Amtrak Guest Rewards Card

I decided to take a break from airline credit cards for a bit to look at the Amtrak credit cards.  It’s an interesting concept for a government-owned entity to have co-branded credit cards, but Amtrak is intended to be run as a profit-seeking entity.  Amtrak offers two credit cards: a no annual fee option and a $99 option.  First, let’s look at the free version. The Amtrak cards are also interesting because they’re actually issued by First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO), which is a much less commonly-found lender among travel credit cards.

I provide the information here just to give readers a vague idea if the rewards offered by the card might make sense for them to consider the card.  The information on this page has been collected independently, and all information should be confirmed with the card company before applying.

Welcome Offer

At the time of posting, the Amtrak Guest Rewards Mastercard has a welcome offer of 12 000 bonus points after you spend $1 000 in the first 3 months of account opening.  Amtrak points are generally worth 2.8 ¢/point when booking non-high speed tickets or 2.5 ¢/point on Acela fares. That makes the welcome bonus worth around $330, which is good for a no annual fee card.

Earnings

The Amtrak Guest Rewards Mastercard has two bonus categories: Amtrak travel and dining earn 2x points/$ and everything else earns 1x point/$.  Given the high value of Amtrak points when redeemed for train trips, that represents a 5.6% return on Amtrak and a 2.8% return on everything else, which is incredible for a no annual fee card.

Benefits

This card offers a couple of small benefits (beyond points earning opportunities) in the form of a 10% rebate on onboard food and beverage purchases in the form of a statement credit and a 5% point rebate on Amtrak travel.  With that 5% point rebate, Amtrak points are actually worth 2.9 ¢/point.

How to use the points

The main use for Amtrak points is to use them for trains.  Amtrak award tickets can’t be used to book saver Coach fares, so sometimes a saver fare can represent much better value compared to a points fare if flexibility is not required.  However, this also means that sometimes a Business Class ticket can be cheaper with points than a Coach ticket because (as is my understanding) any Business Class ticket can be purchased with points.

Examples of using the card

These examples assume you spend all your general travel budget on Amtrak.

Spend per month

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (1x)	$300	300	$200	200	$600	600	$400	400
Gas (1x)	$0	0	$100	100	$200	200	$100	100
Airfare (1x)	$700	700	$200	200	$0	0	$400	400
Hotels (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$200	200	$0	0	$300	300
Gen Travel (2x)	$400	800	$0	0	$300	600	$100	200
Dining (2x)	$600	1 200	$300	600	$300	600	$0	0
General (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$500	500	$500	500	$400	400
Total	$4 000	5 000	$1 500	1 800	$1 700	2 500	$1 700	1 800
Average points/$		1.25		1.20		1.47		1.06

The 2/1 earning structure means that this card does not generate huge numbers of points, but the high value of Amtrak points means that this is somewhat less necessary.  Specifically, in these examples, the average points/$ ranges from 1.06 – 1.47 points/$, which is worth 3.0 – 4.12 ¢/$.  I think that’s actually the highest return on spend of any card I’ve covered on here and is definitely the highest of any co-branded card.  That 2x dining category is even competitive with other strong dining cards, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Specific examples

These examples include the bonus points earned from getting IHG Elite Platinum status from the card.

Card	World Traveller ($750)  (% return)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (WT/Hotel)
No rewards card	2 728 (4.9%)	2 200 MP (7.3%)	$35.46 / $11.00
General 2% cashback card ($0)	2 728 + $15.00 (6.9%)	2 200 MP + $4.60 (9.3%)	$50.46 / $15.60
Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95)	2 728 Avios + 1 500 UR (7.9%)	2 200 MP + 460 UR (10.3%)	$57.96 / $17.90
Amex Green Card ($150)	2 728 Avios + 2 250 MR (9.1%)	2 200 MP + 690 MR (11.5%)	$66.96 / $21.35
Amtrak Guest Rewards Card ($0)	2 728 Avios + 750 GR (7.7%)	2 200 MP + 230 GR (10.1%)	$56.46 / $17.44

Is this credit card right for you?

If you travel with Amtrak occasionally and can actually make use of these points, then I think an Amtrak card could definitely be a good option to consider.  Although the points are very valuable, using them is somewhat harder simply because most people don’t use Amtrak often.