kiyotaka

Is there way to transfer Amtrak Guest Rewards points to Hilton w/o select or select plus member status? I could sign up for Amtrak MC cc and spend $200 in Amtrak but we never use Amtrak. I made a huge mistake of transferring my CO miles (10k) & wife’s (50k) to Amtrak so that I can eventually transfer them to Hilton w/o much research.

MJLouise

Here's the T&C from the AGR website:

Hotel Points

Redeem Amtrak Guest Rewards points for select hotel points.
Terms & Conditions

The option to redeem Amtrak Guest Rewards points for airline miles, hotel points, Audience Rewards and experiential rewards is only available to the following members with the associated annual point transfer caps:

Members with current Amtrak Guest Rewards Select or Select Plus™ status, or with an annual point transfer limit of 50,000
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


Do you have the AGR card? There are codes out there for up to 32K points, but no guarantees as to whether or not Chase and/or Amtrak will actually give them to you. Reports vary as to whether or not it is based on the code from the offer, or is "targeted" from your AGR membership number.

kiyotaka

No I don’t have an AGR cc, even I get this cc, I won’t be able to transfer AGR points to HH unless I spend $200/ yr on Amtrak travel, will I? We don’t have any chance to use Amtrak. Is there any creative way I can transfer AGR points to HH or any hotel points?

MJLouise

You could try your luck at points.com. Or you could find a friend who could use a ticket, book for them, then ask them to book hotel nights for you.

In general, AGR is pretty much just Amtrak oriented -- it isn't a good laundry operation for moving points / miles around.

AlanB

Correct, even with the credit card you would still need to buy $200 worth of tickets, before you would be allowed to transfer points.

It didn't use to be that way, but too many abused the system and they locked things down.

I'm afraid that you may well have orphaned your points.

You could try, no promises, calling AGR and pleading with them to simply reverse the original transfers. That way at least you'd have the points back in the original accounts. Doesn't help you with Hilton, but they wouldn't be stuck at Amtrak.

There are of course trades as noted by others.

Finally, not sure just how much help it would be, but if you're still wanting hotel awards and are amenable to the Starwood chain then you could get some free nights that way. You can use your AGR points to buy single night awards at the Wood; 15,000 get you 1 night at a level 2 hotel, 22,500 buys a level 3, an 27,500 buys 1 night at a level 4.

Alternatively 10,000 AGR will buy a $100 gift card for the Hyatt chain.