Wow, that was extremely helpful! :-:
(By the way, it is really nice to be in this forum, everyone is so friendly and doesn't answer like "ever heard of the existance of search-engines?!" when a newbie asks a question, really great! ^ )

So, well, to sum it up: As I live in Germany, I will do the enrollment by e-mail and hope this will be completed asap. Afterwards I log in and search nice restaurants in NYC. As I understood you can only see from the website if and when a restaurant gives credits?
As I'll spend a whole week in NYC on vacation, it shouldn't be a too big problem to reach Elite-status soon, I mean, if it's already enough to buy one coffee here and some little snack there...
Talking about Elite... is this status valid from then on or is it just like in FFPs just valid for one calendar year?