Cost of Using Points

[rjcraig]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new member even though I've been eavesdropping for years. I am using points to travel round trip in a roomette from Osceola, Ia. to Martinez, Ca. next month. It's costing me 100726 points. By comparison, round trip coach points would only be 12376. I called the Guest Rewards 800 number and asked about it. The person I got gave me a sales pitch about coach compared to sleeper which I already knew. She didn't seem to understand my point. That's over 8 times as much! I could see it being 2 or 3 times the points of coach, but over 8 times as much? I'm I missing something?

Thanks,

Bob

Ankney, Iowa

 

[PaTrainFan]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new member even though I've been eavesdropping for years. I am using points to travel round trip in a roomette from Osceola, Ia. to Martinez, Ca. next month. It's costing me 100726 points. By comparison, round trip coach points would only be 12376. I called the Guest Rewards 800 number and asked about it. The person I got gave me a sales pitch about coach compared to sleeper which I already knew. She didn't seem to understand my point. That's over 8 times as much! I could see it being 2 or 3 times the points of coach, but over 8 times as much? I'm I missing something?

Thanks,

Bob

Ankney, Iowa

Hi, are you certain it's a roomette and not a bedroom? Because we don't know your travel time, for grins I picked several random dates in April and found roomettes to be 54,300 points, for each date I selected. It is true that bedrooms are very expensive, over 100K points. If you have any flexibility, might suggest looking at a different date.

 

[rjcraig]

I leave April 6th and return April 14th It's a roomette. 532-4 westbound and 632-13 eastbound. Not really any flexibility on this trip. Going out there to spend time with friends and we have specific plans.

I just double checked on the Guest Rewards website. It is 100726 points for round trip.

I found 54300 points for roomettes also, but that's one way. FYI the one way cost of a bedroom is 119588. It is what it is, I was just curious.

Bob

 

[trimetbusfan]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new member even though I've been eavesdropping for years. I am using points to travel round trip in a roomette from Osceola, Ia. to Martinez, Ca. next month. It's costing me 100726 points. By comparison, round trip coach points would only be 12376. I called the Guest Rewards 800 number and asked about it. The person I got gave me a sales pitch about coach compared to sleeper which I already knew. She didn't seem to understand my point. That's over 8 times as much! I could see it being 2 or 3 times the points of coach, but over 8 times as much? I'm I missing something?

Thanks,

Bob

Ankney, Iowa

I leave April 6th and return April 14th It's a roomette. 532-4 westbound and 632-13 eastbound. Not really any flexibility on this trip. Going out there to spend time with friends and we have specific plans.

That sounds about right. The point rates are a direct correlation to the coach fares. The coach fare for a roomette is over 8 times as much as a coach ticket, so for a points redemption it would be the same "difference".

The "cost" of a ticket in points is 37.5 times the cash fare. For coach, (165 * 37.5 =) 6188 pts, and for a roomette it would be (1448 * 37.5) 54,300 pts.

Btw, 1448 is the highest possible cash fare for a roomette on this segment. The CZ has some of the highest sleeper fares of any route.

 

[rjcraig]

I appreciate this information. I just wanted some opinions on whether this sounded right.

Thanks everyone!

Bob

 

[zephyr17]

Points directly follow cash fares at roughly $0.0267 per point.

The fare difference between coach and sleepers is drastic. Sleepers are not a relatively modest upcharge and never have been.

The points difference is just following the cash fare difference.

The high cost of sleeper accommodation and the reasons for it are the subject of much discussion here. You can find a lot on it if you search, as well as strategies to get the best possible sleeper fares (which will never be cheap). The bottom line, though, is severely constrained sleeper capacity does not generally meet the modest demand for it, a recipe for high prices.

 

[MARC Rider]

The fare difference between coach and sleepers is drastic. Sleepers are not a relatively modest upcharge and never have been.

This might be true now, but back about 20 years ago, I was getting sleeper fares, Washington-Chicago for about $200 - $300 one way, and the coach fare was $70 - $100. So back then, sleepers were maybe 2-4 times the coach fare. And the food in the dining car was better. And you could eat in the dining car even if you were traveling coach, but not always; if the train was crowded and sleepers sold out, they took care of the sleeper passengers first, and it was hard for coach passengers to find the person who was taking reservations.