# CO Chase Card/Amtrak



## Rail Freak (Mar 23, 2010)

If for, some reason, CO Airlines & Amtrak disolved their "Partner Program', I wonder if we would have warning so I could transfer my CO points to Amtrak?

RF


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## PRR 60 (Mar 23, 2010)

Rail Freak said:


> If for, some reason, CO Airlines & Amtrak disolved their "Partner Program', I wonder if we would have warning so I could transfer my CO points to Amtrak?RF


I would not count on getting any advance notice. When Amtrak and United ended their partnership, it happened overnight with no warning.

There is no indication that the CO-AGR partnership is in any trouble. The overwhelming flow is from AGR points to OnePass miles, so CO has no reason to kill the deal. Amtrak needs an strong airline partner as a competitive factor in the NEC (with CO now in *A, Amtrak has a good one in CO), so I do not see Amtrak pulling the plug either. But, there are no guarantees.


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## RRrich (Mar 23, 2010)

If one gets a bunch of *A points, would it be reasonable to assume they can be transferred to AGR (via CO if necessary)


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## PRR 60 (Mar 23, 2010)

RRrich said:


> If one gets a bunch of *A points, would it be reasonable to assume they can be transferred to AGR (via CO if necessary)


In short - no. But, maybe

If you fly a *A carrier other than CO, and you have the miles credited to that carrier's program, then those miles are captive to that carrier and cannot be transfered to another *A carrier. Since you cannot get other carrier miles to OnePass, you cannot get those miles to AGR. You can book award flights on other *A carriers, but you cannot transfer miles between *A carriers.

However, when you fly any *A carrier, you can elect to have the miles credited directly to CO OnePass instead of the host carrier's program. Fly United, put your CO OnePass number in the reservation, and your flight will earn OnePass miles, not Mileage Plus miles. Once credited to OnePass, the miles could then be transferred to AGR.

So, miles already in *A programs like United Mileage Plus cannot be transferred to CO or AGR. But new travel on any *A carrier can go directly to OnePass, and then to AGR.


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## RRrich (Mar 23, 2010)

PRR 60 said:


> RRrich said:
> 
> 
> > If one gets a bunch of *A points, would it be reasonable to assume they can be transferred to AGR (via CO if necessary)
> ...


If its a signup bonus from perhaps United, could I have them credited to CO??


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## PRR 60 (Mar 23, 2010)

RRrich said:


> ...If its a signup bonus from perhaps United, could I have them credited to CO??


I think not.

If the bonus is offed by United, it most likely is a Mileage Plus promotion. The bonus miles would go into your MP account with no option to go to CO OnePass. Once in MP, they cannot get to CO and AGR (or, to be completely accurate, not very easily or very effectively). Basically, if you want to earn AGR points from air travel, you have to either fly CO, or fly *A and credit the miles to CO.


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## Rail Freak (Mar 23, 2010)

Excuse my ignorance but, what is " #a "?

RF


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## PRR 60 (Mar 23, 2010)

Rail Freak said:


> Excuse my ignorance but, what is " #a "?RF


I'm sorry. I hate when people use initials without saying what it is, and I did it.

*A is airline lingo for Star Alliance. Star Alliance is a marketing group of several domestic and international airlines that cross-honor frequent flier programs and have extensive interline booking and code sharing. United, Continental, and US Airways are domestic members of *A. Fly any *A carrier and you can earn the miles on CO. Then transfer CO miles to AGR, and the deal is done.


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## Rail Freak (Mar 23, 2010)

PRR 60 said:


> Rail Freak said:
> 
> 
> > Excuse my ignorance but, what is " #a "?RF
> ...


Thanx, I'm glad I asked that question. I learned something today  !

RF


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## the_traveler (Mar 23, 2010)

Rail Freak said:


> I'm glad I asked that question. I learned something today  ! RF


I guess it's true then that "You can teach an old dog new tricks!"

:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## alanh (Mar 24, 2010)

The key thing to note on the alliance is that you can credit miles earned anywhere in the alliance to one frequent flyer program, and you can use miles to book flights on any alliance member.

The main thing you can't do is move miles from one program to another. So if you've got 15,000 United miles and 10,000 Continental miles, you can't pool them to redeem a 25,000 mile award. You're best off crediting all your miles to a single airline within the alliance. (Very high mileage flyers may spread them out to earn status on more than one airline, but don't worry about that unless you fly more than 75K per year.)


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## the_traveler (Mar 24, 2010)

You actually could move your miles from say United to Continental, but I wouldn't recommend it! <_< After all the transfer fees and exchange fees, your 10,000 MileagePlus miles may only exchange to be worth like 1,800 OnePass Miles!


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## PRR 60 (Mar 24, 2010)

the_traveler said:


> You actually could move your miles from say United to Continental, but I wouldn't recommend it! <_< After all the transfer fees and exchange fees, your 10,000 MileagePlus miles may only exchange to be worth like 1,800 OnePass Miles!


That is true for many programs, but not United. United does not have any conduit for moving miles out from Mileage Plus to any other program or exchange site. You can redeem MP miles for non United stuff, but the miles cannot be moved anywhere else.

And, your right, even when you can do it through some intermediary site, you lose badly in the process. Ironically, AGR was one of those sites back when UA was a partner. There was a brisk business in CO OnePass miles being converted to AGR and then immediately rolled into United MP. The one-to-one CO to UA transfer via AGR was very popular and led to numerous AGR members who never rode a train.

United's pull-out from AGR ended that plan, and AGR clamping down on transfers out to CO and hotel sites pretty much ended the remaining laundering schemes through AGR.


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## alanh (Mar 25, 2010)

Yeah, there was a Continental -> Amtrak -> Choice -> Southwest scheme in 2007 that would let you go 25K Continental -> 25K Amtrak -> 120K Choice -> 48 Southwest credits. That turned miles good for one roundtrip flight into enough for 3 roundtrips on Southwest.

Once one of these arbitrage deals gets posted on the internet, it swamps the companies offering them pretty quickly.


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