Amtrak Guest Rewards 2.0 Coming January 2016

[BCL]

Someone help me out here. There have been many changes lately, the buy point limit has been raised, the price of points have increased by $100 if you buy the 10,000 points, and there is talk of devalue of points in the near future. What's really going on. Let's not forget the new card and AGR 2.0. Granted I'm an old man, but something is just not adding up for keeping we the customer.

They're trying to keep the "cost" of running the program. I mean, it does seem kind of broken when people are buying points because it's cheaper than paying for a trip with cash.

They're certainly not doing this revamp piecemeal. I for one took advantage of the 100 point minimum, but it won't matter come this Feb. However, I'll have my 30,000+ points, and I suppose the new redemption rules will encourage me to actually use them rather than hoard them.

 

[winterskigirl]

It sounds like the point for dollar redemption is a better deal than the old zone map redemption. For example, if I want to travel CHI to SEA one way on the Empire Builder at a roomette price say of $ 422.00 (I picked this just now from the Amtrak site for January 2016 travel) it would be saving a huge amount of points! Under the current point redemption this trip (2 zones) would be the equivalent of 20,00 points. Have I assessed this correctly?

 

[TinCan782]

It sounds like the point for dollar redemption is a better deal than the old zone map redemption. For example, if I want to travel CHI to SEA one way on the Empire Builder at a roomette price say of $ 422.00 (I picked this just now from the Amtrak site for January 2016 travel) it would be saving a huge amount of points! Under the current point redemption this trip (2 zones) would be the equivalent of 20,00 points. Have I assessed this correctly?

"It depends"...with the points redemption tied to the actual cost of a ticket it will fluctuate with the bucket. I do know, my trip last August LAX to WAS would have been 150-160k instead of the 120k I paid for a 3 zone round trip bedroom. Last year's Coast Starlight RT LAX to SEA would have been 20k point more under the new system.