Those of you with long memories may remember that I was trying to get a refund of some AGR points used because we were bused from Seattle to Eugene last October. I called several times to AGR and was promised various return calls, none of which materialized. I planned another attempt, in writing, today. But lo and behold, today we received a refund of 1500 AGR points. I guess one just has to be patient with them.
I did send a follow up message about my points for a trip I paid for on board the San Joaquins. That ticket had to be faxed and two months later I still haven't seen those points. Perhaps I should be more patient.
I have been impressed with the speed of points being posted from the Chase Mastercard, almost immediate.
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
Yes I think Chase is doing a good job of posting points. All the better to spend them.
Seems the AGR staff is a little like Amtrak. They usually try hard but sometimes they just aren't up to it. Clearly it's best if you can talk to a 'real' person.
I received our tickets today for a trip and they failed to include the room accommodations for the second leg of it. Fortunately I was able to get a knowledgeable rep very quickly who immediately handled the problem.
Posted by smitty195 (Member # 5102) on :
I was wondering if they would ever credit you from that trip! I'm glad to hear they came through and put the points back in.
And I messed up on my end for staying at the Select Plus status this year. I know that your "status" runs until the end of February, which this year happens to be the 29th since it's a leap year. But I also thought that our points counted towards our status until that date as well. NOPE! It goes by the calendar year---not by the "AGR year". I only had 200 points to go so that I could remain at Select Plus, and I was going to take a quick round-trip on a Capitol train sometime between now and February 29th. But not now----I misunderstood the rules, so I'll just be Select for 2008. Oh well.......Luckily, there's not a whole lotta difference between the two for those of us who mostly travel on the west coast since the extra perks are geared toward the frequent NEC travelers.
Posted by HopefulRailUser (Member # 4513) on :
Smitty, if you did any of the trips that qualified for double points in Nov and Dec, they are counting them as miles for Select status. At least they said they were and are supposed to update the points soon. I am waiting anxiously for same since I did a few Surfliner trips just for the points.
On the points refund, guess they decided to refund 10% of those spent - we had a roomette on that trip for 15,000 points. I suppose that is OK, I know the credit card people got about $70 but they may have had a bedroom.
Posted by notelvis (Member # 3071) on :
Glad to hear that AGR (finally) came through for you. I'm keeping an eye out for some bonus points headed my way for a little on-line Christmas shopping.
Presently I'm embroiled with letters, emails, etc. with Choice Hotels over a Comfort Suites stay which fell well short of expectations......but that's another story.
Posted by sbalax (Member # 2801) on :
Vickie--
Glad it worked out for you. My own experience with AGR has been that they may be slow but they generally do the right thing!
Any interesting cruises planned?
Smitty--
Don't give up hope. A couple of years ago I was within 900 points of making Select for a second year and they gave it to me as a "thank you for supporting Amtrak". Since you've already had Select Plus they may well do something similar for you.
Frank in Sunny SBA
Posted by smitty195 (Member # 5102) on :
Thanks for the info, Frank. When I spoke with AGR last week, they hinted that something like this might be possible. He told me to make sure to read all of the email I get from AGR, as they may make some sort of offer to get back to "Plus" status. So I'll keep an eyeball on things.....maybe they'll upgrade me this year after all.