I registered my credit cards for Skymiles Dining. When I travel, I can usually find a place or 2 to eat well and pad my FF balance at the same time. At home, there is exactly 1 restaurant within 15 miles that participates (probably only 1 in 50 miles, but the search tool only extends 15 miles). The area is not exactly known for fine dining, but we do have multiple chain choices and several decent independent reastaurants.

The 1 restaurant is located in the mall. It is crowded, noisy and the food is not particularly good, although the service is always top notch (I think the servers appreciate any table that isn't all non-tipping mall-rat kids). We ate there 3 times in December (there was a promo) and probably 3 times elsewhere. Friday night was the worst. My salmon was served still frozen in the middle & my wife's hamburger was clearly overcooked on an unclean grill. We sent the food back and the second try was ok.

Mrs BamaVol asked on the way home why we keep eating there? Should I tell her the truth?

For the time/money/mileage payoff you get for eating at a place you don't like, wouldn't a quarterly mileage run be a much better (and healthier) long term proposition?

I gave up on iDine a while ago because most of the local restaurants that participate are places I don't like.

I dated a guy once who only would take me to iDine places - when I caught on, I reconsidered the relationship.

I'm not worried she's gonna dump me. We celebrated our 30th anniversary yesterday - and no, I did not take her there to celebrate.

Have you considered planning an iDine vacation/mileage run?

Another idea: could you buy gift certs for that not-so-swell mall joint, and give them to people you don't really like much ... err, umm , I mean ... acquaintances?

I ended up converting someone I went out with for a while to iDine: signed up for two airlines with new miles-earning credit/debit cards for each, too!

Dude! Guess what my daughter's in-laws are getting from me next Christmas! Thank you.

No she won't - but I'd quit start going for the more expensive root beer next New Year's Eve! ^

Yeah, who in their right mind would wanna date one of those mileage hound weirdos?

I find that even when I travel it is hard to find iDine restaurants I would choose without the reward. I think we need to remember that good restaurants don't need to give 20% discounts to get customers. This is an incentive program for the restaurants and it costs them a lot of money.

I agree. While there have been a couple of exceptions, where I ate at a restaurant I liked and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had earned some miles, most of the SkyMiles Dining restaurants at which I've eaten have been places where I had to force myself to go. My girlfriend thinks I'm on some kind of Thai food kick, but in reality I wanted miles. After reading the above posts, I think I better stop pushing pad thai on our dates.