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New for Select Executive: Skip the line... your upgrades are just a phone call away

New for Select Executive: Skip the line... your upgrades are just a phone call away

Old Dec 23, 2012, 10:01 pm
  #1  
Company Representative - Amtrak
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Programs: Amtrak Guest Rewards (Select Executive)
Posts: 528
Cool New for Select Executive: Skip the line... your upgrades are just a phone call away

Select Executive members will enjoy a new coupon format that no longer requires a visit to an Amtrak station agent for use. The Select Executive Service Center will accept phone calls from members to apply their 2013 upgrade and companion coupons to any eligible reservation.

Select Executive coupons will have personalized tracking numbers that allow for a fully paperless transaction. As a result, physical coupons will not be mailed to Select Executive members; instead, the member's available coupons may be viewed or printed on the Amtrak Guest Rewards Web site. Station agents can also accept the new print-at-home coupons, and will continue to process all traditional coupons as they have in the past.


The following 2013 Select Executive member coupons will be issued in this new format:

* Select Executive tier welcome kit upgrade and companion coupons
* Select Executive Earned Upgrades (one issued for every 3,000 TQPs earned during the year)
* the 5-packs of upgrade coupons obtained when a Select Executive member redeems 10,000 points


Happy Holidays from the AGR team!
AGR Insider is offline  
Old Dec 24, 2012, 1:52 pm
  #2  
 
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: BOS
Posts: 2,308
This is a major improvement. Excellent change. I assume the certificates are still transferable?
BeantownFlyer is offline  
Old Dec 24, 2012, 2:28 pm
  #3  
Company Representative - Amtrak
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Programs: Amtrak Guest Rewards (Select Executive)
Posts: 528
Originally Posted by BeantownFlyer
This is a major improvement. Excellent change. I assume the certificates are still transferable?
Yes.
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Old Dec 26, 2012, 12:16 am
  #4  
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: NJ
Programs: AGR Executive, UA Gold, SPG Gold, Hyatt Platinum, HH Diamond
Posts: 274
This is absolutely wonderful news. I'm glad I made SE for next year. Way to go Amtrak^^^
MrChu is offline  
Old Dec 26, 2012, 7:42 am
  #5  
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: PHL
Programs: AA(PPro), UA, AGR, BW(Plat), HH, WoH, MB(S)
Posts: 777
The next logical question is why are the upgrade coupons this way only for Select Executive? In 2012 (nearly 2013), having the actual upgrade stored electronically should be the norm, not the exception. Perhaps this feature for SE is acting as a beta test that will be extended to all upgrade coupons sometime in the future? Baby steps.
NovaEngr is offline  
Old Dec 26, 2012, 12:49 pm
  #6  
In Memoriam
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: New York, NY, USA
Programs: HH Diamond, Amtrak Exec
Posts: 3,262
Originally Posted by PHLviaUS
Perhaps this feature for SE is acting as a beta test that will be extended to all upgrade coupons sometime in the future? Baby steps.
That would be my guess; this gives them a small group upon which to test things before rolling it out system wide only to find a massive problem.
AlanB is offline  
Old Dec 26, 2012, 11:27 pm
  #7  
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston, MA
Programs: 1 Million Miles UA, joined MP 1982
Posts: 54
Amtrak needs to give the same minimum bonus all along the Acela route. I earn widely varying TQP on RTE-BAL (high=810, low=586) for paid First Class Acela travel because they use the fare paid, but RTE-NYP always earns 750 regardless of the base fare. If it was consistent then I'd need 14 round trips in First to reach 20,000 - certainly doable. I'd also suggest they offer a challenge like United or American do -- say get to 10,000 by June and get Executive for the rest of 2013.
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Old Dec 27, 2012, 6:01 am
  #8  
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: NYC
Programs: Amtrak Select Plus, Marriott Platinum, Marriott Lifetime Gold, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 3,122
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.3; en-us; HTC_T120C Build/IML74K) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/534.30)

Lame that this is only for SE.
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Old Jan 3, 2013, 6:24 am
  #9  
 
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: EWR
Programs: UA 1K 1MM, Marriott Gold
Posts: 729
Tried this out yesterday. Redeemed 10k pts for the upgrade e-vouchers, then called to upgrade my NYP-WAS R/T today. CSR had to get some internal support as this was the first e-voucher upgrade she handled. Worked out fine.

That said, there is a known glitch between the iOS Amtrak app and upgraded tix. I booked my trip via the app. Once upgraded, I could no longer display the e-ticket in the app (app crashes when retrieving ticket details), and the Amtrak website does not pull up trips booked using the app. The upgrade confirmation email from the service center does not come through either for trips booked using the app. I got the e-ticket printed at the lounge in NYP in the end. The lack of integration between website and app has been known for at least 4 months, hope it gets fixed soon.
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Old Jan 3, 2013, 12:01 pm
  #10  
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Join Date: Mar 2004
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Posts: 3,262
Originally Posted by Mizu
That said, there is a known glitch between the iOS Amtrak app and upgraded tix. I booked my trip via the app. Once upgraded, I could no longer display the e-ticket in the app (app crashes when retrieving ticket details), and the Amtrak website does not pull up trips booked using the app. The upgrade confirmation email from the service center does not come through either for trips booked using the app. I got the e-ticket printed at the lounge in NYP in the end. The lack of integration between website and app has been known for at least 4 months, hope it gets fixed soon.
Actually, when one uses a free upgrade the eTicket was always disabled in the App because if it wasn't, then you could have skipped the line and never turned in the coupon.

Now with this new eCoupon Amtrak will have to reprogram things to know the difference between those using paper coupons and those using eCoupon's. I'm guessing that hasn't been done yet.
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Old Jan 4, 2013, 11:55 am
  #11  
 
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: EWR
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That makes sense. AGR Insider told me yesterday that once a CSR touches your e-ticket (e.g. for changes or upgrades) you can't retrieve it via amtrak.com or the app anymore. They will look at integrating that some time in the future. In any case, the e-Coupons worked out great yesterday, no more waiting in the mail for short-term upgrade needs - yay!
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Old Jan 4, 2013, 1:23 pm
  #12  
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: PHL
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Posts: 777
Originally Posted by Mizu
That makes sense. AGR Insider told me yesterday that once a CSR touches your e-ticket (e.g. for changes or upgrades) you can't retrieve it via amtrak.com or the app anymore. They will look at integrating that some time in the future. In any case, the e-Coupons worked out great yesterday, no more waiting in the mail for short-term upgrade needs - yay!
I'm not sure that is 100% correct.

When e-ticketing was rolled out last summer, upgrades were processed by calling Amtrak and providing the coupon information. The CSR simply updated the PNR. The PNR and QR code did not change, but post-upgrade reflected First Class seating. When the QR code was scanned on-board, it showed validity for FC. It was not necessary for the upgraded passenger to stop at a ticket window or even download a new QR code. You just called and boarded.

This resulted in the unexpected consequence of passengers not having to turn in the physical coupons. Mailed coupons do not have unique ID numbers. The word spread that a single upgrade coupon could be used over and over and over. Amtrak stopped that by having the upgrade processing cancel the original reservation and issue a new reservation under a new PNR. The new reservation is tagged to require the boarding document to be issued by a station agent. The agent collects the coupon, and that is that. The old PNR and QR code are gone.

With electronic coupons specifically indexed and ID'd to an individual, it would seem that Amtrak could simply allow those upgrades to be processed as upgrades were initially processed last summer. If reservations could be upgraded on the same PNR with the same QR code back in August, I don't see how that is not possible today for the electronic upgrades. Having to get in line and see an agent to compete an upgrade transaction is very 1990's.
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Old Jan 4, 2013, 2:44 pm
  #13  
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Programs: Amtrak Guest Rewards (Select Executive)
Posts: 528
Lightbulb

Originally Posted by PHLviaUS
When e-ticketing was rolled out last summer, upgrades were processed by calling Amtrak and providing the coupon information. The CSR simply updated the PNR. The PNR and QR code did not change, but post-upgrade reflected First Class seating. When the QR code was scanned on-board, it showed validity for FC. It was not necessary for the upgraded passenger to stop at a ticket window or even download a new QR code. You just called and boarded.

This resulted in the unexpected consequence of passengers not having to turn in the physical coupons. Mailed coupons do not have unique ID numbers. The word spread that a single upgrade coupon could be used over and over and over. Amtrak stopped that by having the upgrade processing cancel the original reservation and issue a new reservation under a new PNR. The new reservation is tagged to require the boarding document to be issued by a station agent. The agent collects the coupon, and that is that. The old PNR and QR code are gone.
Close, but not quite.

An upgrade is processed in a PNR by pulling the upgraded seat from inventory, and then cancelling the old seat. Before eTicketing, the paid value of a given ticket was tied up in the paper ticket itself, so all the call center agent could do was hold that upgraded seat for you until you could make it to the station. At the station, the ticket agent would take your old ticket (and coupon) and apply it as an exchange payment to a new ticket for that upgraded seat.

When eTicketing launched, the existing call center upgrade process was inadequate because the paid value of the old eTicket would be automatically applied to the upgraded seat, and new eTicket issued (and emailed) for that seat without collecting a paper coupon. We were well aware of this risk before eTicketing went live but did not want to hold up the rollout over a few extra upgrades. A permanent fix was put in place not long thereafter, and now the upgraded seat is held, but remains un-eTicketed until a station agent collects the coupon. It still stays in the same PNR and there is no need to put the upgraded seat into a new PNR. The restriction is at the eTicket level and has nothing to do with the PNR being new or reused.



Originally Posted by PHLviaUS
With electronic coupons specifically indexed and ID'd to an individual, it would seem that Amtrak could simply allow those upgrades to be processed as upgrades were initially processed last summer. If reservations could be upgraded on the same PNR with the same QR code back in August, I don't see how that is not possible today for the electronic upgrades. Having to get in line and see an agent to compete an upgrade transaction is very 1990's.
Indeed, and this is why we allow Select Executive eCoupon holders to call and have the upgrade applied electronically with no "get in line and see an agent" required. An updated PDF travel document is then emailed to you, and you can get right on board.

Mizu was referring to the concept that self-service customer reservations channels -- such as Amtrak.com, the mobile app, or Julie -- will not display or modify a reservation once a human agent has made a change to it, even if originally booked through one of those channels. Your smartphone, tablet, or home computer can still open the new Adobe PDF file that Amtrak emailed to you, even if you can't open or modify the PNR itself using one of our online booking systems.
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Old Jan 8, 2013, 3:31 pm
  #14  
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: New York, NY
Programs: AGR Select Executive, Delta SkyMiles Gold Medalion
Posts: 16
Couple quick notes

1. This is fantastic... I always manage to run out of coupons and then forget to order them until too late.

2. They are 48 hour... that ROCKS

3. One little thing... when I used to call with the paper vouchers I would get the updated email almost immediately, usually before the agent hung up the phone. These take about 15 minutes for the email to be generated. I am not complaining here just pointing it out for others. I was half way through dialing back in to the call center when I saw the update come through.

4. A small annoyance... the hold time on the SE service line was significantly longer than the S+ line... maybe they are still ramping up.
rdorman is offline  

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