wayman
Engineer
I just did an audit of my AGR Account Activity for 2009, and noticed something odd. In May, I booked and traveled a one-way PHL-SRA reservation, which had two legs: PHL-TPA on the Silver Star, and TPA-SRA on a Thruway bus. The total cost of the reservation from Amtrak was $186.30, but prior to booking it I looked at what just PHL-TPA would cost (without the thruway) to get a sense for what my AGR points would be. PHL-TPA priced out at $180.90, which would logically value TPA-SRA (not bookable by itself) at $5.40 ... so I expected to get 362 Rail Points for PHL-TPA and 100 Rail Points for TPA-SRA. (Yes, my thruway ticket was lifted by the bus driver, just as it should have been.)
Instead, AGR shows a single posting of 374 Rail Points for PHL-TPA, and nothing for TPA-SRA. Divide that 374 by two, and you can see it's based on a fare of $187 (and since they round up, that would be my $186.30 total fare for the PHL-TPA-SRA itinerary). In other words, they didn't consider the Thruway bus to be a second leg -- worth 100 Rail Points -- despite it having its own ticket and its own theoretical fare.
It looks like Amtrak divided the fare up by putting all of it on the PHL-TPA ticket and a $0 fare on the thruway ticket when printing the tickets, rather than dividing the fare by putting the actual train fare on the PHL-TPA ticket and the extra $5.40 it costs for the bus on the bus's ticket. Because if they'd divided the fare up $180.90/$5.40 and only the PHL-TPA ticket got received by AGR, they would have given me 362 points for that rather than 374. (I haven't gone hunting for the ticket stubs to see what they say yet; maybe I'll find them later today or tomorrow.)
Is this the way Thruway connections always work with AGR -- they don't count for AGR (because Amtrak values them at $0)? This was certainly not what I was expecting! It doesn't really matter to me (it's not many points, and it doesn't make the difference between Select and not), so I'm not inclined to try to "fight it", but I'm really curious. Especially if this is something new. (Well, relatively new -- this trip was in May, and I'm just now noticing.)
Instead, AGR shows a single posting of 374 Rail Points for PHL-TPA, and nothing for TPA-SRA. Divide that 374 by two, and you can see it's based on a fare of $187 (and since they round up, that would be my $186.30 total fare for the PHL-TPA-SRA itinerary). In other words, they didn't consider the Thruway bus to be a second leg -- worth 100 Rail Points -- despite it having its own ticket and its own theoretical fare.
It looks like Amtrak divided the fare up by putting all of it on the PHL-TPA ticket and a $0 fare on the thruway ticket when printing the tickets, rather than dividing the fare by putting the actual train fare on the PHL-TPA ticket and the extra $5.40 it costs for the bus on the bus's ticket. Because if they'd divided the fare up $180.90/$5.40 and only the PHL-TPA ticket got received by AGR, they would have given me 362 points for that rather than 374. (I haven't gone hunting for the ticket stubs to see what they say yet; maybe I'll find them later today or tomorrow.)
Is this the way Thruway connections always work with AGR -- they don't count for AGR (because Amtrak values them at $0)? This was certainly not what I was expecting! It doesn't really matter to me (it's not many points, and it doesn't make the difference between Select and not), so I'm not inclined to try to "fight it", but I'm really curious. Especially if this is something new. (Well, relatively new -- this trip was in May, and I'm just now noticing.)
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