Originally Posted by
diburning
There's an alternative?
Not really an alternative company, but this setup with dollar spending determining earning never existed in the airline and hotel subprograms.
In the airline and hotel subprograms, you earn one way up to 10 dines a year, and after 11 dines a year you move up to higher earnings. (For example, with legacy airlines using miles, you earn 3 miles per $ at first but 5 miles per $ after 11 dines.) And the level you get with 11 dines carries over for the rest of the current year and into the next year.
For those who redeem their miles for longhaul international business class, even before the above-mentioned "cash back" devaluation, legacy airline miles may have trumped "cash back" iDine. Now, you only need to value you miles at 2.1 cents per mile or more (based on your redemption patterns) for using a miles subprogram to have a better value than the "cash back" iDine subprogram.