Originally Posted by Amaran
As I understood you can only see from the website if and when a restaurant gives credits?
Yes. (Except maybe there's also some way to get listings over the phone -- from iDine/RN cetnral in Florida, not from the individual restaurants -- but that's not as easy, and anyway in your case not very practical). Most people at a restaurant that participates know nothing about the program; it's supposed to be "hidden" from them who is actually iDining until long after the fact, and it's supposed to "hidden" from the diners who aren't "in the know" which restaurants participate.
And you may have to be logged in to see all the restaurants and all the details about them. Although I'm not aware of any specific examples, they claim that you have access to more restaurants when logged in (because they treat not logged in as the lowest of 3 levels), and even more then you get to be Elite.
Originally Posted by Amaran
Talking about Elite... is this status valid from then on or is it just like in FFPs just valid for one calendar year?
It is valid through the end of the NEXT calendar year. So in this case, if you make Elite on this trip, you'll stay Elite through the end of 2007 (assuming the whole concept of Elite status, as well as iDine/RewardsNetwork itself*, stays around till then!). Then as long as you do 12 dines in 2007 (while you're still Elite), that would extend your Elite status through the end of 2008.
*On the lifetime of Elite status: The concept of Elite status doesn't have a published expiration, but they keep publishing an expiration for the 5+5 bonus (in other words, the 10 miles per dollar you earn as an Elite is treated like a 5 miles you'll always get as an Elite, plus a "limited time" Elite bonus of another 5 miles). So far, every time they've gotten near the expiration, they've extended it, but then, they've only had this Elite status concept for about a year so far, so not much history yet to judge how long they could keep extending it.
As to the life expectancy of iDine/RewardsNetwork itself: Read the threads below (probably stiill on the first page of threads in this iDine section) about the "class action" "lawsuit" to see the wide variety of opinions, ranging from "it will be around for many years" to "it may not last out this year"!