# Double Days are back (3/16/15-5/16/15)



## BCL (Mar 3, 2015)

I didn't see it on the AGR or Amtrak front pages, and didn't get an email yet, but I noticed it when I checked my AGR offers.



> https://amtrakguestrewards.com/DoubleDays
> 
> STOP DREAMING. START PACKING.
> 
> Travel Amtrak® March 16th through May 16th, 2015 and earn double points to over 500 destinations across the country.


Last time I scored 5100 points (all from 100 point segments), although I had more tier points with some 3-segment days.


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## Golden grrl (Mar 3, 2015)

I just got the email [timestamped at 3:27 today] and have just signed up.

Whoohooo!


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## Long Train Runnin' (Mar 3, 2015)

I just got an email as well. Gotta be quick to break news on AU :lol: still a very generous time frame. Coupled with the usual one in the fall you can do pretty good with AGR.


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## AmtrakBlue (Mar 3, 2015)

No email yet, but signed up.


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## Barciur (Mar 3, 2015)

Yeah, it's awesome that they do this every year, 2 months each. It works out so well and makes me go out more.


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## PupfosterG (Mar 3, 2015)

Does this offer apply to travel previously scheduled during this time frame, or for only new reservations starting today?


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## Bob Dylan (Mar 3, 2015)

Just got the e-mail and Registered! This is how I make Select by taking Point Runs to Taylor to eat great Bar- B- Q, which I would do anyway, but the 200 TQPs fo each trip plus the Bonus points of 250 plus the Points from Chase on my AGR MC help pay for LD Sleeper trips I otherwise couldn't afford!


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## trainman74 (Mar 3, 2015)

PupfosterG said:


> Does this offer apply to travel previously scheduled during this time frame, or for only new reservations starting today?


Any travel you take during the period (assuming you sign up for the promo) -- doesn't matter when you reserve.


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## BCL (Mar 3, 2015)

trainman74 said:


> PupfosterG said:
> 
> 
> > Does this offer apply to travel previously scheduled during this time frame, or for only new reservations starting today?
> ...


Or even sign up for the promo after taking trips during the promo period and AGR will backdate the double points.

Oh - I just noticed I got the message in my email more than 2 hours after I got my confirmation that I signed up. The title of the message is "Exclusive early registration for Double Days‏", although I'm not quite sure if there's any AGR member who can't sign up right away or where it doesn't show on the account page.


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## Barciur (Mar 3, 2015)

I just signed up myself. Also, no clue how "exclusive early registration" has any bearing on it - at the end of the day, we all get same points...


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## the_traveler (Mar 3, 2015)

I didn't get any email  but thanks to AU I registered!


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## AmtrakBlue (Mar 3, 2015)

I just got my email. I signed up earlier today after seeing this thread.


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## BCL (Mar 3, 2015)

Barciur said:


> I just signed up myself. Also, no clue how "exclusive early registration" has any bearing on it - at the end of the day, we all get same points...


I understand event ticket presales for members, credit card holders, etc, but Double Days isn't really a limited commodity where there's "competition" for that limited commodity.


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## benale (Mar 3, 2015)

With fares as low as $11.04 Round trip with the Senior fare, I'm ready to take some short hops. I usually take the Keystones. I have two Megabus trips planned for the next two months from Harrisburg to Chicago($4 round trip) and plan to do some point runs. Never a shortage of choices in Chicago. With an upgrade to business class and/or using my coupons to get into the Metropolitan lounge, I can spend some time there after the all night bus ride. It's kind of crazy,but I enjoy it.


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## BCL (Mar 4, 2015)

benale said:


> With fares as low as $11.04 Round trip with the Senior fare, I'm ready to take some short hops. I usually take the Keystones. I have two Megabus trips planned for the next two months from Harrisburg to Chicago($4 round trip) and plan to do some point runs. Never a shortage of choices in Chicago. With an upgrade to business class and/or using my coupons to get into the Metropolitan lounge, I can spend some time there after the all night bus ride. It's kind of crazy,but I enjoy it.


I can think of some interesting point runs around here. I've done Richmond, CA to San Francisco for $12, minus AAA discount. That's two segments. GAC-SCC-SJC is $8.50 minus any discounts, and one can get a transfer to take VTA back. We've got lots of options around here.


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## Barciur (Mar 4, 2015)

benale said:


> With fares as low as $11.04 Round trip with the Senior fare, I'm ready to take some short hops. I usually take the Keystones. I have two Megabus trips planned for the next two months from Harrisburg to Chicago($4 round trip) and plan to do some point runs. Never a shortage of choices in Chicago. With an upgrade to business class and/or using my coupons to get into the Metropolitan lounge, I can spend some time there after the all night bus ride. It's kind of crazy,but I enjoy it.


A bit off-topic, but I don't see "Chicago" as an option from Harrisburg. Are you sure it's megabus?


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## benale (Mar 4, 2015)

You take Megabus from Harrisburg to State College, then connect with the bus that goes to Chicago via Cleveland and Toledo. I would leave directly from State College,but they don't allow overnight parking. Megabus just added new dates through the summer yesterday and many of their fares are still a dollar.including State College-Chicago.


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## VentureForth (Mar 4, 2015)

Drat. Will be making my Philly trip just two days earlier...


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## Mystic River Dragon (Mar 4, 2015)

I got my notice yesterday and signed up. I love this promotion but am not as skilled as many of you at finding points runs (something for me to work on!).

Hearing about Double Days was some good news on a day full of news about miserable weather and anti-rail Congresspeople behaving badly!


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## Barciur (Mar 4, 2015)

It's not really about the skill, but your location


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## Bjartmarr (Mar 4, 2015)

Yeah, I'm in Los Angeles. I can't find any trips cheaper than $9, which means that even with double days those points will cost me 4.5 cents each. It's not really worth it unless I actually want to go somewhere.


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## BCL (Mar 4, 2015)

Bjartmarr said:


> Yeah, I'm in Los Angeles. I can't find any trips cheaper than $9, which means that even with double days those points will cost me 4.5 cents each. It's not really worth it unless I actually want to go somewhere.


BUR-GDL-LAX as a multi-city trip for $9. 200 tier qualifying points and doubles under this promotion (max two 100 point segments per day). You could take Metrolink back since it's cheaper, although perhaps Amtrak to get another 100 points (won't double though). Or just round trip for $18. Also AAA discount if you book early enough.


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## Mystic River Dragon (Mar 4, 2015)

Barciur said:


> It's not really about the skill, but your location


You are so right about the location--when I work on a Saturday, I technically could take Amtrak from TRE to PJC (about a 10-minute ride). However, when I checked the price (thinking of a points run), the ticket cost almost as much as PHL to PJC. Don't know if it's because of being in the expensive New York-Phlly corridor or if they have a deal with NJ Transit (or some other reason).


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## Anderson (Mar 5, 2015)

@Bjartmarr:
If you use your points efficiently, you can often break even at 4.5 cents per point (an LAX-CHI roomette, 20k points without the credit card or 19k points with it after the 5% rebate, can crack $1000 if you travel via the programmed LAX-PDX-CHI routing; that translates into a bit over 5 cents per point). An LAX-SEA roomette is in a similar position. Moreover, properly milked points runs can also grab status along the way, and each status level comes with a bump in point earning on base points. Also, do remember that NARP/AAA membership should knock 10% off those prices, so you're actually looking at $8.10 for those 400 points (or around $0.0203/point). Trust me, you can get $0.02 worth out of each point.

To underline the combination of status, credit card, and Double Days earning, if I made the run you'd be looking at I would get 616 points for $8.10:
-100/leg base earning (200 total)

-100/leg status-based earning (200 total, from Select Executive status)

-100/leg Double Days earning (200 total)

-16 total from the credit card (2 points/dollar for 16)

The earn would be about 76 points per dollar (or 1.3 cents per point).


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## Bjartmarr (Mar 5, 2015)

Oh, I didn't realize that a multi-city trip counted as two trips. Thanks!

Do I have to find the conductor twice to get both tickets lifted, or will they do them both at the same time?


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## the_traveler (Mar 5, 2015)

A multi-city *ONLY* counts as two trips if 2 different train *NUMBERS* are used! As an example:

You want to go from BOS to WAS. You book a multi-city BOS-NYP-WAS. If you use train #93 on both portions, it would only count once. However, if you used #93 BOS-NYP, waited at the station (or went somewhere) then took #95 NYP-WAS, it would count twice - because 2 train #'s were taken!


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## BCL (Mar 5, 2015)

Bjartmarr said:


> Oh, I didn't realize that a multi-city trip counted as two trips. Thanks!
> 
> Do I have to find the conductor twice to get both tickets lifted, or will they do them both at the same time?


I do that every now and then. Since there's a max 4 minimum segments (per day) that accrue towards TQPs I'll throw one or two in. I have a few places I can stop in between for breakfast. Of course double points accrue only a max 2 minimum point segments per day, but that's OK. You have to get off the train and take another train. I've had conductors ask me if I wanted to use both segments at the same time. A few times I forgot to set my alarm clock and then figured I had to use both segments together. In that case it only accrues as one segment.

Bus trips also count as one segment. One of the better deals I've seen is 50% Capitol Corridor on weekends. I needed just under 600 TQPs to make Select for 2014, so I did RIC-EMY-SFC-EMY-RIC on December 29, 2014. $12 round-trip and I was able to do it in less than 2.5 hours from start to finish. I even had time in between to buy some bread and get coffee at the San Francisco Ferry Building. I finished the last 200 points by taking BART into San Francisco and SFC-EMY-RIC on New Year's Eve for $12 minus the AAA discount. There's actually a cheaper ride (Berkeley to San Francisco), but since it's such a short segment there's the chance of a ticket not being lifted.

I guess I'll have to adjust with the San Francisco Ferry Building bus stop relocated. I never had to check in luggage anyways.

I've also done all sorts of things to get bus segments. The San Francisco-Emeryville buses have a standalone cost of $5.50, although I've seen them priced at $2 when I booked them with an actual connecting trip. I can book the bus segment as long as it's booked with a reasonable train segment. What I do is book a commute ride to work on Capitol Corridor from EMY, take VTA and Caltrain up to San Francisco, ride MUNI to a bus stop, and ride the bus back to EMY where my car is parked. I rather like mixing it up, especially since one is allowed to consume personal alcohol on Caltrain.


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## KmH (Mar 20, 2015)

trainman74 said:


> PupfosterG said:
> 
> 
> > Does this offer apply to travel previously scheduled during this time frame, or for only new reservations starting today?
> ...


Cool. I was wondering the same thing.

\


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## PupfosterG (Mar 27, 2015)

Just checking, TQPs are earned only on travel (not purchased points). I'm reading Amtrak's definition: "are earned by traveling on Amtrak and during special promotions". My recently earned Double points do not show as TQPs. I did received my TQPs for my travel. Is this correct?


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## the_traveler (Mar 27, 2015)

Yes. Since you buy the points from Points.com and not Amtrak, you do not earn TPQ's. The "special promotions" are when they specify something like "Earn double points *AND* the bonus points will count towards status (TPQs)!" (This does not happen very often.)


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## BCL (Mar 27, 2015)

PupfosterG said:


> Just checking, TQPs are earned only on travel (not purchased points). I'm reading Amtrak's definition: "are earned by traveling on Amtrak and during special promotions". My recently earned Double points do not show as TQPs. I did received my TQPs for my travel. Is this correct?


TQPs only come from actual, confirmed Amtrak travel and there's no TQP bonus with the Double-Days promotion. However, with electronic ticketing, multi-ride TQPs seem to post some time after the first use. I suppose that's the point where they're not eligible for a refund.

There are the occasional TQP promotions, like the last Fast Track to Status. The terms were supposedly for segments valued for at least $35 and no multi-ride tickets qualified. Even so, I seemed to get double TQPs for my two multi-ride tickets that started during the promotional period. My regular tickets were all under the $35 threshold. The double TQPs also counted as doubled regular redemption points.


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## PupfosterG (Apr 1, 2015)

Thinking of doing my first points run during double days. Thinking of KCY-LEE, LEE-KCY, KCY-LEE, LEE-KCY. All in one day. Book as 4 one way tickets, would earn 400 TQP's and 400 for double days. My out of pocket cost with AAA discount would be $32.40. Am I doing this correctly? Is that a fairly good price for points?


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## Lakeshore (Apr 2, 2015)

You only get double points for two one-way segments per day.


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## PupfosterG (Apr 2, 2015)

Thanks, good to know!


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## BCL (Apr 2, 2015)

Barciur said:


> It's not really about the skill, but your location


Certainly location helps, but knowledge helps. Knowledges of discounts, timing, buses, stopovers, etc. I can save with two minimum point segments and then find an alternate way home. Or just get home and work on collecting TQPs even if these segments don't double redemption points.

For Double Days I suppose there aren't really "points runs" unless you're trying to max out on minimum point TQPs, since they max out at two per calendar day. One round trip and you're done - if they're short trips.

One of these days I'm going to try a GAC-SCC-GAC roundtrip or maybe BKY-EMY-BKY.


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## neutralist (Apr 2, 2015)

Basically anything that can be booked in the online system will earn points.

This includes those "Train Day" excursion trips, like CHI - CTD (May 9th) and CHI - CHC (May 8th).


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## BCL (May 5, 2015)

So - anyone really clean up? So far I've only gotten 1200 points (all from minimum point segments) as I've been driving to work more often. Last Double Days I racked up 5100 doubled points, although that included more TQPs than that because I rode 3 or more segments a few days.

I think my cheapest points were $6.75 for two segments using a 25% discount to go to a baseball game (EMY-OKJ-OAC). I made sure to enter a door where there was a conductor, and one time the conductor even scanned my ticket outside of the train.


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## Shanghai (May 16, 2015)

I have received 5.050 bonus points and more to go on travel from yesterday & today.


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## AmtrakBlue (May 16, 2015)

I decided to wait till almost the last minute to get double points. I'm getting on a train at 5:45 today. Though I won't get a lot of points because only a small portion was paid with cash.


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