FNBO Amtrak Credit Cards and Points Redemptions Guide: 40,000-Point Welcome Bonus

[Updated 2024.2] The FNBO Amtrak credit cards have increased their welcome bonuses. The $99 annual fee version is now up to 40,000 points, and the no-annual-fee version is 12,000 points.

• FNBO Amtrak Preferred 40,000 application link
• FNBO Amtrak Guest Rewards 12,000 application link

FNBO Amtrak Preferred Credit Card Review

Benefits

• 20% back on food and beverage purchases onboard trains
• Annual companion ticket, upgrade coupon, and lounge pass: awarded upon account opening and again each year after paying the annual fee
• Earn 1,000 TQPs (Tier Qualifying Points) for every $5,000 spent
• 5% points rebate when redeeming Amtrak points
• No foreign transaction fee

Coupons and certificates that come with the card

The upgrade coupon and companion coupon are automatically added to your Amtrak Guest Rewards account after your card is approved. The Station Lounge Pass is then mailed to you separately by regular mail (though Chestnut still hasn’t received it yet).

The restrictions on the Upgrade Coupon are as follows: Coupon Restrictions:

• Coupon valid for one (1) space-available, one-way, one-class upgrade. Valid only from Coach to Business class, or from Acela Business class to Acela First class, on a single travel segment or leg.
• Not valid for upgrade to sleeping car accommodations.
• Subject to availability; upgrade not available on all trains at all times.
• Upgrade may be combined with corporate, AAA, disability, AARP, military, student, and senior discounts but is not combinable with any other discount or Amtrak Guest Rewards^® redemption travel.
• Travel blackouts apply: Sep. 1, 2017; Sep. 4, 2017; Oct. 9, 2017; Nov. 21-22, 2017; Nov. 25-27, 2017; Dec. 22-24, 2017; Dec. 29-31, 2017; Jan. 2, 2018; Feb. 16, 2018; Feb. 19, 2018; Mar. 30, 2018; APR 2, 2018; May 25, 2018; Aug. 31, 2018; Sep. 3, 2018
• Offer is not valid on the following services: Adirondack^®, Auto Train^®, California Zephyr^®, Capitol Limited^®, Cardinal^®, City of New Orleans^®, Coast Starlight^®, Crescent^®, Empire Builder^®, Keystone Service^®, Lake Shore Limited^®, Silver Meteor^®, Silver Star^®, Southwest Chief^®, Sunset Limited^®, Texas Eagle^® and train/Thruway series 7000 – 8999.
• The eCoupon# is unique to your coupon and valid for one use only. Buying or selling this coupon is prohibited and will invalidate the coupon. Coupon may be transferred to a family member or friend.
• Other restrictions may apply.

As you can see, Amtrak imposes quite a few restrictions. For example, you can’t upgrade a coach seat to a sleeper, you can’t upgrade a Roomette to a Family Bedroom, and you also can’t use it to upgrade seats on long-distance trains such as the California Zephyr. Even worse, there are blackout dates. In my opinion, for those in the Northeast, the best-value use of this coupon is probably upgrading from Acela Express Business Class to First Class.

The restrictions on the Companion Coupon are as follows: Coupon Restrictions:

• Coupon valid for one (1) free companion rail fare with the purchase of one (1) regular (full) adult rail fare. Free companion and paying passenger must reserve at the same time and travel together at all times.
• Valid for travel as one (1) one-way or one (1) roundtrip on one reservation per coupon. For roundtrip usage, both directions of travel must be reserved at the same time.
• Travel blackouts apply: Sep. 1, 2017; Sep. 4, 2017; Oct. 9, 2017; Nov. 21-22, 2017; Nov. 25-27, 2017; Dec. 22-24, 2017; Dec. 29-31, 2017; Jan. 2, 2018; Feb. 16, 2018; Feb. 19, 2018; Mar. 30, 2018; APR 2, 2018; May 25, 2018; Aug. 31, 2018; Sep. 3, 2018
• Valid for travel on all Amtrak service except train/Thruway series 7000 – 8999.
• Free companion offer is not combinable with any discount, coupon, or Amtrak Guest Rewards^® redemption travel.
• The eCoupon# is unique to your coupon and valid for one use only. Buying or selling this coupon is prohibited and will invalidate the coupon. Coupon may be transferred to a family member or friend.
• Offer valid for Coach class travel only. Upgrade to Business class or First class (excluding sleeping car accommodations) is available upon full payment of applicable accommodation charges.
• Other restrictions may apply.

This one is much better. Although there are still blackout dates, this coupon can be used on all Amtrak trains except connecting buses/Thruway services, including Acela Express and long-distance trains such as the California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, Texas Eagle, and Empire Builder.

As for the Station Lounge Pass, according to the policy it gives you one free visit to the following lounges. The closest one to me is of course the one at LA Union Station, so I’ll check it out when I have time in the future.

• Amtrak Station Lounge 

FNBO Amtrak Guest Rewards Credit Card Review

Benefits

• 10% back on food and beverage purchases onboard trains
• 5% points rebate when redeeming Amtrak points
• No foreign transaction fee

Introduction to Amtrak Guest Rewards

Amtrak Guest Rewards (AGR) is Amtrak’s frequent traveler program. You can earn points in the following ways:

• Ride Amtrak trains (new members can earn a 500-point bonus by taking one Amtrak trip within 90 days of signing up. If you enjoy Chestnut’s articles, feel free to support us by using Chestnut’s referral link click here. We’ll continue bringing you more great train travel content in the future).
• FNBO Amtrak credit cards (covered in detail below).
• Amtrak Shopping Portal (this portal generally offers more points than the UA, AA, and DL portals, though pending times are very long, averaging about 60 days).
• Car rentals, hotel stays, and other partners. See the official website for details.

How to use Amtrak rewards

A. Redeeming for Amtrak travel:

The days when Amtrak used zone-based award pricing are long gone, which means you can no longer redeem 25,000 points for a two-person sleeper room from Chicago all the way to Los Angeles. That said, the current fixed-value style redemption system has some nice features and is very straightforward. Amtrak officially states that when redeeming for Acela Express, each point is worth 2.5 cents, and when redeeming for non-Acela Express travel, each point is worth 2.9 cents.

To use a concrete example, as shown below: for a ticket from Washington to Boston, a Northeast Regional Coach ticket costs 181USD in cash or 6,245 points; a Business seat costs 238USD or 8,211 points (Coach: 181/6245 = 0.0290 USD/Pt; Business: 238/8211 = 0.0290 USD/Pt). For Acela Express, a Business seat costs 249USD or 9,711 points, while a First seat costs 393USD or 15,327 points (Business: 249/9711 = 0.0256 USD/Pt; First: 393/15327 = 0.0256 USD/Pt). Overall, this is still a pretty reasonable redemption option. If you also factor in the credit card’s built-in 5% points rebate, then everyday spending at one point per dollar works out to roughly a 3% return in value.

The website also says that Amtrak Guest Rewards offers redemption options for Multi-Ride Tickets. However, since this redemption requires calling in, I haven’t tried it myself and don’t know how good the value is.

Besides redeeming for train tickets, Amtrak points can also be used for a “Pack of 5 Single-Visit Station Lounge Passes” and a “Pack of 4 One-Class Upgrades (12 hour),” costing 5000 and 10,000 points respectively, for those who might need them.

B. Redeeming for other travel rewards:

Redemption options for other travel rewards are shown below:

Budget rental car gift card — 10,000 points for 100USD.

Transfer to Choice Privileges — 5,000 Amtrak points for 15,000 Choice Privileges points; transfer to Hilton — 5,000 Amtrak points for 10,000 Hilton points.

An SPG Category 1-4 ONS Certificate requires the number of points shown below.

Celebrity Cruises gift card — 6,000 points for 50 USD, or 10,000 points for 100 USD.

Disney gift card — 10,000 points for 100 USD.

Consider these only if you really need them. Personally, I think every one of these is a worse deal than the last.

C. Redeeming for merchant gift cards:

There’s not much to say here. It’s basically 6,000 points for $50 or 10,000 points for $100, which is even worse than the travel redemptions above.

Amtrak and Me

It has been a little over a month since I moved from North Carolina to California. After riding the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, I found it to be a pretty convenient way to travel up and down the Los Angeles area. For me, time is not a big concern, so a train running an hour or two late doesn’t matter much. The main benefit is not having to drive on that miserable Interstate 5 and sit in traffic at the foot of the hills behind Griffith Observatory.

I still had some leftover “legacy” points from applying for the Chase Amtrak credit card years ago, plus some points I occasionally earned through Amtrak cashback websites. But slowly redeeming those points while my balance keeps shrinking is obviously not a long-term solution. I checked Credit Karma and saw that my new address had already been reported, and BofA Amtrak World Mastercard was once again offering a 30,000-point welcome bonus, so I felt the timing was right and submitted an application. About 10 seconds after I finished the form and hit submit, the system told me I was approved right away — great! No need for follow-up calls or wasting time talking with customer service. So, five and a half years after I got the Chase Amtrak Guest Rewards credit card back in early 2012 (when the welcome bonus was 32,000 points), I welcomed an Amtrak card back into my wallet. It feels great! PS: I’ve included a screenshot of the all-time high offer from 2012 — 32,000 points for just one purchase! It’s probably going to be very hard to see an offer like that again anytime soon.

Summary

As a niche credit card, this can be a good choice for people who live near an Amtrak station and travel on Amtrak regularly. Earning 1 point per $1 in everyday spending can easily get you around a 3% return in value, and if you can make good use of the upgrade coupons, companion coupon, and lounge passes that come with the annual-fee version, the value can absolutely exceed the $99 annual fee by a wide margin.

For a train trip report, check out my earlier post:

• Across America on the Southwest Chief — the Train to the City of Angels