NOL Round Trip on One 1-zone Award

[frugalist]

Let's try this on for size:

Buy a coach ticket on #20 (Crescent) NOL-SDL for $9 (AAA discount)

Redeem an AGR 1-zone bedroom award for SDL-HMD (Hammond, LA).

Arrow gave me the following routing:

SDL-WAS on #20 Crescent (25:08 on train) - 5:55 layover in WAS

WAS-CHI on #29 Cap. Ltd. (17:40 on train) - 11:15 layover in CHI

CHI-HMD on #59 CONO (17:28 on train)

Buy a coach ticket on #59 HMD-NOL for $9.

20,000 points plus $18 gets you 3 nights on 3 trains, looks like 8 meals, some nice quality time to play tourist in WAS and CHI, and returns you right back where you started. For another $18, your traveling buddy can tag along all the way.

Please feel free to poke holes in this theory.

My apologies if it's already been mentioned elsewhere. I did a search but found nothing on target for round trips on a single AGR award.

 

[GG-1]

Let's try this on for size:
Buy a coach ticket on #20 (Crescent) NOL-SDL for $9 (AAA discount)

Redeem an AGR 1-zone bedroom award for SDL-HMD (Hammond, LA).

Arrow gave me the following routing:

SDL-WAS on #20 Crescent (25:08 on train) - 5:55 layover in WAS

WAS-CHI on #29 Cap. Ltd. (17:40 on train) - 11:15 layover in CHI

CHI-HMD on #59 CONO (17:28 on train)

Buy a coach ticket on #59 HMD-NOL for $9.

20,000 points plus $18 gets you 3 nights on 3 trains, looks like 8 meals, some nice quality time to play tourist in WAS and CHI, and returns you right back where you started. For another $18, your traveling buddy can tag along all the way.

Please feel free to poke holes in this theory.

My apologies if it's already been mentioned elsewhere. I did a search but found nothing on target for round trips on a single AGR award.

Aloha

Sounds cool but now for me to get to NOL and back its about $800.

Nice but no cigar.

 

[frugalist]

Sounds cool but now for me to get to NOL and back its about $800.Nice but no cigar.

As with any "loophole" route, we have to factor in expenses as well as the convenience factor in getting to/from the route's origin/termination points.

We would probably drive from our home in Florida to NOL, spend some time playing tourist in NOL (never been there, have wanted to go for a long time), then doing this RT route. I like the idea of getting a few quality tourist hours in WAS and CHI too. And we also get the major advantage of ending up right back at our car at the end of the train trip. We would do this in July when Mrs. Frugalist gets her summer vacation.

 

[acelafan]

Let's try this on for size:
Buy a coach ticket on #20 (Crescent) NOL-SDL for $9 (AAA discount)

Redeem an AGR 1-zone bedroom award for SDL-HMD (Hammond, LA).

Arrow gave me the following routing:

SDL-WAS on #20 Crescent (25:08 on train) - 5:55 layover in WAS

WAS-CHI on #29 Cap. Ltd. (17:40 on train) - 11:15 layover in CHI

CHI-HMD on #59 CONO (17:28 on train)

Buy a coach ticket on #59 HMD-NOL for $9.

20,000 points plus $18 gets you 3 nights on 3 trains, looks like 8 meals, some nice quality time to play tourist in WAS and CHI, and returns you right back where you started. For another $18, your traveling buddy can tag along all the way.

Please feel free to poke holes in this theory.

My apologies if it's already been mentioned elsewhere. I did a search but found nothing on target for round trips on a single AGR award.

Hey that sounds good to me, and a Roomette would only be 15K points!

 

[Edgefan]

Let's try this on for size:
Buy a coach ticket on #20 (Crescent) NOL-SDL for $9 (AAA discount)

Redeem an AGR 1-zone bedroom award for SDL-HMD (Hammond, LA).

Arrow gave me the following routing:

SDL-WAS on #20 Crescent (25:08 on train) - 5:55 layover in WAS

WAS-CHI on #29 Cap. Ltd. (17:40 on train) - 11:15 layover in CHI

CHI-HMD on #59 CONO (17:28 on train)

Buy a coach ticket on #59 HMD-NOL for $9.

20,000 points plus $18 gets you 3 nights on 3 trains, looks like 8 meals, some nice quality time to play tourist in WAS and CHI, and returns you right back where you started. For another $18, your traveling buddy can tag along all the way.

Please feel free to poke holes in this theory.

My apologies if it's already been mentioned elsewhere. I did a search but found nothing on target for round trips on a single AGR award.

Duly noted and saved in my ever growing "loophole trips" document. For us it's just a hop over to Chicago and then down on the CONO. Ya, it will be a twice ride on #59, but who's counting! I will definitely do this one and then head west on the Sunset to see family in southern CA. Depending on timing, that should give us some extra NOL time as well.