nuschu

I've traveled by Amtrak before and I've even ridden all the trains that I'm planning on riding in the past, but that was all using cash. This is the first time that I'm going to use points to do this trip so I wanted to get some advice on the best way to budget the points and if certain segments should be switched to cash to avoid blowing points if it looks like I'm not going to get enough value out of them for the distance traveled.

My overall plan is in late May I'm going from Chicago to Napa Valley for a wedding, then I want to head up to Seattle for a week or so, and then back to Chicago.

This is roughly what I was thinking:

First leg of the trip
Southwest Chief -> Coast Starlight -> Martinez or Davis -> Rental car to Yountville, CA

or

California Zephyr -> Martinez or Davis -> Rental car to Yountville, CA

Second leg of the trip
Coast Starlight From Martinez or Davis -> Seattle (stay a week or so)
Empire Builder -> Chicago


I would like to do the Southwest Chief route, primarily because I'm bringing a friend along and she has never ridden a long distance train. I really like that stretch of the Coast Startlight, but if this is going to signifigantly kill my points budget or cost a lot more for her coach ticket, then I guess I could skip it this go around. I know very little of the Napa area, so Martinez was basically just the obvious choice from the map. I don't know if traffic from Davis west would be a better option or what the neighborhoods around either station are like, because I'll be walking or cabbing it to a rental car place when I arrive there.

Post composition ramblings:
Now that I'm typing this I noticed a few things that might push me to the Zephyr. It looks like the Coast Starlight doesn't arrive in Martinez until 10:45pm, which would mean spending the night there and getting a car the next morning. The Zephyr arrives there at 3:26pm, the only problem there is, if the train is running late by more than an hour, I'd be out of luck making it to the rental car place before 5. If I went for Davis, the Zephyr arrives there at 2:44pm so it would buy me a little more leeway.

Any advice to help figure this mess out would be really helpful.

tom911

I'd check on car rental places before deciding on Martinez vs Davis. I know there are car rental places around the Concord Airport and over there you have a Crowne Plaza and a Hilton. Downtown Martinez is the seat of Contra Costa County government, has a Shell oil refinery, and I'd think would be pretty deserted at night. It's right across the water from Benicia, where I live.

Martinez is out of the commuting corridor into San Francisco or San Jose, so you won't have any traffic to worry about. You would have a $5 toll to cross the Benicia-Martinez Bridge where you wouldn't see that coming down from Davis to Napa.

Doesn't AMTRAK run bus service to several different cities from Martinez? Can you get up to Napa with it?

nuschu

There is an Enterprise rental agency 1.8 miles south of the Martinez Station (map). It's open til 5pm. That's honestly the only option that might not require a cab ride, which I would imagine I'd have to call ahead and schedule. I suppose that's my main concern. I don't know what the on-time rating is for the Zephyr, so I'm not sure if an hour and a half leaves enough time for complications. Definintely makes for a stronger argument for jumping off at Davis. I'll check into the bus situation.

There is an Avis and a Budget (at the same place it looks like), 0.4mi east of the Davis station, open till 6pm. (map)

tom911

Contra Costa County has lots of buses. Take a look and see if any of those might work to get over to Concord. The #19 route stops at AMTRAK and there might be others that come through Martinez. The stop at John Glenn and Concord Ave is near Concord Airport, Crowne Plaza and on the same street as Hertz. If you need help with geography send me a PM. I'll be flying out after midnight tonight but will be on line along the way.

http://cccta.org/maps-schedules/

roadman3313

I rent with Hertz usually. The Davis Hertz HLE is generally available to pick you up from the station during their business hours. The area around the station is nice to walk around or wait at too.

Not too sure about locations around Martinez but it is a bit out of the way.

In terms of traffic, it depends how you go to Napa. There is a windy, yet scenic route from Davis out through Winters via Highway 128 to 121. No traffic there. Take about two hours. Using the freeway if it is outside of rush hour (I-80 to CA-12) takes about an hour give or take.

If you get off in Sacramento the Sacramento Downtown HLE will be able to pick you up from the Amtrak station. They generally have a bit more of a car selection and longer hours than the Davis HLE. The drive would be about 20 more minutes to Napa than from Davis.

If you do take the CZ it is worth noting that the schedule has almost an hour worth of schedule padding Westbound between Roseville and Sacramento and about 15 more minutes between Sacramento and Davis. If the train were to leave Roseville about an hour late it still would arrive to Martinez on-time or even early.

As noted, if you took the CS you would have to wait for a rental car place to open in the morning as the locations nearby all close by 5 or 6pm.

nuschu

So it sounds like regardless of if I take the Coast Starlight or the Zephyr, it would be worth it to stop in Davis or Sacramento from a convenience standpoint.

Assuming time looks good, the scenic route out of Davis sounds interesting. I'm planning on arriving a day before I have to be in Yountville, so I'll have a little time on my hands.

Now I just have to figure out this whole points vs cash thing for different legs of the trip. I plan on doing a Roomette the entire way.

Armani

I will be taking the Zephyr from Omaha to MTZ on 3/1 (last date to get BR prior to points increase). We plan to call ahead for a taxi to our hotel in Walnut Creek. I'll pass on my experiences after my trip.

roadman3313

Points increase? And there should be Taxi's around the station waiting but calling ahead is always a good option. Walnut Creek is about 12-15 miles from the Amtrak Station depending on your destination.

In terms of the OP taking a taxi to Concord to obtain a rental car would be another option but I'd still go with Davis or Sacramento depending on where the rates are better.

KenHamer

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.448 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Avis now owns Budget, so yes, they are probably in the same place.

Armani

Thanks for the information. I have found that taxis at an Amtrak station are unpredictable so I try to call ahead. Amtrak raised the points requirement substantially for a bedroom almost a year ago. I booked this ticket 330 days in advance on the last day at the old award level and saved 10000 points.

nuschu

Ok, I just had a great conversation with a helpful Amtrak Guest Rewards agent and reserved my travel. I ended up going with the Southwest Chief/Coast Starlight route in the end so I could travel up the coast (CHI to LA to Davis). Then I'm staying a night in Davis and picking up a rental car and driving to Napa Valley the next morning. Then I head back to Davis the next day, drop the car off, and head up to Seattle that night. Then finally back to Chicago from Seattle after a week or so. Should be an awesome trip. Thanks for all the help

Here are a few things I've learned about this process, you guys probably know, but anyway...

1) If you book a roomette with points, your companion doesn't need to a buy a ticket, so you spend points on a Roomette, they ride with you for free. I was originally under the impression that they would have to buy a coach ticket because that's how it goes when you pay cash..

2) I'm not sure how two zone travel works when there are multiple routes. They permitted me to take the Southwest Chief to Coast Starlight route, over the more direct Zephyr route because there was only a few hours layover in LA. It seemed like if the layover were closer to a full day, they wouldn't have let me go that route on a two-zone ticket. Anyone have a full explanation on how that works? Could I theoretically book a single three-zone ticket and go from Chicago to LA to Seattle to Chicago? or a single two-zone ticket from Chicago to LA to Seattle?

3) Very important... Book early, I'm booking for May and some of the trains I'm looking at are already 1/2 booked, as far as roomettes are concerned anyway.

4) Probably pretty obvious... If you are going from point A to point B, then staying over a night before going to point C, it counts as two tickets. I counted on it working this way, since technically you are buying two tickets, one from A to B, and another from B to C.

roadman3313

Great choice! And there are quite a few lodging properties in Davis to choose from if you haven't already. Rental car place can most likely pick you up from where you are staying. And the drive is pretty much straight out of town without the use of Freeways. You should hopefully have a nice trip

nerd

No, and yes.

Any of the routings for a revenue ticket (i.e. those that come up online) from Chicago to Seattle are also bookable on an award. Chicago-LA-Seattle is one of them.