Originally Posted by jackal (Post 12951294)

But the cents-per-point ratio is much higher doing it that way. 1,000 points costs $500, or 50 cents per point. To earn enough points to redeem for a round-trip two-zone roomette award, you'd need to spend $20,000.

You can get the same 1,000 AGR points on a $178 spend on Acela (a round-trip on an $89-each-way fare)--that's 17.8 cpp. Earning that way, you'd only need to spend $7,120 to get that cross-country sleeper award.

Of course, the best way to earn AGR points is to fly CO on some mileage-run-worthy fares of 2 cpm and transfer those miles to AGR. You can earn enough points to redeem a ticket with a value of $2,686 for a measley $800. Or, even better, redeem 60,000 points for a round-trip bedroom award (worth $4,748) for $1,200. ;)

(Oh, and if you can hit CO Gold Elite, which you would by flying 60,000 miles on CO, you get a 100% point bonus (whereas AGR's top tier only gives you an additional 50% points). That makes next year's Amtrak trip cost half as much if you earn the miles on CO!)

Originally Posted by The_Rockaway_Kid (Post 12955129)

But what's the maximum points that one can transfer from CO to AGR?

Originally Posted by jackal (Post 12951294)

You can get the same 1,000 AGR points on a $178 spend on Acela (a round-trip on an $89-each-way fare)--that's 17.8 cpp.