exerda

A couple of months ago, I decided to use iDine to try a "new" restaurant and logged in to pick a place out. As it was a Friday, I double-checked that the place offered miles on that date ("3 miles/dollar today" said the site). Discover was also running a bonus cashback promo for use at restaurants at the time, so I while on the iDine site I added my Discover card.

Fast forward three weeks with no sign of the miles posting. I figured it had to do with my Discover having been added the same day as the dine, as I had that happen before with my Amex. So I filed a missing reward request and get the generic, "We'll get back to you in 48 hours," note.

Four days later and having heard nothing, I politely inquired as to the status and was told the visit didn't capture properly and to provide the details so they could check on it. I sent those along and waited. And waited. Another inquiry note on the status, and I was asked to send the receipt or credit card statement (I provided these via e-mail). Several days later and still no word, so I sent another inquiry note. "It can take up to a week while we investigate," yadda yadda yadda.

11 days later with no word, I sent another inquiry and offered to provide any additional information they needed. The response this time? "Oh, the restaurant only participates Saturday through Thursday. You visited on a Friday."

I double-checked, and actually the restaurant now only participates Sunday through Thursday (not Saturday, mind you, but that's a minor detail). I'm also equally sure they did participate on Fridays when I originally visited, as I picked which place to visit based on their participation.

Not sure where to go next; it's probably not worth the 200-odd miles to waste any more of my time on it. But dealing with iDine customer service is like pulling teeth; they never seem to respond in the promised timeframe, and now I've reached a "he said, she said" impasse w/r/t the restaurant's participation.

Is it normally this hard for something as simple as a missing reward credit?

dstan

The short answer is: Sometimes.

I had to file a missing dine request with PC RN earlier this year. Here is the timeline:

3/2 - Filed missing dine request
3/17 - Received boilerplate reply asking for documentation
3/17 - Emailed scanned copy of receipt as requested
4/16 - Received reply indicating that rewards for this restarurant are Sun-Fri and this dine was on a Sat
4/19 - Replied that the dine was actually on a Sunday
4/21 - Received reply indicated that info has been forward to Reward Claims department, allow up to a week for review and processing
5/4 - Dine posted and points credited (may have been pending for up to a week before that, of course)


More recently:

6/1 - Filed missing dine request
6/12 - Received boilerplate reply asking for documentation
6/13 - Emailed scanned copy of receipt as requested
6/15 - Received reply indicating that Rebate department has documents, allow 7-14 business days to post
7/6 - Dine posted and points credited (may have been pending for up to a week before that, of course)


I also had a restaurant switcheroo eligible days of the week on me. I asked RN to confirm that the change had, indeed, happened before I dined, and they claimed that it had, but who knows.

Give it another shot.

volkswankin

I have found that if you call, you usually get much faster service. They can look your dine up on your credit card and then will simply credit your account or ask you to send in your receipt if necessary.

KhalilSheikh

I automatically fax them in and they post afterwards. Sometimes it can take a couple of weeks, but they DO post eventually.

sdsearch

Yes, if you do it without a phone call.

I don't know who processes their online missing dine requests or their emails (that aren't specific emails that the agent you talked to on the phone requested), but they seem to do a much worse job than the phone agents, especially the more complex the problem becomes (like in this case that the restaurant has changed the days of the week it participates on since you dined). This is the kind of a fact that you can't explain to them by email, because whoever reads these emails just skims them (is it a human even?). But if you talk to a real live human, you can discern during one conversation whether they understand the issue completely or not.

So don't "send" anything more, just call them an talk interactively with an agent. They should be able to look up what days the restaurant participated on in previous months, but it may take some work (on their part!), and without a live human interaction, you're not likely to get them to do that work.

If you call, the very first thing they do as part of the routine conversation is look up whether you dined on a valid day. So a whole bunch of cummunication cycles you went through might not have necessary if you had started by calling, because then it would have been established whether you dined on a valid day right away.

And it may seem simple to you, but a missing dine itself is because they didn't "capture" it, so that alone is not so simple, but since you are dealing with a restaurant which appears to have stopped giving rewards on Fridays since the Friday you dined, it's very far from simple now IMHO.

And truly simple things (like routine quesitons an FAQ could answer!) are the only things that they seem to be able to handle well in all-online communication...

(And remember, they don't give you these miles from missing posts out of the goodness of their hearts. They have do document with i's dotted and t's crossed whether the dine was valid because they're going to adjust the restaurant's account for the dine. There's real money involved here between RN and the restaurant, even though it may be only miles between RN and you.)

camargo

That's a very important point, sdsearch and it's one that I've mentioned before about companies that give out rewards because you do business with their clientel.

RN (and other companies like MyPoints, Open Table, etc.) should be aggresively on your side because it's money in their pocket. They should want to hear from if something slipped through.

My experience with RN, the few times that I've had a problem, was that if I called them I got a good response. Usually they asked a few questions and asked me if I could fax over a copy of the receipt. I've never had a dining reward request rejected and, sometimes, the points would post within a day.

Just keep your receipt until the miles post and, if you need it, it should be pretty easy.

RewardsNetwork

We truly appreciate the feedback regarding the time it took to receive a response to your inquiries for missing dining transactions. During this time, we were experiencing an unfortunate delay and realize that it has impacted the trust you have in us to address such matters. We would like to genuinely apologize for the inconvenience and let you know that we have taken the necessary measures to prevent such an occurrence in the future.



The ability for our members to receive support in a timely manner is of the utmost importance to us. While we cannot guarantee perfection, we can guarantee to do everything we possibly can to respond to questions and inquiries within 48 hours or two business days. If there are any outstanding issues that need to be addressed, please feel free to send a private message.

Jamie on behalf of Rewards Network

Points Scrounger

Resurrecting the thread to ask if anyone has the email address to send a scan of a missing dine directly, instead of calling?

KhalilSheikh

It was years ago, but the last address I used was: [email protected]

I hope it's still valid.

sdsearch

Why, when calling works better???

Please read this thread. As I noted above, it's less likely you'll get the missing dine resolved as quickly if you just email, than if you call first. They seem to be a lot better at tracking the missing dines if a live person gets the information from you first.

Points Scrounger

That hasn't been my experience at all, SD. I find having to repeat all the details over the phone, while they check to make sure it's an eligible dine (which I already knew it should be), only to be told to "send us a copy" frustrating.

Thanks, K. S. That's the address I recall using, too.

RogerD408

Yes, calling might be faster as long as the dine is in the system. I've been having a problem getting credit for dines at one particular property near work. I used the online reporting system and was told they can not find the dine and to send in the receipts. Many weeks later the dines posted. Same issue the next month so I just sent in the receipts without prior contact, still took several weeks, but they did finally post. Same issue last month, but haven't sent in the receipts yet. Seems no one is concerned with fixing the problem but will manually post dines when requested. Zero response when asking the status of getting the property online.

The address shown above is the one I've been using, so it is still valid.

Jailer

I cannot even remember the last time a dine didn't post. I have found the back office bit of RN to be quite good.

Points Scrounger

It was hard for me to accept that this one was a true fail until it still hadn't shown up on the 8th day after the transaction. The last time I'd needed to claim a credit was a couple of years ago at a local joint (this recent one was out-of-town) where I kept dining a few times, thinking (naively) that RN would have sorted out their credit capture after the first time - nope!

Good news here is that they posted the credit within a couple of days of receiving my email.