Trip with multiple legs of travel, paying with points and cash, checked baggage

[justinslot]

I just called the Amtrak help line with this question but I'm not completely sure the representative understood what I was asking so I am checking with the forum on this one.

Let's say I want to book PHL --> WAS --> LAX, but I don't have enough points to cover the entire trip. (Both of those statements are true in my case.) So I buy one leg with points and the other two legs with cash. This means I cannot have all three legs on the same reservation--my understanding is you cannot have points travel and cash travel on the same ticket. My question is probably obvious at this point: will Amtrak allow me to check bags for the entire three legs of the trip if my trip is split onto two different tickets? Or can I just show the baggage person both of my tickets and they will tag them to the last station on my trip? And does the $20 extra bag fee apply to an entire trip booked on multiple tickets?

Thanks. I'm pretty sure (from reading elsewhere in the forum) that the baggage person will tag one's bags to the last station on your trip, but I wanted to make sure. I would hate for this to be one of those policies subject to the whim of Amtrak employees...dreading bringing my bags to the station and being told, "well I can only check these to Chicago, that's the last stop on your ticket."

 

[F900ElCapitan]

I’m not positive on the baggage question, but the other day I was asked what’s the final destination on your trip (this was in Fort Worth). One thing I’ve learned on my trip is you can have separate reservations “cross referenced” once they are made. That way you can have one ticket paid for with points and one with cash and you still get the connection guarantees. This may also help with checking the bags to the final destination and associated fees if they can see the linked reservations.

 

[zephyr17]

Make all your reservations, both point and cash, with an AGR agent by calling the AGR number. They'll link them.

Just show your tickets to the receiving baggage agent, they'll tag it to your destination. Note the the bag check system Amtrak uses is entirely manual, so there is no system limitation that gets in the way of an agent doing that.

 

[PaulM]

Note the the bag check system Amtrak uses is entirely manual,....

"Note the the bag check system Amtrak uses is entirely manual..."

This is what I always assumed; but the "?volunteer?" at the Mount Pleasant, IA station disagreed.

MTP is one of those stations whose agent was chopped in the last go round, but does have what some call baggage lite. The instruction for checking bags included the statement that eastbound, they could not be checked beyond Chicago, no. 6's final stop. I asked the person with some kind of Amtrak identification why? He said that it was because he didn't have access to Amtrak's computer which would be necessary to transfer bags to another train.

It sounded bogus; but his CUS style left no room for discussion.

There was no indication as to whether a bag could be transferred to the Coast Starlight going the other way.

 

[PaulM]

The OP's question seems to assume that one can't combine points and cash on the same reservation; that you have to break it into "legs".

I seem to remember that when AGR 2.0 was announced, it was promised that one could do just that VIA THE WEBSITE. As far as I know, this promise was never kept. But I always thought that an AGR phone agent could take both points and cash for a single reservation.

 

[zephyr17]

The OP's question seems to assume that one can't combine points and cash on the same reservation; that you have to break it into "legs".

I seem to remember that when AGR 2.0 was announced, it was promised that one could do just that VIA THE WEBSITE. As far as I know, this promise was never kept. But I always thought that an AGR phone agent could take both points and cash for a single reservation.

I did a combined trip in 2018 and while the AGR agent was able to both, she said she had to do them as separate reservations.