# Points for Uncollected Ticket



## WMJ_NJ (Nov 30, 2010)

My daughter recently traveled on the Cap Ltd and on her return trip the Conductor did not collect her ticket. Can I just do a missing points request to get credit?

Thanks,

Bill J


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## MrEd (Nov 30, 2010)

No. I think you have drive that ticket to the nearest station and turn it in first.


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## AlanB (Nov 30, 2010)

I'm not sure that you'll ever be able to get the points. The automated system looks to see if the ticket was collected, that's why you have to enter the ticket number. And of course you already know that it wasn't collected.

Which brings us to the second problem, convincing a live agent that she actually took the trip. And since you don't have a ticket stub with a conductor's punch, that could be a problem too.

You might get lucky, I just don't know. But you might not.


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## PRR 60 (Nov 30, 2010)

AlanB said:


> I'm not sure that you'll ever be able to get the points. The automated system looks to see if the ticket was collected, that's why you have to enter the ticket number. And of course you already know that it wasn't collected.
> 
> Which brings us to the second problem, convincing a live agent that she actually took the trip. And since you don't have a ticket stub with a conductor's punch, that could be a problem too.
> 
> You might get lucky, I just don't know. But you might not.


I would suspect that it is not rare for tickets to get lost in the process between being collected and prior to being scanned, and that AGR regularly gets presented with credit requests with no Amtrak record of a collected ticket. After all, up until the the point when the ticket is scanned, it is a manual process with little scraps of paper being moved around by people. Even if the process has a 99.99% accuracy rate, that still results in 50 lost tickets a week. If half are AGR members, thats 25 cases of trips being taken but not being recorded by Amtrak every week.

I had exactly that situation happen - I rode the train, my ticket was collected and no record of my traveling was recorded by Amtrak. I had to get credit for the trip from AGR after the fact. I got the credit. Taking a trip and not having the ticket collected at all would result in the same scenario from the AGR side - trip taken, but no record of travel from Amtrak.

Since AGR only asks for a copy or fax of the ticket stub and not the original (and we always caution to never send the original), the presence or absence of a punch would not be visible on the copy or fax, and would not seen by AGR. Waiting the requisite 3 weeks and requesting trip credit should do the trick. The OP would not be asking anything from AGR that they are not used to providing.


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## the_traveler (Nov 30, 2010)

I have many times received credit for tickets that were collected, but the points never posted automatically!


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## pennyk (Nov 30, 2010)

I did a very short points run on Thursday and my ticket had not been collected by the time I reached Orlando (the point of de-training). As I was leaving the train, I handed my ticket to the attendant. I hope it will get to the right place. On my return trip (an hour later), the conductor collected my ticket within minutes of leaving Orlando.


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## WMJ_NJ (Nov 30, 2010)

I'm going to do a missing points request and see what happens. I will report the result. Thanks for the comments.

Bill J


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## Devil's Advocate (Nov 30, 2010)

This seems like a pretty big screw up by Amtrak. Couldn't the OP simply request a refund for the uncollected ticket?


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## AlanB (Nov 30, 2010)

daxomni said:


> Couldn't the OP simply request a refund for the uncollected ticket?


Yes, they could do that too, although that would invoke the 10% penalty. They'd actually be better off requesting a voucher towards a future trip if they go down that road.


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## the_traveler (Nov 30, 2010)

daxomni said:


> Couldn't the OP simply request a refund for the uncollected ticket?


Yes, they could, but that would also mean giving up on collecting at least 200 AGR points (if they registered for the current promo) - and maybe missing out on making Select or Select+ by a few points!


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## Ispolkom (Dec 1, 2010)

I'd definitely request credit, but my experience has been mixed.

Last summer Mrs. Ispolkom and I went on a points run. We were booked on the same reservation to travel St. Paul - Milwaukee - Milwaukee Airport - Milwaukee - Chicago. In the event, we decided not to backtrack from Milwaukee Airport to Milwaukee, and instead went directly from Milwaukee Airport to Chicago. We turned in the unused Milwaukee Airport - Milwaukee tickets to buy a ticket for another trip.

Weeks pass, and neither of us got our AGR points, a sore point, since we were looking at a triple-points bonus.

The Web site request for missing points failed, and we both eventually talked to AGR agents, Mrs. Ispolkom several times. The end result was that I got credit (and triple points bonus) for all four tickets, including the one I hadn't used (about 1300 points), while Mrs. Ispolkom only received 400 "goodwill" points. Between us both we were only a few hundred points short, so we gave up at that point.

As usual with AGR, you have do decide how much work you're willing to do to get your points.


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## WMJ_NJ (Dec 1, 2010)

Ispolkom said:


> I'd definitely request credit, but my experience has been mixed.
> 
> Last summer Mrs. Ispolkom and I went on a points run. We were booked on the same reservation to travel St. Paul - Milwaukee - Milwaukee Airport - Milwaukee - Chicago. In the event, we decided not to backtrack from Milwaukee Airport to Milwaukee, and instead went directly from Milwaukee Airport to Chicago. We turned in the unused Milwaukee Airport - Milwaukee tickets to buy a ticket for another trip.
> 
> ...


Don't forget last summer AGR was run by a contractor. It may be different with Amtrak people running it now.

Bill J


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## Ispolkom (Dec 1, 2010)

WMJ_NJ said:


> Ispolkom said:
> 
> 
> > I'd definitely request credit, but my experience has been mixed.
> ...


True, true, but most of our interactions with AGR agents were after October 1. But if there ever were an organization where YMMV, it's AGR.


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## City of Miami (Dec 2, 2010)

I have received points under these circumstances twice but it took some complaining. Ultimately what worked was to fax AGR copies of the ticket. Fax seems to be the operative word. It seems they get far fewer faxes than other communications thus it is much more likely to get the attention it needs.


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## Anderson (Dec 3, 2010)

My thought would be to try and collect on it. If that fails...I'm a bit mixed on trying to get credit towards a future trip. On the one hand, it's not quite honest; on the other, this is a sort of "bank error in your favor", since the uncollected ticket is likely worth more in cash than in points, and Amtrak's policies would seem to (if somewhat by accident rather than design) encourage this. On a moral level, I'd have to counsel against it as it effectively screws Amtrak out of fares, but on a practical level, I'm not entirely sure what I'd do in that case given that the ticket still has its de facto cash value.


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## WMJ_NJ (Jan 2, 2011)

WMJ_NJ said:


> I'm going to do a missing points request and see what happens. I will report the result. Thanks for the comments.
> 
> Bill J


Well the "missing points request" didn't do anything but a phone call did and the points posted over the weekend.

Bill J


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