Best Ways To Save Money On Amtrak

hey guys welcome back to the channel today we are talking about essential ways to save money on Amtrak [Music] all right so one of the things that we hear over and over again is how do you afford to travel on Amtrak so much it's so expensive I've looked and looked and looked I can't get a deal why is it so much how can I get a discount we're going to let you know how to do that today yeah because we contrary to popular belief we do not travel free on Amtrak we either pay or earn for all of our fares we've never gotten a free one from them but we do travel free a lot because of points but there are other ways to travel at a discount so we're going to go over all of those for you today and the first one if you haven't heard about it is the BOGO sale or the buy one get one free sale which happens roughly once a year I would say and this is something that you just never know when it's gonna happen it's like a it's like just something that will pop in your email Cosmic event yeah and if you're planning a trip and this just happens to come up then you just jump on it right away because basically it's not helpful if you're it's to be clear it's not helpful if you're traveling by yourself because it's not buy one get one free at a later date it's buy one get one free in the same room at so or sometimes it happens for Coach who actually happens more often for Coach but it's going to be two people traveling together one will be free and one will be paid so that's a great way to do it now that is very difficult to plan ahead though because it's not like it's they're gonna say we're gonna do the BOGO sale in December so hold off planning till then uh likely you'll know they're gonna do the sale rightly after you've booked your ticket it's a good way to know it's happened to us before it has happened but we have had it happen where sale came up like three days before we were about to book and we booked three of them did a whole around the country and saved a couple thousand dollars yeah quite a bit of money and just know in advance too that it's not exactly half price or you know free there is uh still a fee so it's not like they're going to be completely free you are paying some for that second fare yeah you're basically paying the difference between what it would be if it was one person or two people so if one person goes you're not paying half of what two people are if that makes sense so it's not just cutting a fair in half but if it's a coach one it is actually half you're cutting the fair directly in half so the best way to find out when this is happening we do post about this whenever we get the notification we put in our social media we put it everywhere we can but if you really want to know for yourself sign up for Amtrak guest rewards which is their free program where you earn points and when you sign up click the box that says you can email me special offers and all that stuff and when they do the BOGO sale they will send you an email letting you know yeah and they actually not just the BOGO sale but all kinds of sales right all kinds of sales so that's the second category that we have here is Flash sales they do this all the time it's like hey for one week only if you purchase the Auto Train tickets are only 29 or they may do a sale on the Acela or kids travel free all kinds of things like that they'll do but you only find out about it if you're a part of guest rewards exactly so make sure you sign up for that it's totally free and you don't have to have their credit card in order to be in the guest Rewards program so no Financial involvement whatsoever all you do is sign up click the Box yes I want the emails if you say no you don't want the emails then you're not going to get this information and that's the whole point is to get the information yeah the next strategy that we have for saving money on Amtrak is to book early and book off season now this doesn't work quite as well as it used to we have started to notice that throughout the year the fairs have just gone up they've really gone up and since two years ago and there are less fares available now that are extremely discounted we used to routinely get 500 for a room at for the two of us even on the California Zephyr and you won't see that anymore today unless there is a BOGO sale or something like that going on that's why we've been on it so many times because we got fares constantly for like 500 we're like you want to go again because that's a really great deal but it is hard to get that now it is harder but if you do the the two keys are booking as far out as you can and booking off season the closer you get the prices only go up so with Amtrak there are no last minute deals the prices as the train fills you'll see on the little uh ticket thing it'll say the train is like 20 30 when that gets up to 70 80 90 full the price is going to be like eighteen hundred dollars so if you're trying to book and go like a month from when you're looking the price is generally going to be pretty high so book early and book off season the next one is ongoing discounts and you need to know which ones these are we have a list of all these on our website ground on life travel but I'll list them off real quick for you here there's a child discount a senior discount student discount a military discount a military child discount a veteran discount a disability discount and a group travel discount that's quite a few discounts quite a few and those are all just all the time ongoing and you can see those right there um on their website but we go in depth on hours groundedlifetravel.com break it all down for you and tell you what all the different ones are that you can do and probably the best way to save money on Amtrak is if you if you know you're gonna do even if you're only gonna do one ride the best way is to get the Amtrak guest rewards credit card because there's going to be so many things you're going to get from that and we're going to explain to you right now that's how we basically travel really cheaply and almost free most of the time if you look and wait if you can for a sign up bonus that is uh high as we're taping this video today I don't know when exactly is going to air but as we're taping it the bonus points for signing up for the credit card is only twenty thousand points now that's pretty low if you go on their website look it'll tell you what it is whenever you're watching this video we have gotten sign up bonuses of thirty thousand we've also gotten sign up bonuses of fifty thousand if you've ever seen that fifty thousand you jump on that one right away because it is only do not wait yeah it's only a 99 uh annual fee for that card for the preferred and to get 50 000 points we actually both did it so we got a hundred thousand points and that's going to get you four or five free trips in a room at for two people so that's how we got started then once you start using your card you're gonna go up in tier status you'll you know you'll have the lowest here and then when you once you get to the highest tier because you've used it basically all year you'll get tons of other benefits including Lounge passes but also you'll get companion coupons and the companion coupon is like you get a huge amount of money off when you're booking a room at so it's kind of like the companion goes for free so in a way it's almost like being able to do your BOGO sale whenever you want and the beauty of this is when Amtrak does a BOGO sale generally it's for a time frame that's coming up in the next three months and the fares are already high but if you have a companion coupon you could use that to book a fair that's 11 months away and the fare will still be lower so you're getting money off of a lower fare and that is how we've been traveling uh for like 400 for the two of us in a room at is using companion coupons now you get those by achieving tier status with your credit card exactly not only that you're not you don't just get one you get them throughout the year and depending on how much you use spending you know how much you you spend on your card obviously if you're going to get a reward card as we always share with people make sure that you're paying off that balance every month if you're having to carry a balance these benefits are completely wiped out so only get a rewards card if you're going to be paying it off every single month we do have our grinded grounded life finances Channel and we compare there's two guest rewards cards and we compare those on the channel so make sure you check that video out there's one for each but then there's one that compares the two so you can check that out and kind of see which one will work better for you but you get uh also other coupons like 10 off or free upgrade um and just discounts on a seller all different kinds of stuff that you get lots of bonuses extra Lounge passes which we always end up having to give away because we can't use them because we already get lounge access with our tier status so we usually find somebody that's you know looks like they could use a hangout in the lounge and give them give them away and they come over and hang out in the lounge and have a good time because um you know once you already have status and you can access it anyways what's you know kind of what's the point so you just give those away to somebody and kind of pay it forward type thing but it is nice to get all those extra bonuses throughout the year and extra discounts and you you and as you spend you also earn extra miles and the higher up in status you go the more more miles you earn for what you spend and the other cool thing is with the guest Rewards Card you also get a discount for food on on the train you don't get it right then but it comes back onto your card um you know you'll see it on your statement where you got a credit back onto your card so that's really cool too yeah I would say the single best thing that we did in our Amtrak Journey was get the Amtrak guest rewards cards but you won't hear about people talk about these very often and I'll I'll tell you why it's one of the least talked about cards on the internet and that is because there is no uh affiliate referral link for anyone talking about this card so like if you sign up for this card we get nothing for telling you about it and because of that most people will not tell you about it they will just tell you about a card that they're gonna get 50 000 referral points for telling you about so most of the time people aren't telling you what's in the best interest of you they're telling you what's in the best interest of them and that is for you to sign up for a card that they get something out of but nobody's going to get anything out of telling you about this card we just think we're going to tell you because this is my Channel about Amtrak and we can't not tell you about it so we're going to tell you I want you to know all the good details we're going to tell you get this card this is how we're doing it even though no one's talking about this card yeah and we do have a breakdown also I mentioned that on Grounded life finances we show you the two cards side by side and the benefits we also have this in written form if you prefer to look at it or if you want to you know watch the video and read about it groundedlifetravel.com we've got it on there the breakdown for the guest Rewards program as well as the breakdown for the cards yeah and like I said though we don't have a link to the card because there is no program so if you want to get the card and see what the bonus is uh the day you're watching this video just go to amtrak.com scroll down to the bottom you'll see the card there and they'll tell you right away how many points they are currently offering all right guys hopefully this is helpful to you and give you some insight into some discounts that you can get and um you know signing up for the guest Rewards program to get those emails so you're first in line to know when there's a good deal on Amtrak leave us any questions down in the comments we'll see you next time

Channel: Grounded Life Travel

Views: 13,668

Keywords: amtrak, amtrak tickets, buying amtrak tickets, amtrak discounts, amtrak discount, amtrak discounts sleeper car, amtrak discounts aarp, amtrak tips, amtrak travel tips, amtrak tips and tricks, amtrak sunset limited, amtrak southwest chief, amtrak sales, amtrak empire builder, amtrak coast starlight, amtrak california zephyr, amtrak lake shore limited, amtrak cross country, amtrak roomette tips, amtrak bogo sale, amtrak bogo, amtrak military discount, amtrak senior discount

Id: BMr4S9Z-6qk

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2023