sdsearch

I got the same 5 of $40 for 2500 that Jailer got. And for me, since I usually dine solo and never at fancy restaurants, it will have to be gift cards/gift certificates. Now to figure out which restaurants that I actually want to eat at repeatedly* have gift cards or gift certificates in amounts that add up to $40. (I eat a lot at one-off restaurants which often don't seem to have these.)

*In other words, it doesn't help that Pizza Hut has gift cards, since I don't want to actually eat there!

Notenut

The MileagePlus incarnation of RN just sent me the same offer, 10K for 10 $40+ dines. Shame it's such a short window of 6 weeks, I'm going to have to decide which one to pursue, I couldn't do both AA and MP, even with gift certificates, because as I think of it, most of the RN restaurants in my area don't even offer gift certificates!!

sdsearch

UA DIning (MileagePlus) just sent me the same 2500 for 5 $40s that AA sent me a few minutes ealier (which I'd already posted about).

Jailer

While I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, this morning the registration wouldn't take my password, this afternoon:

Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.


RN-apps Server at aa.rewardsnetwork.com Port 80

Open Jaw

I got that offer from AA as well.

sdsearch

Here's the funny thing:

While I got the AA and UA both by email, when an hour or two later I went to the Bonuses tab on each one, the UA was there, calling it the Big Five for 2,500 Bonus (and I registered for it there), while the AA didn't show this bonus at all.

I haven't tried to register for the AA bonus yet (using the email); it's not a priority for me, since the card I'd use for AA is the one I deleted manually from AA in anticipation of using it for the AS (4 newly-registered-at-AS-cards) bonus. So if I am going to do the $40 stuff, I'll do it for UA first, and only do it for AA as well if it seems easy (to get gift certs/cards at restaurants I would actually want to use them at) after the UA experience.

KathyWdrf

Some people use gift cards as, um, actual gifts.... so if you have a relative or friend who DOES like Pizza Hut, consider that a gifting opportunity that also benefits you!

I wish we had a thread on RN restaurants that have gift cards. Or maybe that bit of info could be added on the "Great iDine Restaurants" thread....

@:-)

EDIT: I have been researching gift card possibilities to help fulfill the AA "10 dines, 10,000 miles" bonus. I have found that some restaurants use a third party provider, e.g., OpenTable, for gift cards; Colibri in San Francisco (one of my favorite RN restaurants) does this. Somehow I doubt that such a purchase would qualify for RN credit, but has anyone tried purchasing these types of gift cards? To see what I'm talking about, go here: http://www.colibrimexicanbistro.com/ and click on "gift cards."

zachary

I received the 4 dines for 2,500 for AA.

When I go to click on the register tab, it tells me that I am not eligible for the promo. Anyone else having this issue?

DallaStarwooDelta

8 of my 10 dines will be easy. I usually give my employees a gift card at Christmas each year so I'll just buy early

Texas Land and Cattle, a not so bad middle of the road steak place, is now part of RN in the DFW area so a stop at one location 8 times in the next 6 weeks should be very easy

diburning

I received an identical offer for UA.

lwildernorva

And I got the 5 dines/$40 each/2500 bonus for UA and AA. As my SkyMiles account has the least number of miles of all my accounts, I'd really love to see Delta join the party, but I see their bonuses tend to be pretty lame.

sdsearch

To qualify as an RN dine, a purchase doesn't have to be a "dine" per se, but has to "look" like one. In other words, it has to come through the restaurant's credit card machine.

Any gift card you buy from somewhere else won't come through the restaurant's credit card machine, and thus won't look like a "dine" to RN (in fact, it will never be seen by RN). So no, only gift cards (or gift certificates) bought at the actual participating restaurant and paid on the same credit card machine they use for dines count.

The whole way that RN dining works behind the scenes is that they register the specific credit card machine at the restaurant. We know that if the restaurant changes credit card machines without telling RN, dines stop posting. So it's seems very clear to me that purchase of gift cards from somewhere else, since it wouldn't go through the restuarant's registered credit card machine, wouldn't count.

This is the same reason why at some chains location X can participate while location Y doesn't participate. Because each location has its own credit card machine, and RN registers each of those individually. RN can't "sing up" a whole chain in one step; they have to sign up each individual location.

But these websites you're referring to are not tied to individual restuarant locations, are they? And that's why they can't possibly work.

By the way, you can search for gift cards / gift certificates at RN dining sites, by expanding "Features" in the search parameters, and ticking off "Gift Certificates" (they don't make a distinction between gift cards and gift certificates), and narrowing the search that way. However, as with all information at the RN dining sites, it's not perfect. For example, I highly suspect Pizza Hut locations sell gift cards, but not a single Pizza Hut locations comes up in my searches (that normally, without the "gift certificates" filter, are "littered" with them). So I suspect someone forgot to enter "gift certicates" into "Features" when they set up the Pizza Hut locations.

Notenut

This afternoon I got my third variation of this RN offer:

10 dines @ $40 or more per dine, get 5000 Hilton Hhonors points.
For me 5,000 HHonors points is not equal to 10,000 AA or UA ppints.

diburning

Well, think about it. For those who have the 10 $40 dines for 10,000 miles, and are VIP dining members (so you'd earn 5 miles per dollar for a total of 2000 miles for the $400), you are pretty much purchasing 12,000 redeemable miles at 3.3 cpm and getting $400 worth of food included.

sdsearch

I just got an email from (Southwest) Rapid Rewards Dining called "Double your points!":
The fine print:
How nice of them to tell me on July 3 about a bonus that started July 1.