Originally Posted by
sdsearch
Anyway, a couple days ago I got this email from
SkyMiles (DL) Dining:
ONE BITE AT A TIME
----- BONUS -------
Announcing the One Bite at a Time Bonus—the easiest way to earn more for dining at SkyMiles® Dining restaurants! Register and you’ll earn 300 bonus miles every time you reach $100 dining and complete your reviews within 30 days.
Time is on your side. Each dollar you spend between now and December 31, 2012, will count toward your $100 milestone. Use a registered card at a café when you catch your morning coffee, pick a program pizzeria for your family movie night or select a participating sandwich shop for your lunchtime subs.
Since I posted the above yesterday, I've gotten the same kind of email from
Rapid Rewards (WN) Dining, for 300 RR 2.0 bonus points for every $100 cumulative, and from
Priority Club (IHG Hotels) Dining, for 300 PC bonus points for every $100 cumulative.
It's very strange how this bonus, so far, is 300 "whatever" for every $100 spend, at every program, despite the currencies of the different programs having way different value, and as a result of that, the
normal earning structure of these programs being way different. While in theory 300 RR 2.0 points might be worth more than 300 legacy airline miles, that's just the bonus, and the normal earnings at Rapid Rewards Dining are way worse than at the legacy airlines. And 300 PC points is worth way less than 300 legacy airline miles, and the normal VIP earning rate on PC Dining is I think 8 points/$, instead of 5 miles/$, so the bonus is
relatively less there!
So it sounds to me like RN didn't put so much thought into "calibrating" this bonus for each program, and just threw it out there.
(Everything seems the same about this One Bite At A Time bonus, except the currency and the name of the program, from one program to the next. It's always so far 300 "whatever" for each $100 spend through 31 Dec 2012.)
Btw, regarding that 31 Dec 2012 date: Take it with a grain or two of salt. A year or two ago, if you recall, they terminated some bonus early supposedly because of "insufficient participation"!