January 21, 2014

Earn Over 7x on Restaurant Spend with Dining Programs

A great passive way to earn extra miles is to sign-up for the dining program of your favorite airline.  All the major airlines (United, American, Delta) have very similar dining programs based on the Rewards Network platform.  Here's how it works:
  • Sign-up for the dining program of your choice to grab the sign-up bonus (after first dine) that will earn you 1,000 miles on American or United and 2,000 on Delta
  • Sign-up both you and your spouse/significant other to double the bonus and double the future earnings
  • Add your favorite credit cards to your profile (I use the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card to earn 2.14x points on restaurant spend - all in the sign-up will take you about 5 minutes
  • Search for your favorite restaurant/bars to actively seek out an establishment that will earn you points or just go out as your normally would and once in a while you will randomly go to a place that earns you extra miles
  • You will earn 3x miles for each dine until you reach 11 dines in a calendar year.  At that point, you will be a "VIP" and earn 5x miles for each dine.  Add that to the 2.14x points you would earn on the CSP card and you would be earning >7x points

Earn 1,000 bonus miles by joining the AA Dining Program

 That's it!  A couple real world examples from the past couple of years:
  •  My old office was a block away from a great lunch spot that also had great coffee.  I probably went 2 times per week.  I had no idea they were part of this program until I checked my United statement last year and had earned over 1,500 miles with bonuses
  • On Saturday, Emily and I went to the new Richard Sandoval concept called La BibliotecaThere is also one in NYC.  This is a cool spot with a ton of tequila and happy hour (even on Saturday) until 7.  They are also part of the United dining program.  So we had dinner and drinks there before a movie.  The check was about $70 and with my CSP and "VIP" status, I'll earn almost 500 miles for the dinner.

This is a super easy way to pad your miles and points balances through passive spend.  Just set it and forget it and watch the miles roll in.

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