<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Superd1:
It's sure a mustery to me how they can pay some of these iDine promos. Currently AA is running a double the miles Promo through the end of March.
So I eat at one of my favorite restaurants and get 10 airmiles per $ which then gets doubled to 20. I then convert those AA miles to Hilton points at 2 for 1 as well as use my Hilton AMEX ending with another 3 points per $1 for a grand total of 43 Hilton points per $1 spent. Good time to pick up a few gift certificates while your dining. Let's see I can spend $4,100 on restaurants, Eat like a king and end up with a free week at the Hilton Wiakaloa (sp) Somewhere in the process the restaurant and iDine are suposed to make a profit. It puzzles me as to how it all works.
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Those promos are usually capped. You could only get 5,000 AA miles on top of your normal earning in the example you cite.
If you spent the $4100 you wouldn't get enough points for the HH award, but you
could join iDine Prime and get 20% back. An $800 bid on Priceline for 6 nights on the Big Island is about right, so YES, you can still eat like a king and get the "free" week - you just wouldn't do it through the HHonors program.
For bigger spenders, iDine Prime might be your best bet for your primary earnings (perhaps with a couple of backup iDine FF mile accounts for top-off purposes).