Originally Posted by
jackal
That's the upper extreme (well, BOS-WAS would be even worse). Of course, if you travel between, say, BOS and PVD on Acela (a good fare looks to be about $26 one way, translating to 19.2 miles per dollar--a VERY good return).
I haven't fully studied the rest of your math, but this one is definately wrong. Boston to Providence is not one of the city pairs, so one would not earn 500 points for a BC ride or 750 for a FC ride. One would only get 2 points per dollar spent for this ride normally. Of course AGR has the 100 point minimum, so instead of 52 points you'd actually get 100 based upon a fare of $26.
Originally Posted by
jackal
But if you don't happen to live on the NEC and primarily use Amtrak for long-distance travel or on non-Acela commuter corridors (or use the Regional service, on which the $12 Regional fare between BOS and PVD would only get you a measly 26 points--this is much closer to the type of activity I'd see on the Pacific Surfliner, making it hard to build up miles even if I took it two or three times a week), I still think it's harder to rack up tens of thousands of miles without a LOT of effort.
Again, the $50/100 AGR minimum would apply in this case, so you would earn 100 AGR points for that trip.
Originally Posted by
jackal
Then again, maybe Amtrak/AGR want to focus on rewarding NEC customers, since that's their big (and only) semi-close-to-profitable line.
There is no doubt that the AGR program was designed with the NEC business traveler in mind. The 100 point minimum was actually implemented just a few years back to try and level the playing field just a bit.