AGR layover amount

[AlanB]

No, that would not be more accurate. The fact that some agents don't pay attention to the rules does not indicate that the rules don't exist.

If there are rules they are not published and which change without warning or even an acknowledgement that they've changed, and they aren't always enforced. Outside of the actions of Soviet bureaucracies, that doesn't fit any definition of rules I'm familiar with, and its effects are similar enough to random arbitrariness to me.

The rules aren't published any place that you or I can see them, but they do exist. And yes, the do sometimes change without warning. But again, the fact that some agents don't follow them doesn't mean that they don't exist. And sometimes the agents "changes" get noticed and they get retrained and sometimes they don't.

We've never discussed this publicly before, but since it has now been over 2 years since AGR went in house and I can see that you need more, back when Carlson was the AGR provider we had a secret AGR Insider here on our forum. One supervisor from Carlson joined up here and he affected help for people with problems. At least two recipients of his efforts were Greg (GSwager) and Al (RailFanLNK). In the latter case, this agent saved Al's trip that was literally going underwater due to flooding on the CZ route at that time. He also helped several people in getting their partner points from various stores to post.

In any event, this supervisor and I chatted many times about all things AGR. And I can assure you that there are rules; rules that sometimes don't get followed by an agent, which is where your confusion comes into play when you try to analyze things.

I didn't say it was a perfect solution, but by and large it cut out much of the abuse that was originally happening. Additionally, they've since applied the rule that if you cross into a zone, you pay for that zone. So in your first two examples, if they even allow the trip, you will still pay for a two zone award, even though you started and ended in the Central zone.

Did it? Was the principal "abuse" people traveling routes that weren't available from amtrak.com? I don't think so, and I'd love to see evidence that supports your claim. Here's evidence that it was the routes that were programmed into amtrak.com that Amtrak disliked the most:

1) The Slidell-West Coast two-zone routing disappeared before 4/1/10, an event that at the time was ascribed to "cracking down on loophole abuse."

2) The trip that in some versions of the story (isn't it great that there are legends about AGR?) supposedly was the catalysis for the banning of loophole trips was, if I recall, a Kansas City-Columbus route.

3) Even when loophole trips were allowed, I encountered agents who would only book trips that were on amtrak.com.

I think that it was the change in how many routes were charged for trips that crossed zones that was the key feature in the post 4/1/10 crackdown, not the nonlisted itineraries.

Nope! You're confusing two separate things. There were the changes that happened a couple of years back due to one person's pushing so hard that an already questionable loophole trip also be allowed on a blackout date because an AGR agent had made a mistake in booking things. That led to the crack down on loophole trips, trips that were always valid before and at least as far as ARROW is concerned are still valid trips even today. It's just that AGR won't book it, at least not without charging you extra points.

And then there is the rule that any AGR trip must conform to a pre-programmed ARROW routing; that one cannot use a Multi-City type function to piece together one's dream trip. I'm not sure if that rule was always in place from day 1 of AGR, but I suspect not as I recall people managing to book some very interesting routings early on. And I've both been here and in AGR since day 1. I have no factual data to bring to bear on this, but my guess is that the ARROW only routings rule came into being sometime within the second or third year of AGR's existence.

 

[the_traveler]

Here's the semi secret way to get to the west coast via the TE!

Since a 3 zone Roomette is the same cost in points as a 2 zone award plus a 1 zone award, if starting in the eastern zone book a 2 zone award to ELP and then a 1 zone award to the west coast!

 

[Ispolkom]

The rules aren't published any place that you or I can see them, but they do exist. And yes, the do sometimes change without warning. But again, the fact that some agents don't follow them doesn't mean that they don't exist. And sometimes the agents "changes" get noticed and they get retrained and sometimes they don't.
...

In any event, this supervisor and I chatted many times about all things AGR. And I can assure you that there are rules; rules that sometimes don't get followed by an agent, which is where your confusion comes into play when you try to analyze things.

I guess that this is something that we'll just have to agree to disagree about. I deal with regulations for a living, and for me, it's simple: if rules are secret they aren't rules. The agent can claim almost anything and there is no recourse, because the present agent can either claim that my experience in the past was with an agent who misapplied the rules, or the rules have secretly changed. How can I argue? After all, I don't have access to the rules.

Given that, I see no advantage to me as an AGR customer to believe any such rules exist. Sure, you say that you know someone who has seen them. Great! I've met people who've claimed to have seen Elvis. Both Elvis and AGR's rules existed, no doubt. It's just unclear what their present state is.

Faced with such an indeterminate situation, it's just as useful for me to believe that AGR agents roll dice against my Charisma score as it is to imagine that the agent imperfectly applies a list of poorly enforced (and probably inexactly written) rules. Either scenario equally accurately reflects the results I see, and I find my D&D theory more amusing. YMMV.

 

[amamba]

Now I'll be humming "in the garage" to myself everytime I call AGR.

"I've got a 12 sided died.....I've got a dungeon-master's guide...."

 

[AlanB]

Sure, you say that you know someone who has seen them. Great! I've met people who've claimed to have seen Elvis. Both Elvis and AGR's rules existed, no doubt. It's just unclear what their present state is.

Again, you don't have to take my word for it. As I noted, there are members here who spoke with this former supervisor and are fully aware that he existed. Heck a search should even turn up Al's report about the help he got, as well as the fact that there is a post on here from Greg who got called by this Supervisor after he saw a post made by Greg regarding a problem he'd had in booking a trip.

So there will be no more talk of Elvis, as his existence (the Supervisor, not Elvis) is documented on this forum, and there are others who have spoken with him on the phone. And quite frankly I find your entire statement insulting.

And you can go right on believing what you want, I can't stop that, nor would I want to. But you do have a recourse, you can appeal to AGR Insider over at Flyertalk. Becky does respond to people who PM her.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Even though frequent rider/flyer programs are always in a state of flux I find that I get more of what I want from United's Mileage Plus (*A) and American's Aadvantage (OW) than I do from AGR. They're just easier to figure out, everything can be done online, and even though the options are fewer the required points are less, the rules are easier to decipher, and I can "buy" a flight at the last minute. Hopefully AGR will get better about this over time, but in recent years it's been getting worse and worse with higher minimums, more rules, and fewer options. New technologies have the potential to make things better in some ways, but with the growing pressure from politicians to sever Amtrak from the federal budget it's hard to see much incentive for making things better for average customers at this time. Hopefully this won't be the case forever.

 

[amamba]

I had great success sending a PM to the AGR Insider at Flyer Talk. She helped me out with an issue once. I can't even remember what it was, but she was super nice about it and the issue got resolved.

 

[Ispolkom]

So there will be no more talk of Elvis, as his existence (the Supervisor, not Elvis) is documented on this forum, and there are others who have spoken with him on the phone. And quite frankly I find your entire statement insulting.

I apologize for the insult, as I did not intend one, but will point out that I was not comparing the supervisor to Elvis. I was comparing the rules to Elvis.