Problem with AAdvantage Dining - there are not many that participate. There are none in the county of VA that I live. And there is only one in the city of Washington DC. Looks like many that used to participate have dropped out. Maybe with the LP system - I guess they figure people would be playing games.

Not sure where you are looking, but there are lots in Washington DC. (It's where I live.) In particular, I like Rasa, Proper 21 F street, Sushi AOI, Maketto, and Basebowl Ramen, all of which are on the aadvantagedining.com search. Masala Art is also really good.

This is not AA specific. All the airlines' dining programs are run by the same company, and have the same participants. The different websites are just different skins for the different airlines, but the programs are identical (and you can only have a CC linked to one... it you link it to a 2nd program, it will unlink it from the first one and you will get an email from the company that runs the programs explaining what happened)

I was going to the AA Dining portal and putting in my zip code. - I just did it again and now I am seeing restaurants.
I guess their system had an issue when I did the search.
And I now see 10 in the 20007 zip code.

Between Heart State Brewing near CMH (fantastic IPAs) and Hopvine Pub in Capitol Hill in Seattle, I'm drinkin' my way to VIP status already!

As a warning to anyone ordering from Chownow through the AA Dining Portal - there's a decent mark up ~20%.

Here's the menu a restaurant near my house called Red Stix through the AA Chownow portal - https://direct.chownow.com/order/166...4-B44DA8B761ED

Here's the Toastab link directly from their site - https://www.toasttab.com/red-stix-street-food/v3

similar with another restaurant called Taverna - https://direct.chownow.com/order/176...4-B44DA8B761ED

Taverna when ordering through DoorDash - https://www.doordash.com/store/taver...m_campaign=gpa

Chow now fees
 

So chow now advocate that they charge the restaurants a flat monthly fee but I just ordered from my local Indian restaurant and can confirm that every item was a few dollars more through the chow now system than the restaurant’s own menu (they only offer the online option in advantage dining). It was self pick up only and I double checked the prices while I was waiting for my food too so I’m not sure the miles earned were worth it compared with just calling over the phone and paying at least 10% less for the food

You see this on doordash and Uber eats sometimes. Restaurants can choose to eat the fees themselves, or pass them on to the customer through higher prices. They set the menu prices; nothing is forcing them to set the same prices on chownow as they do in their restaurant.

Yup - I agree. There is a great italian place in my neighborhood whose chownow prices are mostly the same for their items with a few that are about a $0.25 difference.

was that through AAdvantage dining or some other link to chownow?

I have checked 5-6 local restaurants on the AAdvantage dining site and they all had prices for online ordering that were 20-25% higher on AAdvantage dining/chownow than the menus (in some cases online ordering menus) on their own sites. Maybe the restaurants are choosing to set their own prices but the increase is so consistently high I have to wonder if it’s something else.

Yes - the restaurants that are available for online ordering, but not for the rest of the AAdvantage dining (i.e., dining in) are just through a partnership with chownow. My guess is that chownow charges high fees that certain restaurants choose to absorb. (I just remembered that Washington DC has a law that limits fees for services like uber eats and doordash and chownow - so maybe that helps explains the lower price points compared to other jurisdictions.)

It also happens with the eShopping portal. Websites detect your clickthrough and can dynamically set the prices. Just last night I compared the price for an arrangement on SendFlowers.com in one browser where I clicked from the portal and in another browser where I just went to the site directly. Price was 10% higher when coming from the portal lol. The question you have to ask yourself is: are the miles/LP worth it? Between bonus/promo deal boosts and now elite qualifications in the mix, the answer is sometimes tricky.

I'm not convinced that chownow is the one charging higher fees. Consider the following example where prices at the same restaurant increase by 15% if you link to chownow through AAdvantage dining rather than use chownow directly:

AAdvantage dining: https://direct.chownow.com/order/171...6-1204653F0DEB

directly through chownow: https://eat.chownow.com/order/17166/locations/24518

It seems clear that you're paying specifically for the miles rather than the online ordering service. Not worth it to me, but others can do their own calculations.

The more I try to use AAdvatage Dining, the more it seems to be a sham. Others have pointed out the limited number of restaurants and how some restaurants you will only get credit if you order online.

Now it seems we can add another category: if you pay by ApplePay. Even though your charges are still going to your credit card account, since the ApplePay has a different virtual number than the number on your physical card, you don’t get any credit.

I'm not sure how you would call it a sham: yeah, it's not useful if there aren't any restaurants you want to go to, but where I live, a number of good places in the neighborhood participate. I'm up to several thousands of loyalty points this year from dining: everything from pancakes at ihop to ramen at a great ramen shop in my neighborhood.

And yes, it's a good reminder that mobile wallets won't work with rewards programs that track through your credit card number (as the merchant never receives your actual credit card number.)