iDine/Rewards Network - Major iDine / Rewards Network Cities

The latest AA RN mailer had a list of major cities and numbers of restaurants in each. Of course, you can get these numbers by searching online, but I thought it was interesting:

Chicago - 215 restaurants
Dallas - 146 restaurants
Los Angeles - 343 restaurants
Miami - 202 restaurants
New York - 557 restaurants
San Francisco - 97 restaurants
St. Louis - 78 restaurants
Washington, DC - 237 restaurants

Actually, come to think of it, that looks like a list of AA hubs and focus cities - wonder if those in other programs got a different list? UA DEN? DL ATL? US CLT?

To be fair, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas are the 4 largest metro areas in the US.

Being a native Angelino, I have nothing to complain - though wading through 343 choices is another difficulty when trying to use AA's MileFinder map ;)

"Actually, come to think of it, that looks like a list of AA hubs and focus cities - wonder if those in other programs got a different list? UA DEN? DL ATL? US CLT?"

I use the UA program and got:
Chicago - 187
Denver - 124
Las Vegas - 47
Los Angeles - 310
New York - 121
Phoenix - 109
San Francisco - 74
Washington, DC - 222

Maybe it's the program or maybe the cities were chosen based upon where you reside. I live in Orange County.

"Actually, come to think of it, that looks like a list of AA hubs and focus cities - wonder if those in other programs got a different list? UA DEN? DL ATL? US CLT?"

I use the UA program and got:
Chicago - 187
Denver - 124
Las Vegas - 47
Los Angeles - 310
New York - 121
Phoenix - 109
San Francisco - 74
Washington, DC - 222

Maybe it's the program or maybe the cities were chosen based upon where you reside. I live in Orange County.
Well, UA's five hubs are: ORD, DEN, LAX, SFO, IAD. The one that's missing from AA's list is DEN. So the hub cities theory makes some sense, but it's probably only one part of the algorithm.

The other reason it made sense to me was that I think there was something in the phrasing about checking out restaurants in those cities when you're traveling, which would, of course, be on your iDine/RN airline!

Of course, you can get these numbers by searching online, but I thought it was interesting:

Chicago - 215 restaurants
Dallas - 146 restaurants
Los Angeles - 343 restaurants
Miami - 202 restaurants
New York - 557 restaurants
San Francisco - 97 restaurants
St. Louis - 78 restaurants
Washington, DC - 237 restaurants

I use the UA program and got:
Chicago - 187
Denver - 124
Las Vegas - 47
Los Angeles - 310
New York - 121
Phoenix - 109
San Francisco - 74
Washington, DC - 222
Well, which cities each person got might be of minor interest, but much more important IMHO is the vast different in the number of restaurants per city that AA listed versus UA listed!

I got the above two, and also NWA and it's got yet different numbers:

Chicago - 219
Detroit - 160
Los Angeles - 332
Minneapolis - 51
New York - 555
Portland - 102
Seattle - 68
Washington - 233

This is more evidence for the point I made in another thread months ago, that increasingly there are restaurnts that particpate in some airline programs but not others in quite a few cities.

...This is more evidence for the point I made in another thread months ago, that increasingly there are restaurnts that particpate in some airline programs but not others in quite a few cities.
What is especially striking about those numbers is the difference for New York -- UA/idine having only 121 participating restaurants, vs. more than 550 for both AA and NW. :eek:

Although I'm a UA flyer, I use idine only for accumulating AA miles. All the more reason when I see the numbers of participating restaurants for the two programs!

Portland (also known as PDX) has 93 listings for AA options. However of the 93, 14 of them are for "Burger King" and 6 for "Garlic Jim's Pizza".

bear in mind those numbers are for the entire metro areas, inc close-in suburbs!

Downtown Seattle, without wheels or a lengthy bus/cab trip, is up to around 5 or 6 now. Portland is roughly the same.

bear in mind those numbers are for the entire metro areas, inc close-in suburbs!

Downtown Seattle, without wheels or a lengthy bus/cab trip, is up to around 5 or 6 now. Portland is roughly the same.

BTW... Ringside in Portland was absolutely delicious.