How to Maximize Your Amtrak Guest Rewards Points

Amtrak Guest Rewards is our national passenger railroad Amtrak's equivalent of an airline's frequent flyer program. By booking Amtrak trips, purchasing products and services from sponsors, staying in certain hotel chains etc., you can earn points, which count towards one way Amtrak tickets, starting at just 1000 points! However, any journey for more than a few hundred miles requires many more points-not very convenient for the person who occasionally travels on Amtrak. However, through the many diverse programs offered by AGR, one can easily earn enough points to take a trip without setting foot on a train!

1. Take advantage of double points promotions and the like. Every so often, Amtrak offers double points for trips on certain routes or even the entire network! Instead of earning two points per dollar, one can earn four if traveling during the qualifying period. By taking a sizable trip, one can rack up a boatload of points in a short time.

2. Ride Acela Express between one of the qualifying city pairs in the Northeast. For every trip taken on Acela Express between certain city pairs, including most of the major cities between Boston and Washington, D.C., one can earn five hundred points in business class (the equivalent of coach on other trains) or seven-hundred fifty in first class. For a round trip between New York and Washington, you could earn 1000 points, an amount it would ordinarily take a cross country trip in a sleeper to earn.

3. Take several short trips in one day. Because each trip earns a minimum of 100 points, one could take a train from, say Philadelphia to Paoli for only a few dollars several times in succession and earn almost five hundred points for only about twenty dollars! If you do this during a promotion, you could earn even more points!

4. Shop at the online AGR mall. Via the www.amtrakguestrewards.com website, you can visit a wide variety of merchants, from Petco to Macy's, and earn anywhere from 3 to 20 points per dollar spent, depending on the merchant. If you do all your online shopping here, you will be well on your way to a nice trip within months!

5. Watch out for special promotions on the AGR website. AGR is always offering new promotions and "Hot Deals" to help you earn six figure point totals! The website also provides links to their partners, such as zipcar, from whom you can earn more points.

6. Obtain a Chase AGR Mastercard. Earning you one point per dollar spent and two per dollar spent on Amtrak travel, the AGR Mastercard is a deal you can't miss. With the advantage of being issued from a major credit card company and having no annual fees, this card will help you achieve your AGR goals in no time at all.

Amtrak Guest Rewards offers many opportunities to both redeem and earn points. Through it, thousands have earned free dream Amtrak trips-the possibilities for your next free trip are endless. While the average person may not be very successful with AGR, once one has a fair amount of experience with the loopholes and advantages of the program, one can literally become rich!

Sources consulted: www.amtrakguestrewards.com , http://discuss.amtraktrains.com