manufacturer. Meetings always broke up Thursday PM so you could make the 7:00 AM flight the next morning back STL, arriving at the close of the business day. I, being the odd ball, would spend the next day biking along the coast or hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains. Then, it being before the days of showers on the train, grab a shower at the swimming pool of a hotel near the Pasedena station. Then I would catch the SWC connecting to the Missouri Mule, arriving back Sunday afternoon. I can still picture having a (NY strip) steak in the dining car as we rode along the Foothills Expressway overlooking the valley at dusk.

The accountants never questioned the expense. More interesting were the reactions of my coworkers. They all thought it was fascinating, but would never consider such a thing. I wrote it off as a lack of imagination.

I do agree with your last sentence.
 
These days the rules are very simple where I work. For business travel, the trip must be booked through the company travel agent. The company travel agent will compute a least logical fare (LLF) for the proposed itinerary. you are allowed to spend upto 10% more than the LLF no matter which way you choose to travel. The company will not reimburse you for anything greater than that amount for transportation. You are free to throw in your own contribution in the way of money or FF points or whatever and give yourself a better ride. I do that quite often specially on long international legs making the most of my copious collection of points and my high elite status. So for example, on flights to Israel and back, quite often I have flown business class for very little additional cost to me. That is also the reason that I seldom use my FF points for completely free tickets to anywhere. (a) you do not get any points for traveling on those and (b) the FF points are more valuable for upgrades to me than getting free tickets.

Now let's see how the points a dollars thing works out on Amtrak.
 
jis said:
These days the rules are very simple where I work. For business travel, the trip must be booked through the company travel agent. The company travel agent will compute a least logical fare (LLF) for the proposed itinerary. you are allowed to spend upto 10% more than the LLF no matter which way you choose to travel. The company will not reimburse you for anything greater than that amount for transportation. You are free to throw in your own contribution in the way of money or FF points or whatever and give yourself a better ride. I do that quite often specially on long international legs making the most of my copious collection of points and my high elite status. So for example, on flights to Israel and back, quite often I have flown business class for very little additional cost to me. That is also the reason that I seldom use my FF points for completely free tickets to anywhere. (a) you do not get any points for traveling on those and (b) the FF points are more valuable for upgrades to me than getting free tickets.

Now let's see how the points a dollars thing works out on Amtrak.
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Are you sure it's a "least logical fare"? It sounds a little bit off. I'm looking up the acronym, and I see "lowest logical fare".
 
Actually the phrase used in the company policy for my employer is "Lowest Proposed Fare" or LPF. This is the fare that the company wants to use, and many times it is not the lowest fare that you can get on your own. Of course I am not going to argue about whether it is "least" or "lowest" or what. It is what it is. :) I had just pulled a phrase out of my hat to convey the basic sense of what governs. As you can see it is more complicated than just the "lowest logical fare" too for reasons we have discussed in these forums in the past. There are governing contracts and such with various travel providers to consider, specially if it involves exclusivity on certain routes etc.
 

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