- 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 Biblioteca. There 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.