Nerd: I am not ready to book my trip for next year. Others on AU have already tried to book their trips, unsuccessfully, despite following the published guidelines.
I'm on FT because obviously we on AU do not know. That is implicit in my post. Importantly, as amamba pointed out, AGR Insider (an authority) is here, not on AU.
Dicksboat has it. It's the same train so no connections are involved. Also, no duplicate or impossible bookings are involved, obviously. Technically, the first award ends and the second one begins while the train is standing in the station. The trip is just paid for with two "payments" (awards). For a trip paid with $$, this is equivalent to paying for one reservation for A-B, then adding another reservation for B-C and paying for the second reservation separately. Perhaps making a separate phone call for each award would have worked, unless an unpublished "rule" really is in effect. ??
It's puzzling, because each of the two awards could easily be booked if they were for separate trips on different dates. We don't understand why the two awards were not allowed on one trip (without a forced overnight stopover). They would be back to back but there is no overlap. Amtrak would not be losing anything by allowing them, and the forced overnight to wait for the next day's train doesn't help Amtrak in any way.
Thanks, all. Hopefully Insider can clarify for us.