Amtrak Guest Rewards - Customer service issue with AGR

I called AGR today to transfer some points over to Continental before the end of the year and was told no because my $200 spend wasn't met. I pointed out that I bought a $250 ticket in early December, but that the credit card hasn't posted yet for the month (it posts on Jan 2nd). Even with the ticket number where the agent could see that it was bought on the card, he said that the spend would count towards next year's requirement :rolleyes:.

So at that point I asked to speak to a supervisor to ask them to overide the system since the spend was clearly in 2011. the agent put me on hold for 20 minutes, then finally came back and said he had explained the whole thing to his supervisor but they couldn't help me. I told him I wanted to speak to the supervisor myself, but he said that the suervisor would not take my call! I said that was ridiculous and asked for the supervisor's supervisor, but the agent said all he could do was transfer me to the customer relations line to complain.

So I was transferred there and a very nice agent listened to my story, then said he was going to call the supervisor and see what the deal was. he put me on hold for about 10 minutes, then came back and said that he too had spoken to the supervisor about my issue, but that he again said that he couldn't overide the system and would not speak to me personally.

With that I lodged a complaint, not about the transaction being refused, but about the supervisor refusing to speak to me in person. I really have never heard of such a thing.

Here is the T&C
Cardholders of the Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard® issued by Chase Bank with an Amtrak travel spend on the card of over $200 per calendar year, with an annual point transfer limit of 25,000 per year.
Your spend on the card will post in January therefore that is the calendar year for the spend.
What do you expect them to do except explain the rule again.
If my answer is not suitable I can have my supervisor (wife) post this as well.

The spend was in 2011 though. It will be billed in 2012, but the spend had already happened.

Amtrak's clearly made a decision on how to interpret and execute this rule, but in plain English terms the OP's right - the money was spent at the time that he bought the ticket and that was in December.

Here is the T&C
Cardholders of the Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard® issued by Chase Bank with an Amtrak travel spend on the card of over $200 per calendar year, with an annual point transfer limit of 25,000 per year.
Your spend on the card will post in January therefore that is the calendar year for the spend.
What do you expect them to do except explain the rule again.
If my answer is not suitable I can have my supervisor (wife) post this as well.
Seriously?

I know why this happens. Amtrak looks at the AGR account and uses the net points provided by Chase for Amtrak spend as the value for clearing the $200 spend limit. Points are not awarded until the statement closing date, so Amtrak does not see the "spend" until they see the points awarded when the statement closes.

However, English is English, and spend in a calendar year means what it means. The financial obligation is assumed when the charge is made, and that is the spend and the date of the spend. That is not just my take. It is the IRS's as well.

Perhaps AGR Insider could do something to apply common sense. It has to be fast. The window closes in two days.

I would definitely send a PM to the AGR insider and see if they can help.

Seriously folks the spend will not show up until after January 1,2012. Calendar year 2012.

The spend is on the Credit card and the date of his statement will be 2012. That is in the next calendar year.
Making Amtrak figure out the exact date of every spend would be burdensome.

Specially since the ticket could be canceled after the transfer and then what?
IIRC that has been discussed on this forum previously

Don't for a minute think that is not figured into their decision

You may want to try contacting Chase first because they have have a higher AGR contact available than you will have available via phone and second they also have license to mint CO miles and may credit a chunk as goodwill.

While I do agree with darben you are likely not operating in the intent of the AGR program you are within the written T&Cs. I don't (yet) hold the AGR card but has AGR allow transfer to CO on Jan 2 based on previous year spend?

Here is the T&C
Your spend on the card will post in January therefore that is the calendar year for the spend.
What do you expect them to do except explain the rule again.
If my answer is not suitable I can have my supervisor (wife) post this as well.

I spent the money this year and I have the receipt to prove it. And I'm sure it is still the 2011 calendar year.

And despite if the supervisor is going to give me the same answer, I expect them to talk to me when I request to speak to them. That is how a real professional customer service department works.

And if your wife is your supervisor, I would like to hear her take on this. I doubt that she agrees with you!

I spent the money this year and I have the receipt to prove it. And I'm sure it is still the 2011 calendar year.

And despite if the supervisor is going to give me the same answer, I expect them to talk to me when I request to speak to them. That is how a real professional customer service department works.

And if your wife is your supervisor, I would like to hear her take on this. I doubt that she agrees with you!

She says she does not want to talk to you as the T&C's are very clear.

BY the way the spend has to be on the card not when you book the ticket on Amtrak(Amtrak travel spend on the card) and that is not until the closing date.
Also do you really intend to use the ticket
Also how long have you had the CC and how long have you had the points.
How many times have you actually taken Amtrak?
If you have gotten the card very recently and got a sign up bonus but have never traveled on the train they may think you just want to get them over to Continental. This may be factoring to their decision to not make an exception to the rules for you.

She says she does not want to talk to you as the T&C's are very clear.

BY the way the spend has to be on the card not when you book the ticket on Amtrak(Amtrak travel spend on the card) and that is not until the closing date.
Also do you really intend to use the ticket
Also how long have you had the CC and how long have you had the points.
How many times have you actually taken Amtrak?
If you have gotten the card very recently and got a sign up bonus but have never traveled on the train they may think you just want to get them over to Continental. This may be factoring to their decision to not make an exception to the rules for you.

No matter how many times you say 2+2=5, the correct answer is still 4. I do agree with one thing. "$200 spend in a calendar year", as written in the AGR T&C's, is very clear. Given the legal definition of "spend" (per the IRS) being the transaction date, the OP spent the money in the calendar year and is entitled to the transfer.

By they way, since when is passing an Amtrak loyalty test a requirement for AGR to adhere to the published T&C of the program?

No matter how many times you say 2+2=5, the correct answer is still 4. I do agree with one thing. "$200 spend in a calendar year", as written in the AGR T&C's, is very clear. Given the legal definition of "spend" (per the IRS) being the transaction date, the OP spent the money in the calendar year and is entitled to the transfer.

By they way, since when is passing an Amtrak loyalty test a requirement for AGR to adhere to the published T&C of the program?

When you are asking for a favor then the Sniff test comes into play.

Again we disagree and since we are playing on Amtrak's turf they have home field advantage. So someone with a long history with Amtrak might get one answer someone whose has no/few dealings with a company will get another answer.

It is called taking care of a valued customer! is it fair? Probably not to the one who is being denied. Should a valued customer be taken care of over an unknown entity absolutely.

As for the spend. The spend will show up in Chases 2012 end of year statement on spending, which is downloadable from the Chase website.
You only quoted part of the sentence which reads "spend on the card of over $200 per calendar year". The"spend on the card is the part your are not accounting for. The "spend on the card is when Chase says it is, the "spend on the card will be posted and his miles for the spend will be in 2012 and show up in Chase's 2012 statement. Spend is in 2012 as far as Chase is concerned!
It will not be on the 2011 statement because that covers all spend on the January to December statements so as far as Chase is concerned it is a 2012 spend. Chase does not have to follow an IRS ruling.

When you are asking for a favor then the Sniff test comes into play.

Again we disagree and since we are playing on Amtrak's turf they have home field advantage. So someone with a long history with Amtrak might get one answer someone whose has no/few dealings with a company will get another answer.

It is called taking care of a valued customer! is it fair? Probably not to the one who is being denied. Should a valued customer be taken care of over an unknown entity absolutely.

As for the spend. The spend will show up in Chases 2012 end of year statement on spending, which is downloadable from the Chase website.
You only quoted part of the sentence which reads "spend on the card of over $200 per calendar year". The"spend on the card is the part your are not accounting for. The "spend on the card is when Chase says it is, the "spend on the card will be posted and his miles for the spend will be in 2012 and show up in Chase's 2012 statement. Spend is in 2012 as far as Chase is concerned!
It will not be on the 2011 statement because that covers all spend on the January to December statements so as far as Chase is concerned it is a 2012 spend. Chase does not have to follow an IRS ruling.

Your highlighted statement is not correct. Check your 2010 statement. It will include all charges posted to the account in 2010, not just those that were on a billing statement in 2010. I have a cable bill posted on 12/31/2010. It is on the 2010 year-end summary, but was not on a billing statement until January 27, 2011. From Chase FAQ:All purchases, cash advances, access check transactions and balance transfers that were posted to your account during the past year. Transactions processed by merchants after December 31 , 2010 will appear on your 2011 Summary. Payments are not included.

As far as Chase is concerned, as soon as a charge posts to an account, it is spent. Posting takes a day or two. It is not when the billing statement is prepared once a month.

Beyond that, I'm done. 2+2 does equal 5.

your statement above is correct. it will be a 2911 spend.
Now the only question is can Amtrak see the spend from their Chase interface?
I would be surprised and upset if they could see details of the account.
Could it be Chase computer has to pass an electronic message to Amtrak computer to get the authority for Amtrak to move the points?

An interesting comparison might be the Chase BA card. When one makes spend of $30,000 in a calendar year they get a 2-for-1voucher in their BA Executive Club account.

It is very clear and established in this example that we are talking about spend from January 1st until December 31st, regardless of what day of the month the statement closes. Chase's definition of spend is equal to transaction date.

However, BA will not know when the actual spend is complete. Chase seems to generate a signal after the statement closes once $30,000 has been spent as, a few days later, the 2-for-1 voucher appears in the BA account.

Therefore, if you hit your $30,000 with a transaction made on December 31st then you would qualify for the offer, but would not receive it until January once the statement closed.

If this were any other year then I would say that theoretically you could argue that it should be possible to transfer the points to miles once the statement has closed in January, as Chase should be able to verify to Amtrak that the spend was completed during 2011. However, in this instance with CO going away, this seems to cause a bit of a pickle.

So, in the end I was not able to transfer the points. I still think I was right, but I can't deny that waiting until 3 days before the program ended was not too smart.

But as much as I accept blame for waiting too long, I'm still annoyed that I was blown off by the customer service supervisors. Nobody here commented on this except Darben, whose supervisor also refused to speak to me. Doesn't anyone else see this as wrong from a customer service department?

So, in the end I was not able to transfer the points. I still think I was right, but I can't deny that waiting until 3 days before the program ended was not too smart.

But as much as I accept blame for waiting too long, I'm still annoyed that I was blown off by the customer service supervisors. Nobody here commented on this except Darben, whose supervisor also refused to speak to me. Doesn't anyone else see this as wrong from a customer service department?

Yes - it was completely out of order.

Looking back I realized that I saw this fact as so blindingly obvious that I didn't see the need to comment - but for the record I believe you are right.

That said, sadly this is not a unique to Amtrak thing, and I have experienced such brainless and obstinate treatment from other companies, be they travel related or not. Sometimes it's just who you get when you call, but being in the industry myself (for the last 15 years) some companies create a better environment than others when it comes to fostering good service from their employees.

Yes - it was completely out of order.

Looking back I realized that I saw this fact as so blindingly obvious that I didn't see the need to comment - but for the record I believe you are right.

That said, sadly this is not a unique to Amtrak thing, and I have experienced such brainless and obstinate treatment from other companies, be they travel related or not. Sometimes it's just who you get when you call, but being in the industry myself (for the last 15 years) some companies create a better environment than others when it comes to fostering good service from their employees.

Agree wholeheartedly. It reflects very poorly on Amtrak that it didn't work out. (And I definitely DO pass the Amtrak loyalty test!)

Nobody here commented on this except Darben, whose supervisor also refused to speak to me.

Wait...you seriously didn't get that Darben was joking about his wife being his supervisor?

Wait...you seriously didn't get that Darben was joking about his wife being his supervisor?

He got it and she has allowed me to tell you so.