More Points in Multiride Trips

[Skim]

Is it acceptable to earn more points per multiride trip by scheduling each leg as a separate trip, e.g. BLN-CHI and CHI-MKE as separately booked trips?

 

[TinCan782]

As long as you pay the fare and actually take the ride, I can't see that it would matter.

 

[AG1]

Each train number earns points. There is no need for separate reservations.

 

[TinCan782]

Unless he's thinking a "multiride" would cost more and, with more $$$ spent, would generate more points. Without playing around with bookings and fares, I'm not sure that would make a difference.

If the legs were under the minimum threshold of 100 that might work but is there a provision in the AGR rules that address this tactic? I've done round trips where each leg earned the 100 point minimum while spending less than $100.

 

[BCL]

Each train number earns points. There is no need for separate reservations.

I think the OP is bringing up multirides - 10, 6 or whatever number of rides for a single price as well as monthly passes. Getting two separate tickets for different parts of the same total trip would cost more and generate more points because of the higher purchase price.

 

[Skim]

Thanks for the feedback. I wasn't referring to prepurchased 10-ride tickets or passes, and didn't realize each train number reset the trip as far as points earned. Therefore I needn't worry about it.

 

[BCL]

Unless he's thinking a "multiride" would cost more and, with more $$$ spent, would generate more points. Without playing around with bookings and fares, I'm not sure that would make a difference.

If the legs were under the minimum threshold of 100 that might work but is there a provision in the AGR rules that address this tactic? I've done round trips where each leg earned the 100 point minimum while spending less than $100.

The terms for multiride tickets state that they earn 2 points for each dollar spent regardless of the price. I'm also thinking the OP is talking about linking two separate multiride tickets to boost the price and thus the points. CHI-MKE is $180 for a 10-ride.

https://amtrakguestrewards.com/info/terms

Multi-ride tickets, monthly passes, USA Rail Pass travel and other pass travel are excluded from earning the 100-point minimum and are only eligible to earn 2 points per dollar spent.

I'm not sure what the point of the OP's examples are. I'm guessing the reference was to GLN-CHI. There is no Amtrak code BLN, so I'm thinking it was a typo. In that case, GLN-CHI is $71 (142 point) for a 10-ride and $173 (346 points) for GLN-MKE. CHI-MKE covers both legs and is $180 (360 points) for a 10-ride.

 

[Misty.]

For some reason I think that station code was supposed to be BNL.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum

 

[Orie]

Just remember you can't get more than 4 segments worth of points in a day.

 

[BCL]

For the OP, are you referring to multi-city?

Booking two segments separately without changing trains won't add points. The AGR system notes the date and train number and won't allow two segments to post if these two pieces of information match. The idea is to encourage real travel vs tricks to collect more points.

There are tricks for getting more segments, especially minimum point segments. One can book a multi-city trip, where breaking up a trip into short stopovers creates more segments, but costs the same if booked on the same route. Another is taking trips with bus segments. One example is RIC-EMY-SFC, where the last stop is bus-only. RIC-EMY is $9, but RIC-SFC is $12. Taking the latter doubles to 200 points. Buses also make for easier posting because the driver will scan every passenger before boarding, even when it's a short trip. A conductor may not find you for a short train segment and it won't post.

 

[Anderson]

For the OP, are you referring to multi-city?

Booking two segments separately without changing trains won't add points. The AGR system notes the date and train number and won't allow two segments to post if these two pieces of information match. The idea is to encourage real travel vs tricks to collect more points.

There are tricks for getting more segments, especially minimum point segments. One can book a multi-city trip, where breaking up a trip into short stopovers creates more segments, but costs the same if booked on the same route. Another is taking trips with bus segments. One example is RIC-EMY-SFC, where the last stop is bus-only. RIC-EMY is $9, but RIC-SFC is $12. Taking the latter doubles to 200 points. Buses also make for easier posting because the driver will scan every passenger before boarding, even when it's a short trip. A conductor may not find you for a short train segment and it won't post.

This last point is particularly salient: I've had to chase down a conductor on one or two occasions over the years.

Also, you can get more than four segments of points in a day...you just can't get the 100-point minimum on more than four, in no small part thanks to an infamous incident on a Keystone some years back.

 

[Orie]

For the OP, are you referring to multi-city?

Booking two segments separately without changing trains won't add points. The AGR system notes the date and train number and won't allow two segments to post if these two pieces of information match. The idea is to encourage real travel vs tricks to collect more points.

There are tricks for getting more segments, especially minimum point segments. One can book a multi-city trip, where breaking up a trip into short stopovers creates more segments, but costs the same if booked on the same route. Another is taking trips with bus segments. One example is RIC-EMY-SFC, where the last stop is bus-only. RIC-EMY is $9, but RIC-SFC is $12. Taking the latter doubles to 200 points. Buses also make for easier posting because the driver will scan every passenger before boarding, even when it's a short trip. A conductor may not find you for a short train segment and it won't post.

This last point is particularly salient: I've had to chase down a conductor on one or two occasions over the years.

Also, you can get more than four segments of points in a day...you just can't get the 100-point minimum on more than four, in no small part thanks to an infamous incident on a Keystone some years back.

Ah, that would make more sense. What was the incident if I can ask?

 

[BCL]

For the OP, are you referring to multi-city?

Booking two segments separately without changing trains won't add points. The AGR system notes the date and train number and won't allow two segments to post if these two pieces of information match. The idea is to encourage real travel vs tricks to collect more points.

There are tricks for getting more segments, especially minimum point segments. One can book a multi-city trip, where breaking up a trip into short stopovers creates more segments, but costs the same if booked on the same route. Another is taking trips with bus segments. One example is RIC-EMY-SFC, where the last stop is bus-only. RIC-EMY is $9, but RIC-SFC is $12. Taking the latter doubles to 200 points. Buses also make for easier posting because the driver will scan every passenger before boarding, even when it's a short trip. A conductor may not find you for a short train segment and it won't post.

This last point is particularly salient: I've had to chase down a conductor on one or two occasions over the years.
Also, you can get more than four segments of points in a day...you just can't get the 100-point minimum on more than four, in no small part thanks to an infamous incident on a Keystone some years back.

Ah, that would make more sense. What was the incident if I can ask?

It's been talked about a lot. Someone bought 100 identical tickets for a short segment and had a conductor pull every one of them to collect 10,000 points and make Select Plus in one trip. Then he bragged about it on FlyerTalk.
That was basically why Amtrak decided to institute a 4 minimum segment per day limit to post points and to only allow one segment per train to post (no using two connecting segments for the same train - only one will post). I've used connecting segments because I missed the first segment, and they always post for the combined total as one transaction. So if I have EMY-FMT-GAC planned for two separate train numbers but then use them together, it registers as one 100 point transaction.

 

[BCL]

I looked it up, and apparently the Keystone ride isn't the one that started the 4 minimum per day. That was the one where someone had something like 50 or 100 tickets on the same trip that he persuaded the conductor to pull all at once. That's when they closed the loophole that allowed multiple tickets on the same train/day to post to the same account.

The 4 minimum segment rule came after that, when some were posting 6 to 10 segments in a day.

 

[Orie]

Wow, I wonder what he did to convince the conductor h34r: . Thanks!

 

[BCL]

Wow, I wonder what he did to convince the conductor h34r: . Thanks!

This was it:

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/25067-amtrak-clamps-down-on-mileage-runs/

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/25067-amtrak-clamps-down-on-mileage-runs/page-2

When Amtrak first came out with the 100 point minimum what you proposed above would have worked. However after massive abuse, like one person boarding a Keystone and handing the conductor something like 50 tickets at once (and the conductor stupidly accepting them), Amtrak close that loop hole. Following that incident a new rule was put into place stating that only one ticket per train number per day would earn points.

However, what some people continued to do to earn points was ride multiple trains. In other words they'd ride train #311 KWD-WAH, get off and wait for train #313 and ride that WAH-HEM. They'd then return via 314 & 316. Now I realize that one can't do a one day trip like this using the Mules and Ann, but in many areas like the Keystones, Hiwathas, Cali services, one can do a single day trip with multiple trains to rack up points.

They're talking about the four minimum segments posting per day as a new thing but the Keystone escapade as something in the past. It was also before eTicketing, so someone would have been handing over 50 tickets that the conductor would need to pocket and possibly punch - after tearing off the stubs. The points wouldn't post until the live ticket was processed. I remember back when I was using live 10-rides, those points didn't post until after the last ride was taken, and I'm guessing when someone physicially processed the used ticket.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Before AGR was brought in house and e- ticketing the used tickets were batched and shipped to El Paso, Tx.and were manually entered into the system to get credit for your points!

I don't have any actual info as to the contractor that did this but most coupons, tickets etc. were actually processed across the border in Mexico, an early version of outsourcing jobs!