Nodge, what are you doing?
This was far too good of a deal to last, so I’m not surprised that the two intermediaries in this transaction (Amtrak and Choice) changed the terms. I AM surprised HOW they did it though – no notice, 11th hour change, etc. After all, the transaction in the OP, while convoluted, was fully authorized by the respective partners’ own terms and conditions. It’s almost like Amtrak and Choice borrowed SVO Management’s playbook.
The Guru’s at flyertalk.com have collectively adopted a wait-and-see approach. They recognize that at least for all the folks that did the transfer from Amtrak to Choice under the original conversion terms (before December 1, 2007), it will be hard for Amtrak to legally justify changing the terms after the fact on confirmed transactions with well documented paper trails. Accordingly, the folks at flyertalk figure that Amtrak is just taking its authorized 60 days (as authorized in its original terms) to process the transaction to give it time to figure things out. Flyertalk folks figure Amtrak will eventually honor the original terms on all transactions initiated before Amtrak changed them. To date, Amtrak hasn’t denied honoring a single conversion transaction (but it appears to have stopped processing them since around Nov 15th or so).
Of more concern is what Choice will do with these 60 days Amtrak is giving it. If I were a cynical person, I’d bet that Choice will use this time to lower the exchange rate from 2 Rapid Rewards per 5000 Choice points to 1 rapid reward per 5000 Choice point. Or worse yet, kill the Choice to RR conversion altogether. If Choice did that before our Amtrak points showed up at Choice, there isn’t really much anyone could do about it.
On the plus side, there is a nice Comfort Suites in Okemos, Michigan (just down the road from East Lansing, home of Michigan State University – Go State!), and we visit relatives in East Lansing pretty regularly. So at a minimum, we’ll probably make better use of Choice points vs. Amtrak points, if it comes to that.
Also, even with the lower Amtrak to Choice conversion, it’s still a pretty darned good deal (as of today), especially for those who scored the 5000 SPG to Amtrak bonus. If you have the ability to also earn Rapid Reward points through traditional methods like actually paying retail to fly SWA or using a SWA credit card, this now watered-down SPG to SWA deal (as of today) still gives you a pretty big leg-up on earning a companion pass.
There are still plenty of other promotions to pick-up the RR point slack. For example, SWA is currently running
this promotion where you earn 1 Rapid Reward credit for each $100 SWA gift card you purchase using your SWA credit card (5 RR credits max).
So, I’ll probably ride this out to the end one way or another and not seek to cancel any transactions. The folks at Flyertalk are pretty darned militant and they have a strong sense of entitlement, so I figure I’ll just ride their coat-tails. Either way, it was good while it lasted, and I hope some folks here were able to take full advantage of it.
Now you folks that haven’t tried this deal yet, I strongly encourage you to let the dust settle before entering the game at this point.
-nodge
Go Blue!
Oh well....good thing all of you got in early! 