2 Weeks for Amtrak Rail Points for Post?
 

It's been 12 days since a couple of Amtrak trips (on the Capitols). And still the points haven't posted.

Anyone had similar delays?

A hotel chain or airline couldn't stay in business with such a delay in their own product posting.

A hotel doesn't have to wait 2 days for the ticket to reach it's destination, such that it can be processed. They know you're there when you show up. Board a train in Chicago and get off a little over 3 hours later in Wisconsin Dells and your ticket remains on that train until it reaches Seattle two days later.

And on average, it takes about 5 to 12 days for most trips to show up, but it can take 3 weeks. And they won't even start looking to see what happened until those 3 weeks are up.

And on top of that, not every terminal is equipped to scan tickets. Aren't they FedExed or couriered or something to one of a very small number of regional processing centers? That would add a couple of days to the process.

Someday, electronic ticketing will be implemented and these kinds of delays will be greatly reduced, but for now, there are valid logistical reasons for the delays.

Oh, I highly doubt that. Many people regularly have delays with their airline miles or hotel points posting, but I don't know that I've ever heard anyone actually threaten to leave a program over such a problem, much less boycott the airline entirely. The minuscule number of people who do find this that big of an issue are not even of a large enough number to be on an airline's radar.

It usually takes between 10 and 24-28 days for my points to show up.

Btw, AA sometimes takes 6-8 weeks to post miles to my account.

True, but you've selected a less-than-typical example. The OP was traveling on the Capitol Corridor, which means it's 3 hours tops until the train reaches its destination. Most Amtrak passengers travel on short-haul corridor trains, so the time frame is hours, not days.

I travel on the NEC, and it takes on average 5 - 7 days for my points to post, but 2 weeks is not out of the ordinary. In two and a half years of Amtrak travel, I've only had one ticket that never posted and I had to call.

But, according to the AGR website (on the "My Account" page):

And this topic (points posting time) has been discussed on other threads.

As for your comment about "staying in business," :rolleyes: . Amtrak has no competition. The loyalty program (such as it is) is not its main objective. I agree that AGR isn't always very good in its execution, but it's amazing that Amtrak even has a loyalty program at all, quite frankly.

Speaking of delayed/inconsistent posting, I just got a nice surprise today. On the Capitol Corridor, sometimes my SFC/EMY/SFC bus segments post, and sometimes they don't. I've given up expecting them to (and of course if you send a request for them to post, nothing happens). On a trip (SFC/SAC/SFC) that I took on 11/20 & 11/22, the main segments (EMY/SAC/EMY) posted within roughly a week, along with the "Fall Double Points" and one extra 100-pt. promo bonus. But then on 12/2, one and a half weeks after the trip, the bus segments posted, along with Fall Double Points. Yippee! An extra 400 points! Better "late" than never. :D

+1. Actually I've never had to call, and I've been an AGR member since the program was introduced.

Another :rolleyes: to the idea that airlines and hotels don't do the same thing--they are a lot worse. I take Amtrak about the same number of times a year that I take flights, and I've had to call dozens of times to get flights to post. Amtrak: never.

+1, except i've never had to call about points not posting, except when I forgot to add my AGR number to the res.

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As for your comment about "staying in business," :rolleyes: . Amtrak has no competition. The loyalty program (such as it is) is not its main objective. I agree that AGR isn't always very good in its execution, but it's amazing that Amtrak even has a loyalty program at all, quite frankly.
[/QUOTE]


I have to respectfully disagree with this. Amtrak has plenty of competition. In the NEC, for example, Amtrak competes head to head with the airlines for the DC/NY/BOS business crowd. While I have a strong preference for Amtrak, I have taken several trips this year out of DCA and IAD up to NY area airports.

Amtrak also competes with the likes of BoltBus, Washington Deluxe, Vamoose, LimoLiner, etc, many of which have on-board wifi and some sort of loyalty program.

These may not be direct rail competitors, but they are certainly in a position to steal share and erode the customer base from Amtrak.

I agree that the AGR program is not Amtrak's main objective, but weak as it is, it doesn't surprise me that they have one.

Correct, the only reason Amtrak has a loyalty program is because of competition in the NEC. They then make the program national because Amtrak is supported by Federal and state subsidies.

Still, the NEC--and specifically, really only Acela on qualifying city pairs--is the only place Amtrak intended to make it possible to earn a significant number of AGR points.

I knew somebody would give this kind of reply. ;)

And I would say that loyalty programs are not (or should not be) the main (or only) reason to choose one competitor over another, except that I've seen a lot of apparently irrational decision-making by FlyerTalkers (on choice of airlines, hotel chains, etc.). True, if everthing else is equal, but one competitor has a better loyalty program, then it might make sense to choose that one. But "everything else" is rarely equal. Airplanes and trains don't travel to the same destinations -- airports are (usually) on the outskirts of town, while trains and buses often go to the center of town, for example. There are differences in comfort, price, speed, amenities, lots of things. But somehow, the loyalty program is supposed to be the deciding factor among these "competitors?" (In response to the notion that airlines/hotels/Amtrak etc. are going to "go out of business" because of deficiencies in their loyalty programs -- really sounds like a FlyerTalker "tail wagging the dog"-type argument.)

That's absolutely not true. Anyone buying a sleeper or a roomette on a long journey earns a nice amount of points. I picked up a little over 1,000 for a sleeper on LAX-PDX back in October.

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!)