Is AAdvantage Dining completely worthless?
 

I registered for the AAdvantage Dining program almost two months ago, and promptly dined at one of the NYC participating restaurants the next day to attempt to get the 1000 bonus points.

Waited for about a week and still didn't see any updates to my account. Contacted [email protected] and didn't hear back until 6(!) days later. The customer rep requested a bunch of information and then told me:

"Our records indicate that the transaction(s) in question did not capture to your account. Although the program is automated, occasionally we may not catch a particular restaurant visit due to technical difficulties."

So I emailed [email protected] (as directed) a copy of my credit card statement according to the instructions. This was on 12/11. I sent a follow up email on 12/16 after getting no response. As of today, I still have not gotten any response.

What I'm wondering now is, is this a fluke or should I just write off this dining program and not waste any more effort or money dining at the participating restaurants, which consist of a bunch of mediocre restaurants that I would normally never go to if it weren't for this program.

Incidentally, I also registered for the UA dining program, which seems to be run by the same company on the back end. I am not optimistic about that program either given what I have seen so far.

Any comments or recommendations on how to at least get my 1000 bonus points? I don't think I've encountered customer service this poor recently. Usually they just say no, instead of completely ignoring me :)

Thanks

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With AAdvantage Dining, I have never had a problem calling and asking them for the fax number to send a copy of the dining receipt. There is a number of us who have earned significant (in some cases, hundreds of thousands of) miles from this program; persistence pays. As to the restaurant quality, it does vary by location - and some locations have a paucity of affiliated restaurants.

This post has been relocated to the iDine/Rewards Network Forum... and may be merged into another thread dealing with this issue in a few days.

I had a dine not show up just once a few years ago. Since then I've had no problems at all. I don't expect them to post anything in days though.

I generally only eat at venues that I want try out or that have been reviewed positively, never just for miles. As such I view the miles I get as a bonus and don't worry about them posting much. I find that approach makes it all go pretty easy but YMMV ;-)

I called them this morning and was told that my dining points were posted yesterday and that the bonus points will post in 4 to 6 weeks. The only hint online that anything was posted was that my # of dines to VIP is now 10 instead of 11. Otherwise both AA Dining and AAdvantage mileage summary look as if nothing is being processed at all.

Still no replies to my original or follow up emails though. Oh well, I'll take it. Next time this happens I guess I'll just call them instead of emailing, although I usually prefer to have a paper trail.

I've registered all my cards for the program, but don't go out looking for places that participate in the program. Every now and then the place I eat at will be part of it and I will get a few miles, I consider these a bonus as I don't spend anytime worrying about whether the restaurants I frequent participate in the program or not.
I would be afraid of spending more money than usual r eating at places that may not be too good for the miles.
I've also found out that some of our local bars and nightclubs participate in it and I'll get a few extra miles when I run a tab at them.
However, if I went to a specific restaurant because of the miles and they did not post, I would probably be upset like the OP.

Exactly. For whatever reason, emailing them seems to produce no results, while calling them usually produces results. I guess the difference is that they can't ignore you while on a real-time call, but email not being real-time, they can ignore it, lose it, etc, and seem to do that a lot! :)

I've had the problem once or twice when a merchant decides to pull itself from the program a few days after the dine and then somehow it does not capture. I always save the receipts and give them a call-the process does seem to take a long time, but usually it's just a few miles for me, so I don't fret too much

AA Dining is totally worth it. It enables you to delay the expiring miles 1.5 years or whatever it is :D I use idine for everything else..

The question was poorly phrased by the OP. He actually meant "is anything run by Rewards Network really worth it". I would presume that idine (the cashback version of the Rewards Network programs) has no more and no less "missing dines" compared to AAdvantage Dining. And the whole point of this thread was the problems the OP had with getting missing dines to post. He would have had exactly the same problem using idine with exactly the same dine.

On point, I've gone hundreds of dines and years since my last RN posting failure. I find RN more reliable than hotels and/or airlines for accuracy.

Recently, all my points have been posting promptly to my AAdvantage Dining account. First pending, then paid in a 4-5 day period.

But they are not showing up in my AA account. :confused:

Maybe a end of the year or new year thing? I have not had this problem in the past.

HP

I think there's a weekly "sweep" when the transfer happens, but in any case I've had no problems with my AA miles eventually showing up.

Everything seems to have sped up now. All award miles are appearing in a timely manner again. I guess it was the holidays.

I am a big proponent of AA's Dining program. 3x miles for dining, and 1.5x miles using a AAdvantage CC untill late Feb.. It's a no brainer.

HP

It is a brainer: If you are only getting 3x miles, that means you don't have 11 dines yet this year (and you didn't do 11 dines last year). In that case, do some extra ultracheap dines (coffee, whatever) to quickly get to VIP Status which will give you 5/$ miles for dining.

However, if you're at UA collector too, you could earn 10/$ right now. So I am big propoent of not sticking with only one dining program (if you are in an area where participating restaurants are a dime a dozen, at least), but rather "following the promos" if you have accounts with more than one FF program.

Having said that, some restaurants are 1/month per program, so in that case I can earn twice per month only by using two FF programs. In that case, I may fall back to AA for the second-in-a-month...

Aadvantage Dining mileage credit
 

Newbie here. I realized last week that my AA activity deadline was coming 1/28. So far, I registered at AD on 1/17. Dined on 1/18. Credit posted as "pending" 1/21. Hoping it gets swept to my account this week.

On AA in the 'Mileage Retention Policy-FAQ' I did read that "Since posting schedules vary by partner...it's the date of the activity that "counts" rather than the date miles are credited to the account." Fingers crossed.