Updated info on the new Cancellation policy at AGR

[abcnews]

A few days ago I booked a long distance AGR award and the agent was quite friendly and helpful. To my surprise - she told me that the new policy (after 1/23/16) with the 10% penalty - would only actually apply, if you cancel the trip and request the points to be returned back into your account. If you change a trip - no penalty.

She seemed to imply that making changes to a AGR award ticket would be fine, and the 10% would only apply to any points returned to your account, after the changes were in place. If you change the date - no problem.

I booked a two zone bedroom award, If I call them later to cancel the trip - then the points would be deposited back in to my AGR account, less 10%. But if I move the dates, change names, or even the destination, no problem.

If the new ticket - after the change, were to cost more - you may have to pay the difference with points or cash. If it were to somehow cost less, and you wish to have the point difference returned to your AGR account, then the 10% penalty is only applied to the points that you return back to your AGR account. Not the entire amount.

It sounded very familiar to me - it's the same as the current policy for credit card purchases - when booking a roomette or bedroom. Currently, if you use a credit card (or cash), and you decide to cancel a trip before the departure time, and request a refund to your credit card, then you only receive 90% of the amount back to your credit card. And, as most of us know - you can also choose to receive 100% of a cancelled trip as a voucher for a future trip.

 

[Anderson]

Well, the issue is that with a CC transaction many of us almost always take the voucher so the refund fee is academic. With a points trip there's no way to "voucher out" a reservation, which is the main gripe to be had (in a sense Amtrak has the value "on account"). Moreover, it's always possible to wind up in a situation where the date you change to is cheaper...which is awesome, except for the fact that you're going to lose 10% of any "savings" rather than it kicking to a voucher.

What this says to me is that if one is doing a points reservation, one should keep the trip as broken up as possible so that if you are able to change out the reservation later (or you have to change it out later) for less, you can simply slap additional legs onto the reservation to "protect" those points.by simply adding those "other" legs (and then moving those points to a later-dated trip of similar value somewhere else in the system) and/or shoving multi-city reservations together in order to protect value.

*holds an envelope to his head*

The Great Karnak predicts lots of points being "dumped" onto the few unreserved trains as a holding move when a reservation has to be scrapped.

 

[willem]

The issue with the voucher is exactly what I said in an earlier post in another thread. With a voucher, Amtrak holds the value. With points, Amtrak holds the value. With cash, Amtrak does not hold the value. Why would points be treated like cash rather than vouchers?

Anderson, breaking points trips into multiple reservations is a great idea, and like many great ideas, obvious after the fact. Thanks for pointing it out.

I'm not sure I followed your description of handling a reduction in the cost of a leg. At first, it sounded like you suggested tacking a continuation leg onto the reservation, which would obviously need to be changed by or used at about the same time as the original reservation. Later, it sounded like you suggested making a completely disjoint reservation for some time in the future. The second idea sounds better from a planning and managing point of view, and could well be an unintended outcome for Amtrak of the new policy, if it is allowed.

 

[oregon pioneer]

Hmm, I foresee lots of shuffling reservations forward in order to guard the points value. Amtrak may eventually catch on to the fact that it makes more work for them (and costs them for it), and change it back....

 

[abcnews]

I think the only issue are the old zone awards, that are booked prior to January 24th. Under the old plan it is simply one, two or three zones.

Once all the old awards are out of the system (end of 2016), then it's quite simple. If you change the date, or the destination, etc... and now it cost more, you would just pay the difference with a credit card, or with points.

But for the next twelve months, it sounds like it could be possible to actually change our previously booked "Two Zone" Awards (booked in AGR prior to 1/24/16), as long as it's in reason. I do wonder if you could extend it out to a later date? Like spring 2017...

 

[jis]

Any change made after Jan 23 on an AGR award trip booked before Jan 24 using zone based rules will involve rebooking using the new rules. The zones are truly and absolutely gone after Jan 23.