# Missing Points & Rewards Call



## Railroad Bill (May 6, 2009)

Well, after spending the last half hour on hold or listening to a rather inept description of Amtrak Rewards policy, I have become rather frustrated with the New Amtrak Guest Rewards Service.

As of today, I have received credit for three legs of our trip from CLE-SLC and SLC-CLE that we took on March 15. Those points were credited on or before April 1.

The second leg (CHI-SLC) has not been credited after three online "request for points" forms and a separate internet request. :angry:

I decided to call them today and had a young woman who obviously was reading from a script and could not answer any questions without assistance. She checked my reservation number (which she managed to write down incorrectly) and then after she finally got that right, she said she had no record of that trip being taken. Then she said I had left from Milwaukee ??. Then she wanted to credit me with a trip I had already been credited with. 

I was very nice to her and tried to be understanding. 

I then asked if I might submit the ticket stub for credit and she said that would do no good. "Until we received notice that you took the trip, we will not give the points." :angry:

I asked what would happen if the conductor failed to turn in that ticket or Amtrak lost the ticket. Perhaps I could send them the ticket stub to prove the trip had been taken. She said it wouldnt matter since the only verification they would accept was notification from Amtrak. <_<

That leg of the trip was also not credited for my wife's ticket but I am not in the mood to pursue that one at this time. All in all we would be missing over 1300 points that I would like to have since I paid and took the trip. :angry:

I noticed that others have had similar problems with the new Guest Rewards people. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Railroad Bill


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## Long Train Runnin' (May 6, 2009)

Call back and hope you find someone with something besides air between there shoulders.


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## AlanB (May 6, 2009)

Railroad Bill said:


> I then asked if I might submit the ticket stub for credit and she said that would do no good. "Until we received notice that you took the trip, we will not give the points." :angry: I asked what would happen if the conductor failed to turn in that ticket or Amtrak lost the ticket. Perhaps I could send them the ticket stub to prove the trip had been taken. She said it wouldnt matter since the only verification they would accept was notification from Amtrak. <_<


Bill,

She's completely wrong about that. What she's describing is the automatic process. When it fails however, only AGR can fix the problem. There is no way that Amtrak can notify them that something is wrong.

That said, rule #1: Don't mail them your ticket stub. If you do and they loose it, you've lost. Send them a copy of your ticket stub, not the original. That assumes that you get someone who does tell you to mail it in.

First call back AGR and ask to speak with a supervisor to see if things can't be resolved that way.


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## Shanghai (May 6, 2009)

I took a trip on March 27th and still have not received credit after sending three online requests and two telephone calls. On both calls, I was told there will be no problem and I would get immediate credit. On my second call, I asked for credit for another trip that had not posted. The second trip was credited the following day, but I still have not received credit for the first trip. I will call again next week when I get home. I took another trip last Sunday and have not received credit for it as of today.

I have been a member for three years and up to now, have never had a problem. Is it likely that the new AGR administrative company could be causing the problem of trips not being posted? I have always thought that Amtrak was responsible for posting the points, not the AGR administrator.


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## AlanB (May 6, 2009)

Shanghai said:


> I have been a member for three years and up to now, have never had a problem. Is it likely that the new AGR administrative company could be causing the problem of trips not being posted? I have always thought that Amtrak was responsible for posting the points, not the AGR administrator.


It's a computer automated process. Conductor lifts your ticket, he/she turns it in, ticket's bar code gets scanned, and Amtrak's computer sees your AGR number and sends a file to the AGR computers with the info.

As to why it's failing so much of late I can only speculate, but my guess is that something is going wrong at the AGR end. After all, I'm not sure why Amtrak would suddenly start missing the scanning of so many tickets and the program that creates the AGR point transfer file has been in place for some 9 years now, so unless it received some recent overhaul that is causing a problem, which only leaves AGR. And AGR is the only thing that I'm aware of having any changes in the last 6 months.

By the way, for those missing points, only try the online system twice. There is no point in trying more than twice. If it doesn't post after the first attempt, wait a few days and make a second request. If it doesn't post within a week after that second internet request, it won't post automatically and only human intervention will fix the problem.


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## Shanghai (May 6, 2009)

Thank you Alan. I'll call again next week.


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## Railroad Bill (May 7, 2009)

Well, just got off the phone with Amtrak Guest Rewards. This time I got Janice who was a gem of an employee. She looked up my ticket number- found the missing trip and immediately posted it while I watched my screen. She also did my wife's missing trip and was a very pleasant individual. 

Wow! What a difference from yesterday with Harriet. I am afraid that lady needs more training because she had no clue as to handle my request. :angry:

As Alan B and many others have said. If you get a bad employee one day, try again the next. The quality is out there but the company needs to work on consistency. Janice should be a trainer of new people because she is the best. 

Thanks to everyone for your advice. I am now 790 points richer and my wife is 668 points ahead and we are excited about our next trip on the CL and TE in just three weeks. Yahoo! 

Railroad Bill


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## jis (May 7, 2009)

These days, for about a third of my trips it is taking at least one call before I get the trip credited. I wish they'd get over their birth pangs and get this smoothed out.

Moral of the story..... guard those ticket stubs carefully until you have verified that the points have been credited.


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## Shawn (May 8, 2009)

I have been having the same problems lately. Not impressed with AGR lately...


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## jis (May 8, 2009)

And of the calls that I have to make, half of them require more than one call to get resolution. Even after they say they will credit by the end of the day often they fail to do so. It is more or less broken.


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## PRR 60 (May 9, 2009)

jis said:


> And of the calls that I have to make, half of them require more than one call to get resolution. Even after they say they will credit by the end of the day often they fail to do so. It is more or less broken.


Maybe this is a new marketing opportunity for Amtrak and AGR. For most carriers, you take a trip and get miles or points. Reliable, but dull. Amtrak could make it like a lottery. Take a trip and see if you get points. Think of the drama as you log on every day to see if you were one of the lucky passenger to to have a trip credited. When a trip credits, a little box on the AGR site could flash congratulating your good fortune. They could also reprogram the missing points submission page. You enter the data, submit the form, and get an immediate reply, "Sorry, no points. Better luck next time. And, thanks for riding Amtrak."

Seriously, I literally took two trips today hoping that one will post. If I get both, I'll be thrilled. Five weeks ago, I took two trips, and one posted. 50-50 seems to be the odds that a trip will post without intervention.


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## Long Train Runnin' (May 9, 2009)

PRR 60 said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > And of the calls that I have to make, half of them require more than one call to get resolution. Even after they say they will credit by the end of the day often they fail to do so. It is more or less broken.
> ...


:lol: :lol: So I guess I should be lucky that I'm 3 for 3 so far this year? Although it did take them 4 months to send me my welcome packet and AGR card...


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## Shanghai (May 11, 2009)

My March 27th trip posted today after another call to AGR!!


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## PetalumaLoco (May 11, 2009)

I suppose we get the same level of service for earning points with special purchases? I took advantage of the 1-800-flowers promo (25 pts for each $1 spent) a week ago and nothing has shown up - except flowers.


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## JayPea (May 12, 2009)

PetalumaLoco said:


> I suppose we get the same level of service for earning points with special purchases? I took advantage of the 1-800-flowers promo (25 pts for each $1 spent) a week ago and nothing has shown up - except flowers.



I did the same thing. I recall reading in the AGR fine print that with purchases made in the AGR "mall" that the points could take up to 6-8 weeks to post. I wouldn't be concerned at this point.


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## PetalumaLoco (May 12, 2009)

JayPea said:


> PetalumaLoco said:
> 
> 
> > I suppose we get the same level of service for earning points with special purchases? I took advantage of the 1-800-flowers promo (25 pts for each $1 spent) a week ago and nothing has shown up - except flowers.
> ...


Ow, they should join the 20th century. Thanks for the tip.


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## the_traveler (May 12, 2009)

The "6-8 weeks" thing is partly to make sure you don't return the items after they had already given you the points, and partly because many companies only process and send authorization for the points once a month. (Most times, you are not going to "return" your trip on Amtrak from NYP to BOS after you arrived in BOS, so Amtrak can give you points very soon. However, you could return that item you bought from Radio Shack or Sears in a week, so they must wait.)


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## chuljin (May 14, 2009)

Yes, I, too, have recently noticed some small and large madnesses with AGR posting.

A few months ago, all trips but one posted without fail, but with a sudden large increase (approximately doubling) the average time from travel to post.

The one that didn't, I called 21 days after travel, and decided not to bother calling them again, after the agent I spoke to asked for the reservation number, but refused my offer of the ticket number, swearing she didn't need it (the missing trip was the last of four, all traveled, on the same reservation, not to post).

It then gradually decreased to back to the previous usual 6-8 days by around the middle of March, then the wheels fell off.

The 6-8 days average continued, and even improved (decreased) a little, but then there would be 2-3 tickets on the same or adjacent days that wouldn't post, even after 3 weeks.

I got tired of typing up flowery letters and faxing them with copies of the stubs (I keep every stub from every trip, even after they post...the stack is now 5 inches high  ), so like any red-blooded developer, I wrote a program which, every day at 10am (in my experience, automatic posting of tickets is at 5 or 6am early in the week and 9:30am later in the week [go figure]) sends them a nice email with all the relevant details of any tickets traveled at least 21 days before but not yet posted.

They'd respond to most of them with a lightly-customized form letter:



email from them said:


> Dear Mr. chuljin,
> Thank you for contacting the Amtrak Guest Rewards Service Center.
> 
> We have received your information and any qualifying travel points will
> ...


...and then the ticket would shortly thereafter post.

Recently, that's kind of fallen down a bit too. Two of this current 'batch' of three missing ones from two adjacent days still haven't posted, after several requests...and the third posted yesterday, but for zero points...because they were mistaken about the travel date.

So naturally I enhanced the program to ask for corrections of zero-posted trips too. 

And today, that one was corrected.

Isn't this fun. I'm just glad I no longer have to do it manually. 



sample email to them said:


> Member Name: Chul JinMember Number: 7890123456
> 
> Level: Select Plus
> 
> ...


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## PRR 60 (May 14, 2009)

chuljin said:


> ...I got tired of typing up flowery letters and faxing them with copies of the stubs (I keep every stub from every trip, even after they post...the stack is now 5 inches high  ), so like any red-blooded developer, I wrote a program which, every day at 10am (in my experience, automatic posting of tickets is at 5 or 6am early in the week and 9:30am later in the week [go figure]) sends them a nice email with all the relevant details of any tickets traveled at least 21 days before but not yet posted.


Do you e-mail to an address for AGR? The only thing I can find in "Contact Us" is the message form for inquiries.


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## Long Train Runnin' (May 14, 2009)

chuljin said:


> Isn't this fun. I'm just glad I no longer have to do it manually.


Who Ever reads that email must want to slam there head against the desk :lol:


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## chuljin (Jun 22, 2009)

chuljin said:


> So naturally I enhanced the program to ask for corrections of zero-posted trips too.  And today, that one was corrected.
> 
> Isn't this fun. I'm just glad I no longer have to do it manually.
> 
> ...


*And now I should probably stop, and let the tickets that post, post, and just grin and bear and write off the ones that don't:**elliott.org | Airline freezes passenger’s mileage account after “disturbing” number of complaints*



> *For those of you who think a well-worded complaint is the fastest way to a free ticket, I have some bad news: The airlines are on to you.** *
> 
> *Consider what happened to George Yen. He found himself locked out of his Mileage Plus account after United Airlines took issue with his frequent complaints.*


*...though I differ in that I'm not trying to get one over, just get full credit for my T&C-compliant travel (frequent, but T&C-compliant *  *).*


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## PRR 60 (Jun 22, 2009)

If Mr. Yen filed 200 complaints with UA in six months, imagine how many he would filed with Amtrak. Amtrak, however, has the best policy for that. They ignore complaints. All Mr. Yen would have for his trouble is 200 messages in his Sent folder. There would be no points to audit because there would have been no points granted. Borderline genius, on Amtrak and AGR's part.


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