Good morning everyone.  A few months ago, I wrote about my experience taking the Coast Starlight Amtrak from Seattle down to Los Angeles.  I am very excited for my next (and probably last) “premium” long-distance train ride from Denver to Emeryville (near Oakland and San Francisco) on the California Zephyr Amtrak.  I have a few friends in Denver/Boulder that wanted to experience a “premium” Amtrak experience before the January 24, 2016, Amtrak devaluation, so we planned to go on Presidents’ Day Weekend / Valentine’s Day / NBA All-Star Weekend (shout out to the BBVA NBA Credit Card).

Long before the Amtrak devaluation, Chase lost Amtrak as a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Reward Points on December 7, 2015.  Since I was 99% sure I was going to use the Amtrak Points before the Amtrak devaluation, I transferred 25,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points to Amtrak Points.  With 25,000 Amtrak Points, you can get a Superliner Bedroom for 1 zone on any long-distance Amtrak route.  Denver is right on the border of zone 1 and zone 2, so you can go in a Superliner Bedroom from Denver to anywhere in the Western Zone or anywhere in the Central Zone for 25,000 Amtrak Points.  Since my friends are in Denver and I live in San Francisco (easy access to Emeryville), we looked at routes between those cities.  After coordinating schedules and checking availability on the Amtrak website, we decided to go from Denver to Emeryville during Presidents’ Day Weekend (only Presidents’ Day on Monday was blacked out, but the weekend was fine).

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