California Zephyr

Today I decided to investigate the value of Amtrak's Guest Rewards program.

Amtrak divides it's rewards into "Zones," and there are only 3 major zones in the United States.  Divided vertically, crossing the country East Coast to West Coast or vice versa is most expensive, but travelling up and down each coast, or within the Midwest, is potentially an excellent use of points.  As are some normally expensive redemptions.

In the entire continental US, there are only 3 major zones.

As an example, Chicago to Los Angeles would normally cost at least $156 on the day I looked.  Booking the lowest end room for two costs an additional $433.  The $156 coach ticket is 8000 points, having crossed two zones.  The $589 all inclusive cost of a ticket and a low end private roomette costs 20,000 points.  That's 1.95 cents per mile (CPM) for the coach ticket (not a pleasant experience, but a decent redemption considering points "cost" 50 cents to earn), and it's ~2.95 cents per mile for the private, low end bunk.  That's up to a 5.9% return on your Amtrak spending just for having an account open with Guest Rewards.

Amtrak award chart

You probably noticed that the Northeast has it's zone.  That's unfortunate, but if you can stand the traffic, it appears that a few major cities made the cut to stay in both the Eastern zone and the Northeastern zone.  For example, it appears that New York City is present on both maps, suggesting it can be counted as a single zone if traveling from Florida.  However, hitting a smaller city like Springfield, MA may count as two zones instead of one.

So have a look at the chart and figure out if you can make this work for you.  Once you've found your redemption, it's time to start looking at ways to plump those points...

Right now, Amtrak is running a promotion offering double points earning on all routes.  That is, get registered, travel between September 5 and November 16 and you'll receive 4 points earned per dollar spent instead of 2 points per dollar spent.  Not an extra reason to travel really, but our 5.9% theoretical return would double to a fully respectable 11.8% return if we earned all our points through this program.  On top of that, we can earn points by simply paying with a credit card.  As a matter of fact, right now you can sign up for Amtrak's Guest Rewards credit card (I do not receive referrals on this link) which gives you a 12,000 point bonus with your first purchase and an additional 2 points per dollar on Amtrak purchases (1 point on everything else; I wouldn't use this card for everyday purchases).  Did I mention there's no annual fee?  There's really no reason not to get the card and keep it around for your Amtrak purchases (Chase, the issuer, does not let you earn sign up bonuses on cards you've had before).

You can get some amazing returns by using this all together.  2 points normally + 2 points promo + 2 points from Amtrak Rewards card = 6 points earned per dollar on travel until November 16.  With valuations easily reaching 2.95 CPM, you can get a return on cash layout of 17.7% (not counting the sign up bonus!).  Now that's what I call gold!

Note: There are some unanswered questions about the value in some situations.  In particular, I'm thinking about the cost of 2 award sleeper tickets.  Would Amtrak charge the full 20,000 points for each person?  The reason I ask is because the room is purchased normally at a flat cost up to full occupancy (so a room for 2 is $433 no matter if there's 1 or 2 people actually sleeping in it).  That could substantially alter the value proposition for those with traveling companions.  One way to get around this might be to get the second passenger a normal coach award ticket (8000 points) and just share the room "informally."  I don't know how the conductors would take to this though, as all my Amtrak travel is very short haul.