Late last night, there was breaking news about new “enhancements” to Amtrak Guest Rewards.
Looks like that Amtrak redemption sweet spot may be no more. http://t.co/KeRyTf0WeG @travelwithgrant @FreequentFlyr @FrequentMiler
— Henry Fung (@calwatch) August 13, 2015
I covered this with a post last night – Amtrak Guest Rewards 2.0 details leaked – it’s bad news. If you haven’t read that post, you should definitely check that out first. The main “highlight” is that Amtrak is moving away from a zone based system to a revenue-based system, making journeys like my $6500 (free) trip on Amtrak a thing of the past 
(SEE ALSO: Maximizing your route on the Amtrak Zone Map)
It looked like Amtrak had reached out to Flyertalk and some of the other rail forums, like Amtrak Unlimited, having them remove their posts on the subject, but…. I think the cat is out of the bag now :-D. Frequent Miler also had some analysis on the Amtrak changes.
Sleuthing out the new bank issuer for the Amtrak credit card
Another thing mentioned was that the Amtrak Guest Rewards credit card is going to get a new issuer. Currently it’s issued by Chase, and you can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards to Amtrak Guest Rewards at a 1:1 ratio. There has been lots of speculation about who the new bank issuer was going to be, but Kenny from Miles4More stated confidently that it was going to be Bank of America
@travelwithgrant @FreequentFlyr @PointsWithACrew @calwatch @ReasonRail @FrequentMiler Chris L Martin, dead giveaway https://t.co/wqm0Q3Vkgm
— Miles4More (@KennyBSAT) August 13, 2015
At first I didn’t understand what he was talking about, and then I took a second look at the credit card screenshots included in the leaked Amtrak information
The name on the Amtrak Guest Rewards card examples is “Chris L Martin”. Doing a bit of Googling indicates that Chris L Martin is also the name on EVERY BANK OF AMERICA ATM AND DEBIT CARD
So I think I’d have to agree with Kenny that it seems likely that Bank of America will be the new bank issuer for the new Amtrak Guest Rewards credit card when it comes out this fall!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
The good news is that it will be BofA so it should be churnable. Bad news is the devaluation of the rewards. It might end up being a “Cruise Line” level card with crappy value.