You get miles based upon the credit card(s) used to pay for the meal. Your best bet would be to charge part of the bill to each card on each visit to make elite dining status faster. Restaurants seem to understand separating alcohol charges onto another tab, making the assumption you aren't going to be submitting booze for business reimbursement. Or, you can present two cards when the bill comes, stating clearly: "Please charge exactly $5 on this one, and the balance of the tab on the other." Leave the entire tip on the larger tab - rounded up to either $.34, $.67, or an even dollar amount of course, so you don't miss out on a single airline mile! If you ever want to get two dining credits at the same joint with the same airline on the same day, remember to vary the net amounts (at least slightly); otherwise, the system will reject the second one as a "presumed duplicate error" and you'll have to go through the trouble of getting retroactive credit from Rewards Network later. You can split the bill exactly to the penny between two airlines.
Be sure to check the fine print on each restaurant. Most are unlimited visits(although they may be blacked out certain days of the week), but a few are still one-visit-per-month. That means one visit per partner per month - if you dined at one for AA credit, you could still go there again later that same month using your CO-linked card. Or, you could split a visit between two partners and both would count - if it's the tail end of the month say, and you doubt you'd be back again soon.
Good luck and welcome!
Last edited by Points Scrounger; Mar 25, 2007 at 10:52 am