Hey there, you’re reading an outdated post! The updated series from March 2013 can be found here.
This is the thirteenth post in a monthlong series. Each post will take about two minutes to read and may include an action item that takes the reader another two minutes to complete. I am writing this for an audience of people who know nothing about frequent flier miles, and my goal is that by the end, you know enough to fly for free anywhere you want to go.
Dining programs are the set-it-and-forget-it of the miles world. Sign up all your credit cards for a dining program and go about your daily routine. Eventually you’ll probably eat at a restaurant that participates in the dining program, and you’ll notice a small mileage credit to your applicable account. Let’s go through the steps of exploiting dining programs.
First sign up all your cards with a dining program. The two best reasons to choose a particular program are that you have miles that are about to expire in a particular program or you value one airline’s miles the highest.
If you have miles that are about to expire from inactivity in, say, your American Airlines account, you should probably sign up for American’s dining program. The reason is that any activity in your mileage account restarts the expiration clock, so a few miles from dining out could preserve all your miles.
If mile expiration is not a concern for you, just sign up for the program whose miles you value the highest. Below I’ve linked to the dining program of the five US-based frequent flier programs I told you to sign up for in Post 2.
If you click multiple links, you will notice that all five programs are run by the same company, Rewards Network. Unfortunately this means you can’t sign up the same card multiple times and get a bonus in every program for the same dine. If you sign up your card again and again, Rewards Network will only credit the bonus miles from your dine to the most recent account you linked to your card.
Once you’ve signed up, you can take a look at participating restaurants. I don’t do that because I don’t want to be influenced by an extra 3 miles per dollar for dining, which is only about a 5% rebate. I prefer to exploit the dining programs passively by simply being pleasantly surprised when a few bonus miles post from the program.
Link all your cards. Now every time you go to a participating restaurant or bar, no matter which card‘s bonus you’re clearing you’re using, you’ll get your 3 miles per dollar bonus.
That’s all there is to dining programs. Set it and forget it. Link all your cards to one program and see a few extra miles trickle in here and there.
Tomorrow marks a shift in Free First Class Next Month. So far, we’ve been talking almost exclusively about how to earn miles with credit cards. Tomorrow I’ll start to talk about traveling cheaply with cash, showing my tricks for finding cheap flights and hotels. Still to come, I’ll be telling you how to redeem your miles in every program and how to earn miles from sources other than credit cards.
I have earned millions of points, primarily though credit cards, to travel the world in first class for pennies. This blog will show you how to earn and redeem points to do the same!
Let me tell you how silly I felt when I registered with ALLLLLL of them, just to then start getting the “…you already registered your card with xyz, therefore, you will no longer recieve xyz from this program…” ugg.
I like the set it and forget it idea – but most of these offer a sign up bonus for using the program after you first enroll so if you go to a place on the list regularly it is worth switching the cards around to get the bonuses. I have linked my sapphire card to each account and gone to the same place (because we like it) to get the bonus plus 3 points for the dining program plus 2 points for dining on the sapphire
The trick regarding the reward network program is to go to someplace really cheaP(take out) and do multiple transactions for every item…usually after the 11th transaction you are at the vip level and can make 5pts or more per $1. Then you’ll be VIP for this year and the next. Add in a good good that rewards dining(sapphire or marriot premier) and you got yourself a nice 3x dip.
Great tips!
This might be a stupid question, but just to clarify, could I join, both the United Airlines and American Airlines dining programs if I link each one to a different credit card? Or, must I choose only one airline dining program (and link as many cards as I want to that one program)?
The reason I ask is because I see that United and American are each offering 1,000 bonus miles just for joining. I wouldn’t mind picking this mileage up for doing close to nothing.
Oh, speaking of bonuses, this reminds me (sorry if it is a little off topic). I joined AAadvantage today, and AFTER I joined I read on your site about the promo code that can earn you 500 bonus miles. I want to kick myself for not picking these up along with my sign up. Is it too late to claim these miles?
It’s too late to claim the AA sign up bonus. You can sign up one card in United’s dining program and one in AA’s no problem. You just can’t sign the same card up in multiple programs. Welcome to the miles game
What i’ve found works best, is to find a place on the list that you like, and would hopefully patronize anyway. Meet the sign-up bonus spend, of say, $40, by buying 4 $10 gift cards to the restaurant in one transaction. You’ve immediately hit the bonus requirement. Next, use a single $10 GC for each subsequent dine- since you want to hit 11 dines(transactions) as soon as possible. If you just get a burger, etc- you’ll be paying a few bucks each time in addition to the GC amount. Happy hour beers are another great way to rack up dines. Just make sure they charge you separately- and don’t stiff them on the tip. They’re letting you be a bit of a pain in the ass- they should benefit as well. Also, if you hit more than 5 “dines” in a day- you won’t get credit for them. So there’s a reasonable limit to work with. Before you know it, you’ll be hitting VIP in every program you’d like.
Also, to touch on some other of the original info in this post; yes, a CC can only be associated to one Dining Program at a time, but you can have multiple CCs registered to a single dining program, if you so desire. You can also freely move your cards around to other programs. You can also just assign a different card to each dining program you use. Makes it somewhat easier to remember which is for which, if you are able to register, say, an AA Visa with the AA Dining program, and so on.
Another thought, is to use your Chase Sapphire Preferred’s 3x First Friday UR bonus for restaurants when you make your big spend to hit the dining sign-up bonuses.