2016 Roll Call
 

To go with a smattering of Alaskas, 35,246 Americans.

A 7,000 mile uptick from last year due to RN expanding locally and expanding in areas I traveled for business.

Given the difficulty of getting decent awards, Idining is feeling a bit ritualistic, as are many goofy hobbies, but that's gist for another thread.

I belong to several RN programs and I earned VIP again in every one this year. My focus program is AA and I will have earned about 5,500 miles when all my late December dines post. I could have dined more but there were few bonus opportunities this year. I hope to earn VIP by March 2017 in every program so that I can focus on AA miles the rest of the year.

I ended up with 3,402 from American and 1,122 from Southwest. Better than nothing, but I don't dine out often enough to get anywhere near what you're earning.

This year was the lowest by far, 15 dines (two surprises), 3,130 UA MP miles, no bonus points.

This was also the most problematic year; had one dine post at the member level rather than the VIP level and 2 dines fail to post. Eventually got the VIP bonus and one failed dine to post (almost 2 months later) but gave up on the other. Also giving up on the program. Driving home today from a family vacation around lunch time, passed near a town with 16 iDine restaurants. Decided it wasn't worth driving out of the way for a couple hundred miles.

Kept status with IHG, DL, and AA. Added status with Hilton new this year, too. Just couldn't manage to keep AS status, deciding that scrambling for 10 drinks in two weeks just wasn't worth it over a small handful of miles.

2 dines, 1 bonus that gave me a 250 mile bonus plus VIP status.

How doe VIP work? Calendar year? Or one year from earning it? Somehow I'm still VIP with 11 dines to maintain.

My understanding is VIP is good for the year you earn it and the following year. Seems you received a VIP bonus in 2016 that is good through 2017, but you need 11 dines in 2017 to be VIP in 2018.

Which program gave you VIP for one dine? I haven't seen any bonus opportunities in the MileagePlus Dining program in years.

It was MileagePlus. I hadn't dined in a while, so they sent me an offer where if I dined once, I'd receive a bonus and become VIP again (as I was VIP in the past).

If someone dined 11 times in 2016, he or she will have VIP status in 2017 until 12/31/17. To continue being a VIP in 2018 that person must dine 11 times this year (2017). Just dine 11 times each year and you'll always earn VIP status. If you belong to many programs (like me), you'll need to dine 11 times in each program every year to maintain the VIP status.

Bonuses are sometimes offered during each year to each member who is a VIP and hasn't dined in a particular program in a while. I got a bonus from DL RN during this past Summer. I had to dine once before the end of August to earn 250 bonus miles. Bonus offers are not as common as in the past.

About 16,000 AA miles.

2016 was my iDine nadir.

I didn't complete 11 dines to re-earn VIP status, and I don't think I earned over 2,700 AA miles.

I'm lucky in that I have a decent Indian buffet place I go once a week or so for lunch, along with a bar where they're fine with ringing up drinks individually.

Last year, I added a 5th partner, Hilton, at the expense of requalifying with Alaska.