iDine/Rewards Network - Why are distances so out to lunch on RN

(Pardon the expression. :p)

I patronize RN restaurants mostly when I'm traveling in the US. I usually enter my hotel address and find the closest location. Tonight, I picked a restaurant which is listed as being 4.88 miles from my hotel. (I entered complete address including zip code.) I get into my car and enter the address into GPS and it is 8.5 miles away! Sh*t! Since I had already placed my order for take out, it's pretty hard to change where I want to go.

This has happened to me more times than not. They never overestimate, almost always undestimate by a huge margin.

All that hassle for 5 miles/$. :mad:

IMO this is nothing new. Mileage has been off, and some restaurants have been listed as local - even though they are over fifty and even 100 miles away! (If those were my restaurants, I would be unhappy for sure - it's like paying the Yellow Pages to list my Sacramento resto in Fresno! :p)

This game is becoming less fun, and not worth the hassle on many occasions. We find ourselves using some chain points programs and Open Table more frequently, and dining at RN restaurants less.

To add injury to insult, our Hilton HHonors AMEX card has gone from offering 5 HHonors points per dollar spent in restaurants to the normal 3 for restaurants (we can earn 6 HH points now from supermarkets; drug stores; stand-alone gas stations; and home telephone, wireless, cable, satellite TV, and Internet service providers. Restaurants and US Post Office have dropped to 3 points.)

I have a feeling that RN finds the distance based on point-to-point calculation rather than the actual mileage driven on streets.

But then again, RN uses an antiquated mapquest system as their backbone mapping when everyone else is using Google maps :rolleyes:

Always do the following and never rely on IDINE as anything more than a guide:

Get the street adress of both your hotel/origination point and restaurant and feed them into Google or the like -- this will give you accurate driving and in some cases walking directions and the true distance you will need to traverse.

Do this extra step rather than relying soley on RN.

No biggie.