Easy Travel Hack: Dining Rewards Programs

If you eat at at restaurants and also have a credit card (any credit card) I’ve got a super simple and 100% free way for you to start earning some additional miles/points with major airlines and/or hotel chains.  This is travel hacking at its absolute simplest – dining rewards programs!

The long and the short of it is this:  for spending about three minutes signing up for a dining rewards plan through a company called Rewards Network, you can start picking up bonus miles/points without going out of your way at all.  Did I mention it’s entirely free?

My experience with dining rewards programs

I currently am signed up with the American Airlines AAdvantage dining rewards Plan and after twelve qualifying food/drink purchases at qualifying establishments, I am now receiving 5X American Airline miles per dollar every time I eat at some of my favorite restaurants and bars, so long as they that are listed on the AA Dining Plan website.  This multiplier applies to food, beers, whatever – so long as I’m dealing with a “qualifying restaurant” that’s on Rewards Network’s master list.  Some of my qualifying dines have been very small – think US $5.00-10.00.  I don’t believe there’s a minimum required spend for a qualifying dine, which is nice.

In total, I’ve earned about 3,000 miles through the American Airlines dining plan since I signed up four months ago, without even going out of my way to do so.  No, it’s not a TON of miles, but they do add up!

The only negative of the whole thing: I receive multiple promotional e-mails per week from AAdvantage Dining Plan (as required for mileage multipliers) –  but they’re far less annoying than many other promotional e-mails I receive from other companies, and I just delete them right away.

How to sign up for a Dining Plan:

1. Register on a Rewards Network dining plan site.  Selected dining plans are listed below (click through).
2. Choose to receive promotional e-mails from Rewards Network in order to multiply points/miles per dollar on your dining plan.  Or if you can’t stand the idea of additional emails, just sign up at the base membership level – though the point multipliers will be significantly lower that way.
3. List a credit card number on your account.  Don’t worry, no charges will be applied to your card.  Credit card can be of any type, and you don’t have to list the expiration date nor the security code.
4. Begin using the listed credit card at dining establishments listed on your chosen Rewards Network site to earn bonus miles through your program.  You can search your city or zip code on the site to see what restaurants are participating in the program, or you can just do like I do:  don’t look up ANYTHING and then get pleasant surprises when you end up eating at a participating establishment!  Note:  from my experience, the qualifying restaurants are exactly the same on each Rewards Network program).
5. Rack up (12) total qualifying dines to raise your membership status to “VIP” / “Elite” and boost mile/point multipliers to their maximum.  The quicker you can get to (12) qualifying dines, the more miles/points you can earn!  Please note that one cannot reach “VIP” membership status without first authorizing promotional e-mails.

A few selected Dining Rewards Plans to choose from:

I’ve summarized a number of dining plans below.  For the full list of participating dining plans, click here for Rewards Network’s site.

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Dining

• “Member” status:  1 bonus mile per two dollars spent.  No promotional e-mails will be sent to you.
• Online Member:  3 bonus miles per dollar. Requires that you authorize promotional e-mails to be sent to you.
• VIP Member:  5 bonus miles per dollar. Log (12) or more transactions at qualifying dining establishments. Similar amount of promotional e-mails to “Online Member” status.
• Bonuses:  Check the Alaska Airlines Dining site for additional bonuses for simply signing up, writing restaurant reviews, logging a certain number of qualified dines, or spending certain amounts of money at qualified dining establishments after sign up.  These bonuses vary between dining programs.

American Airlines AAdvantage Dining

• “Member” status:  1 bonus mile per dollar spent. No promotional e-mails will be sent to you.
• Online Member:  3 bonus miles per dollar. Requires that you authorize promotional e-mails to be sent to you.
• VIP Member:  5 bonus miles per dollar.  Log (12) or more transactions at qualifying dining establishments. Similar amount of promotional e-mails to “Online Member” status.
• Bonuses:  Check the American Airlines Dining site for additional bonuses for simply signing up, writing restaurant reviews, logging a certain number of qualified dines, or spending certain amounts of money at qualified dining establishments after sign up.  These bonuses vary between dining programs.

Delta Skymiles Dining

• “Member” status:  1 bonus mile per two dollars spent. No promotional e-mails will be sent to you.
• Online Member:  3 bonus miles per dollar. Requires that you authorize promotional e-mails to be sent to you.
• VIP Member:  5 bonus miles per dollar.  Log (12) or more transactions at qualifying dining establishments. Similar amount of promotional e-mails to “Online Member” status.
• Bonuses:  Check the Delta Skymiles Dining site for additional bonuses for simply signing up, writing restaurant reviews, logging a certain number of qualified dines, or spending certain amounts of money at qualified dining establishments after sign up. These bonuses vary between dining programs.

Hilton HHonors Dining

• “Member” status:  2 bonus mile per two dollars spent. No promotional e-mails will be sent to you.
• Online Member:  5 bonus miles per dollar. Requires that you authorize promotional e-mails to be sent to you.
• Elite Member:  8 bonus miles per dollar. Log (12) or more transactions at qualifying dining establishments. Similar amount of promotional e-mails to “Online Member” status.
• Bonuses:  Check the Hilton HHonors Dining site for additional bonuses for simply signing up, writing restaurant reviews, logging a certain number of qualified dines, or spending certain amounts of money at qualified dining establishments after sign up. These bonuses vary between dining programs.

Intercontinental Hotels Group Rewards Club

• “Member” status:  1 bonus point per dollar spent. No promotional e-mails will be sent to you.
• Online Member:  5 bonus miles per dollar. Requires that you authorize promotional e-mails to be sent to you.
• Elite Member:  8 bonus miles per dollar. Log (12) or more transactions at qualifying dining establishments.  Similar amount of promotional e-mails to “Online Member” status.
• Bonuses:  Check the IHG Dining site for additional bonuses for simply signing up, writing restaurant reviews, logging a certain number of qualified dines, or spending certain amounts of money at qualified dining establishments after sign up.  These bonuses vary between dining programs.

Southwest Rapid Rewards Dining

• “Member” status (no higher status available):  Earn 3 Rapid Rewards points per dollar spent at participating locations.  Requires that you authorize promotional e-mails to be sent to you.  Earn 10 additional points for each restaurant review submitted within 30 days of your dine.
• Bonuses:  Check the Southwest Rapid Rewards Dining site for additional bonuses for simply signing up, writing restaurant reviews, logging a certain number of qualified dines, or spending certain amounts of money at qualified dining establishments after sign up.  These bonuses vary between dining programs.

United MileagePlus Dining

• “Member” status:  1 bonus mile per two dollars spent. No promotional e-mails will be sent to you.
• Online Member:  3 bonus miles per dollar. Requires that you authorize promotional e-mails to be sent to you.
• VIP Member:  5 bonus miles per dollar.  Log (12) or more transactions at qualifying dining establishments. Similar amount of promotional e-mails to “Online Member” status.
• Bonuses:  Check the United MileagePlus Dining site for additional bonuses for simply signing up, writing restaurant reviews, logging a certain number of qualified dines, or spending certain amounts of money at qualified dining establishments after sign up.  These bonuses vary between dining programs.

A note on simultaneous membership in multiple dining plans

It would be AWESOME if we could sign up a single credit card for ALL of these programs simultaneously (oh, think of the miles you could earn!), but it can’t be done.  You can only sign a given credit card up for ONE dining program at a time.

In other words, if you’ve already listed a credit card on, say, the American Airlines AAdvantage dining rewards plan site, you can’t simultaneously list it under Southwest Rapid Rewards’ rewards plan site.  And if you do try to double-list a given credit card, it’ll remove the card from the first plan and apply it to the most current plan only.

In review:  yes, you can be a member of as many dining plans as you want, but you can only list a given credit card on ONE dining plan at a time.

 A note for couples

For married couples or other partners:  you can assign credit cards in different peoples’ names to the same Dining Plan account – meaning you can rack up your (12) qualifying dines even faster than single folk, and thus start maxing out your mileage rewards quickly.

Strategizing your dining plan membership and usage

In my mind, the best strategy is to focus on only ONE dining plan at a time, especially given that most require (12) qualifying dines before you can really start earning, and the fact that one can’t list the same credit card on multiple dining plans simultaneously.  Pick the mileage plan that suits you best based on the airlines/hotels that suit you best, and go from there.

How I quickly reached my twelve qualifying dines for VIP status

Fortunately for me, one of my favorite taco joints and one of my favorite Indian restaurants are participating dining establishments in the dining rewards plan, so I racked up my twelve dines quickly and thus was able to max out my mileage returns on subsequent purchases.

It’s also possible to put things on hyperdrive and get your twelve dines in ONE DAY – see how travel hacking guru Chris Guillebeau did it here.

Your situation may be a little trickier depending on where you live or how you eat.  Consider checking listings of participating restaurants when you first begin using your dining plan account.

There you have it, use of Rewards Network Dining Programs is of the easiest possible ways to earn extra miles/points.  Take the couple of minutes to sign up, and then get to the fun part: eating and drinking!