I think it's worthwhile raising a bit of a stink about this - the lack of notice to members is just lame. I wrote a snail mail letter to both Amtrak and UA MP and got a phone call response from United that as far as they know, it's still possible to transfer Guest Rewards Points to UA! (I'd previously received an email from UA asking for anything in writing from Amtrak indicating the transfer was over, since it was news to them.

I may give Amtrak a call tomorrow - anyone else want to spend a little time protesting and asking for an extension of time to redeem our points?

I actually NEVER participated in this deal but had told about 50 people, 2 of them family members who, as far as I know got their points, but the other 48 may be pissed off as well!

BUt I was going to do it and I find it disgusting that such programs should do this!

Now, I am all for helping to force the entites responsible for making this bad blunder step up and explain themselves as well as redeem/transfer/give back miles for those who are still in process wanting to transfer from one place to another. You are being held hostage!

here is how I may be able to help--and I would be more than happy to do so:

First, go to www.theothersideoftraveling.com and take a look at one great way to stop this kind of $#!&%*#

I had built the link a while ago and then put in all kinds of cool travel things when I hd time, and some of it had to do with gift cards... BUT then I particiapted in a deal with Points.com which went sour. It took 7 months SEVEN MONTHS to get them to finally award the last several thousand miles to some of the final people out of 100 screwed souls. But it worked. A lot of pushing and never giving up helped everyone. I had put 90% of the entire story on to this site above and dedicated it to the business of explaining--en mas--an entire story on what happens if a miles and points gig goes bad.

Now it seems that since this whole UA Amtrak gig did just that, the site must now be revived to work again if you guys so wish it!

I will retool--or re-dedicate pages on that site to explain the entire deal as we know it and then explain why amtrak should compensate and release those points so that at least everyone in the gig right now can get the miles out that they had already planned on getting. If amtrak really wants to stop the deal, well maybe they can do so, but first they have to let these other people who are mid stream get out of it and get off track (pun intended)

soooo, what I am saying is this:

someone write me the story, then send me any copies of letters--hopefully in electronic form--so that I might extract the text, do up the web pages in a format similar to my simply MS word style copy, and then make demands on the site.

then, we not only share this link with Amtrak and United, but also with teh BBB, the atty general of whatever state they do biz in, the Conde Naste Traveler mag, and all forums and entities there are who can or would entertain any action against them! Then we all SPAM them these messages or this link over and over and over and over until it works.

You see, the very fact that they figure it is too hard for the average person to explain or take the time out to amass many others to complain the same story at the same time is why they are able to shun you off and blow off helping out! BUT when you have it in a public live web site--and I mean more public than just FT, then it becomes an issue. Plus, when you try to explain to your friends what happened, you can say:

check this link and feel my pain and then show them the link.

www.theothersideoftraveling.com

For now, to see the similarities and relevance, do check things like the 7th page of the site where I make a list of things programs should be doing.

It is indeed up to us unfortunatley to keep them from screwing around like this!

That's why i am always scheming and scamming miles out there... If they are gonna play dirty, i am gonna find holes. BUT wouldnt it be great if they did not play dirty and I did not have to find holes? Then we would all win. It is up to these businesses to fix their own marketing problems and let that happen.

You people with stuck miles need to work together and I offer up my help to blast out a free site link (I had already paid for this link and so it is yours for the use if you let me put in the guts of your info into it) and get things done.

So, email me or something and tell me about the deal so I have the ability to write up version 1. Then I will share it with you and let you tell me what to change, what to edit and stuff like that. When we get to the final draft, we show the link to everyone who needs to see it!

MM
(JEFF F - [email protected])

when you email me, kindly mention FT or Miles or United/Amtrak in the subject and tell me your poster name too. the goal is to try to show what happened, what the deal was, how many were in it, what happened when it went sour, why that was bad, how they should fix it and what happens if they dont!


incidentally, the site I made for the points.com gig currently on there finally was done and I just havent had the time to move the text around so that it is in the back burner. When on the back burner, the site is ready for a new thing and so lemme tell ya, the timing of this gig going sour coulnt be better! I can now move that text out because that deal is solved. I aint the best in the world at doing this sort of approach but it does work and people do notice an entire web link dedicated to bad publicity! So bring it on and let us try! The points.com gig on my site actually just ended because we spammed the board of directors and they took final action in our favor. Now I can take down most of my material on there but some remains because of the ways and means of the site. ANd I will obviously leave it up there for you guys to read and get ideas on how and what I mean here.

Hello Marathon Man!

I've spent the past few days trying to get more info on this. UA continues to tell me as far as they know, the transfer is still available. I spoke with a very sympathetic Amtrak Guest Rewards rep who couldn't find anything in writing (UA asked me to fax them anything I have in writing from Amtrak but all I had were extremely off-the-point email replies until Thursday Jan. 20, when I got the following) - she asked me to ask UA MP to have a supe there call a supe at Amtrak but I don't know if that will ever happen.

Meanwhile I'm faxing the Amtrak reply to UA.

So - if you need any more info I'd be glad to provide it - [email protected].

Your e-mail was in regard to the partnership between Amtrak Vacations (Private Label Travel) and United Airlines,which was the air/rail program handled by our Amtrak Vacations Desk. We currently have not replaced this company. The air/rail program is not being offered at this time.

Thanks for the very helpful post. I had been eyeing the Asia Miles program as it is just as you say a very good value.With that said please be aware that ALL their miles expire within 3 years regardless of account activity like most other programs. That may be a problem for some

My assumption all along has been that this change was not done by UA or at least not at its choosing. Why would UA want to cut-off Amtrak when all Amtrak was doing was paying UA (presumably) cash for FF miles? With UA still in bankruptcy, I imagine they would sell all the FF miles they could.

My thought was that UA may have been forced to cut-off Amtrak by Bank One (FirstUsa-issuer of MP Visa cards) as one of the terms of BankOne helping finance UA in bankruptcy and after. But if that were the case, I would think UA CSRs would know about it.

Then there's MBNA, issuer of the Amtrak MC. No reason I can think of they would want to cut-off Amtrak, especially since none of their many, many other cards tie directly to a major airline. I guess MBNA might have changed the rate they'd pay Amtrak for Amtrak miles-who knows?

That leaves Amtrak. I would think the rate Amtrak was paid by MBNA was about the same Amtrak paid UA. If it was less, Antrak was really nuts in setting this up in the first place. If it were the same or more, I would think Amtrak would've kept the program intact, since even a small profit on the rate would have also generated more profits for unredeemed miles, etc.

The one thing that seems clear is that Amtrak did this in a way to not only prevent members from using their 2005 annual allotment to get UA miles, but also so that people would keep using the Amtrak MC up the last minute only to get stuck. Plus of course also sticking the people who were in the process of making a transfer.

I love train travel and use it every chance I can overseas. Sadly, just about everyone I talk to who uses Amtrak seems to come away with some story of long dealys, lousy food, heat not working, etc. As a result. Amtrak has always struck me as third-rate operation, and this change as to UA miles fits right in with that impression.

Anybody here remember the Goldpoints programs as in Carlson ?
For those that are not aware the same group handles Amtrak.
They did some mighty shady things in the past with Goldpoints and it does not surprise me they are at it again with Amtrak.

Comments are fair, except for the lousy food comment. Airline aficionados have no business critiqueing Amtrak's food, given airline food (peanuts, anyone?). Amtrak dining car food is actually quite good.

Since I have ~ 180,00 OnePass miles, about three months ago I transferred 25,000 OnePass miles to Amtrak with an intention to spread my risk by moving over a portion to UA. Then I read about this change on FT and also did not see a transfer link at Amtrak web site, so gave up and transferred back those miles to Continental.

My question to anyone is this - am I better off by letting my miles stay put at Contienetal or joining this campaign of protest and, if successful, transfer them to UA? Neither of these airlines fly to my hometown, so convenience-wise no one is better than the other. I have only new account at UA, with only ~ 3,000 miles.

You can use CO miles on DL awards.

An extension of time won't help. The reason the MBNA GR Mastercard was so useful was that you could earn points and decide which airline to get miles on later. Now the only advantage of the MBNA card is its lack of an annual fee. But you have to offset that against the fact that Amtrak may pull the plug on CO rewards without notice. So the safest course for me and maybe for you is just to move all my points to CO miles now and stop using the card.

Of course, if you're one of the few who has enough Amtrak trains passing through your town to make Amtrak rewards worthwhile, this doesn't apply to you. But for me, I fly at least 5x as often as I take the train, and most of my train trips are < $20, so train rewards don't offer much attraction.

I have 20 k useless CO miles and wanted to convert them Jan 2, but then I noticed the dreadful change.
Count me in- I will protest too. Maybe we get a one-time exception...
Cheers
s-tex

I have compiled a few things from some people and may even refer to this thread. Will add some things on this issue to my site so we can do a group protest soon.

Hang in there. i plan to get this stuff on my site link this weekend--depending on some factors. BUT I will do it.
MM

I recently converted Amtrak miles to my Hilton Honors account, so if you have any interest in that, at least it's somewhere to go with you Amtrak miles that are no longer good for United.

OK, I was going to transfer my AGR points to Continental, thinking that they are more useful there than with AGR now, and if I needed to, I could transfer them back. But I don't see Amtrak as a OnePass redemption option anymore! Has this gone away too? Is Amtrak going to pull the plug on any more partners?!

You have to call CO to transfer to Amtrak- I don't think it's specifically spelled out on CO.com