Any experience with their cards or general advice?

Card has an annual fee of 99 but if one spends $2000 in 3 months it's equivalent to 40,000 points. Of course you have to use the points for it to be a deal...

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High on a threshold yearning to sing
Down with the dancers having one last fling

Generic credit card will give you 2% cash back. So, $2000 gets you $40 back. 40,000 points would have to be worth $139 (fee plus cash back). Easy math.

After the first $2000, the point bonus probably disappears. So, there’s that.

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Embarassing myself on the Internet since 1978.

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mrbigstuff
Any experience with their cards or general advice?

Card has an annual fee of 99 but if one spends $2000 in 3 months it's equivalent to 40,000 points. Of course you have to use the points for it to be a deal...

We have had an Amtrak Guest Rewards Mastercard for years, currently with First National Bank of Omaha. There has never been a fee.

We get Amtrak points for every dollar charged. The value of the points depends on the price of tickets for a given train at a given time—Amtrak now charges like the airlines, and the prices change all the time. You can buy with either dollars or points; now some of each. I guess I can figure out if savings amount to 2% or not, but haven't bothered.

Mostly we have the card for Northeast Regional trips to VA and back (in the winter; in summer we take our travel trailer). During the Covid mess I refused to take Amtrak because they required masks, so we accumulated lots of points over three years or so. Last year we had enough points accumulated for a trip (in sleepers) from here (Boston area) to the Southwest and back.

You can also use the points to buy tickets for others, in our case for family members on the NE Corridor.

If you travel by train, I recommend the card. If not, get your 2% in cash.

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On the river in Saxonville.

there is a fee-free card but it doesn't give you the 40,000 points (dependent upon spent amount) so I could also do that. but the 40k points amount to about $1,000 in train tickets, so it's an attractive deal for sure.

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High on a threshold yearning to sing
Down with the dancers having one last fling

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mrbigstuff
there is a fee-free card but it doesn't give you the 40,000 points (dependent upon spent amount) so I could also do that. but the 40k points amount to about $1,000 in train tickets, so it's an attractive deal for sure.

That wasn't an option when we first signed up. The no-fee card did offer an initial bonus of some amount (12k? 20k?), and may still.

I'll just interject here that all you folks gaming the system with your points make everything more expensive for the everyone. Where do you think the profit for these companies comes from?

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g=

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gabester
I'll just interject here that all you folks gaming the system with your points make everything more expensive for the everyone. Where do you think the profit for these companies comes from?

You're kidding, right?