Should There Be an Amtrak Forum?
 

With the advent of the Amtrak MBNA card and the generous Amtral awards program, more discussion has been occurring about Amtrak in the Visa/Mastercard forum. However, a recent thread in the Continental forum about Club Acela and the new Airlink trains between Penn Station and Newark point, IMHO, to the need for an Amtrak forum.
There are enough links to flying that I believe that it would be a viable forum for this site.

(This was previously posted in Miles Buzz. I am reposting here after suggestion.)

I concur.

I also concur.

This idea has been brought up before! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Would this be a new subforum of a new forum entitled "TRAINS?"
Not a bad idea, particularly if it pans out as a truly successful program. So far it has lots of announced partners, but not many details!

For anyone seeking info regarding the new program see:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/003770.html

-doc

"It makes sense as we actually had a forum for the orginal Amtrak program that they introduced for Metroliner passengers years ago in the first incarnation of FlyerTalk. Let me consider where and how it may begin to live on FT. Thaqnks for the suggestion. I'm going to take a short DC-NYC trip on Amtrak over the holidays simply to get active in the program so i know what i may be talking about......The only thing I don't know yet is if it is a frequent "rider" or frequent "railer" program.......
"

-Randy

http://www.flyertalk.com/pasttalk/ft...ML/000259.html

Here are the issues for me:

1) This is a frequent traveler program and all of the usual discussion will aply.

2) This is an increasingly important partner program about which I, at least, have lots of questions. But where do these questions go? I posted a question about the Marriott Anytime Flex reward in the Marriot board. But most Marriott Rewards program members will have no idea about the intricacies of this particular reward. (The same can be said about the Hertz reward, etc.)

3) The ability to redeem into gift certificates is very similar to Goldpoints.

In fact, thinking about where Amtrak should be is similar to thinking about where Goldpoints discussions should take place. Should they be under Radisson? Should they be under S.P.A.M.? Should they be under some of the partners to Goldpoints? (There was lots of discussions in American, for instance.)

The answer to the above questions should give an idea of where to place this topic. I must admit that I'm too much of a neophyte here and lack the experience to come up with a good choice. But I do know that if the discussion gets too spread out, it will be impossible to stay up-to-date on the topic.

I would like to see a forum for trains. More information about Amtrak as well as shuttle/commuter type trains would be a help to me.

Continental Air in code-share pact with Amtrak

Continental Airlines on Thursday said it had signed a code-sharing deal with Amtrak that allows the rail operator and the airline to share passengers and revenue at its Newark International Airport hub.

Continental, the No. 5 U.S. airline, said Amtrak will provide connections for its passengers from the airport to the rail operator's Northeast rail service.

The code share is scheduled to launch in mid-March and will allow travelers to make one reservation for both air and rail services.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020117/n17264553_1.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/003140.html

Should I expect to hear an up-or-down response on this question from a moderator?

I seem to remember Randy indicating they were working for a procedure to handle all requests for new forums... perhaps that would be the answer?

Thought it was in the past couple of weeks but I could be wrong.

William

Thx. I'll be patient.

Just keeping this on top. Not pushing. Just want it to remain visible.

New forum??

Keep on dreaming!

I gave up years ago.

How I know that there won't be no new forums in the near future: Well, here is my experience: TK (Turkish Airlines) has left Qualiflyer and formed its program in Oct 2000. That is 1 year and 4 months ago. I asked about new forum for it. And asked again. And again.

I gave up after 6 months.

The situation is the same for the ones who were asking forums for "Aerolineas", "Gulf Air", "LanChile", "Czech Airlines" and many more.

I can definetly say that no new forum has been added to this pages in the last one and a half year. Nobody answer your requests. They are always planning and planning...

Well, guys, keep on dreaming!!!

bump

This issue has been brought to the attention of the TalkBoard.