Amtrak is running another promotion where you will receive a up to a 30% bonus on all points purchased through March 16, 2013. This is a promotion that is probably run a few times a year (at least every other month I’d say) and one that I’ve taken advantage of in the past.

Purchase:

• 1,000 – 4,500 points and get a 10% bonus
• 5,000 – 9,500 points and get a 20% bonus
• 10,000 points and get a 30% bonus

I am limited to Northeast travel on Amtrak where the cost of a one way train ticket costs 4,000 points. Usually, the cheapest you can get in the Northeast is about $49 (on the routes between NYC – BOS and NYC – DC). However, if you don’t do it early enough you can be looking at a $100+ ticket. Last minute tickets can even be close to $150ish. Since they run 30% bonus promotions quite often (even at the lowest point level), I’d probably hold off on buying less than 10,000 points, although this could be a new tiered trend they are moving to when offering bonus points. Last year they even offered a 50% bonus that was great!

With this promotion (assuming you have a small stash of Amtrak points already), you can purchase 10,00 for a total of 13,000 points for $275. This will get you 3 one-way Amtrak tickets in the Northeast for a net result of $91 each way (you’ll also have 1,000 points left over). This isn’t nearly as good as promotions in the past, so I would not buy out of pure speculation. But, if you are looking to travel Amtrak and see the ticket costs in the $100+ mark, then this can provide you some great value.

Some things to know with Amtrak travel:

• The terms with purchasing points state that they can take up to 72 hours to post, however, in my experience they post immediately
• You can only purchase up to 10,000 points in a calendar year
• You can redeem your points for another passenger (this means if you’ve already hit the 10,000 point amount for purchases, use a friend/family members account)