best

It seems from lack of postings that we are losing interest in IDINE. Anyone had great success / very positive experiences with them since 1/1/06?

JDiver

My experiences with iDine have been pretty constant - prompt posting, ten miles and five HHonors points per dollar with my HHonors AMEX, and fortunately for me, some decent restaurants in Sacramento CA to dine in (I try to update the Sacramento listings in the sticky every month of two, at least.) I avoid the lousy ones like a case of TD.

Unfortunately, in some cities I travel to the US (Boston being a recent acase in point,) many good iDine restaurants have dropped out - so I am certainly using it less. We're just fortunate in SMF area to have a number of palces we'd dine anyway be affiliated with iDine.

My concern is what happens on July 1? If it drops back to five miles, iDine will have a difficult time with many members staying on, I believe. That will be the tilting point.

Sidenote and irony: the iDine resto we dined in Valentine's day, the server will get the best of it - I'll give her award ticket to BKK for her friend's wedding next year. The ultimate in recycling!

pinniped

I began to generally lose interest in iDine a couple of years ago. Mainly because all of the good restaurants in my area that are or were part of iDine either began slashing the rewards or pulled out altogether. I used to get 20% cash back or 10 FF miles/$ plus bonuses (I'd only go the mileage route if there were bonuses) at a bunch of good local lunch spots. Now it's 10% cash or very little in mileage, plus the good restaurants are out of the system.

Kind of a bummer...about 6-7 years ago, this was a major source of AA miles for me on my way to 1MM lifetime. Now it seems like this company is just fighting to hang on.

oldpenny16

We have few restaurants, mostly bars & clubs, and it is getting harder to prove missed postings. IDine requires that receipts show at least the first and last 4 digits of credit cards. New (Jan 1) law in Texas forbids more than the last 4 digits from showing on a receipt. I don't like the current AA promotion of bonus points for only 3 Dines. They need to creat something to inspire us!

Beckles

With iDine running the Diners Club Restaurant Program now I usually just take the cash by using my Diners Club MasterCard, it posts quickly and I typically get the credit a month before I have to pay the associated charge for the restaurant bill, which is really nice!

sonora

Personally, I was very happy with 250 bonus miles per dine last fall, and with the idea that there has been some kind of bonus program running for the last six months. I actually earned a lot of miles last year.

It helps that one of my favorite, close by casual dining restaurants is on idine (Corwin's) as well as one of the best restaurants in St Louis (The Crossing).

I also like Del Pietro's a lot. It's pretty painless to accumulate miles when you're going where you would go anyway.

Points Scrounger

I think you had a bad rep who told you that? Most receipts these days are last four only, and that's what iDine has always gone by with me.

robbr

Just go on line, get your current credit card statement, sanitize it to remove personal data such as credit limit and Fax it in, after talking to a phone rep

JDiver

The receipts I have sent copies of to iDine always have the last four digits of the credit card showing. I think California law is like Texas law. I wonder if someone at iDine was winging it?

I am also hoping for a new bonus offer - but I suspect we'll have to wait for the curent one to fade away.

Cornroaster

Between my wife and myself, we are perfectly happy at this time. We have just about completed the Delta 10x $15 for 500 bonus miles each and will be working on the Midwest 10x $15 for 500 bonus miles next, and will probably try to pick up a couple of 3x AA miles before that promo ends. However, July 1 will be a very telling date.

pinniped

Another sort of off-topic idea: look for local membership cards from your city's independent restaurant association or other sources. In Kansas City, the best deal in town is to donate $100 to our local NPR station. With that donation, you get a 2-for-1 (main entree) dining card that is good at many of the top restaurants in the city, with very few restrictions.

The restaurants on this list have very little overlap with iDine or Entertainment - these are places you want to visit: places with solid Zagat scores and even the city's only Mobil 4* restaurant. I'm sure most cities have something similar - just might be a bit harder to find than buying the local Entertainment book.

Life is too short to eat crappy food, even if you're getting miles to do it.

rhwbullhead

As others have said, you were dealing with a bad rep. I've mailed in receipts that only show the last 4 digits. When I had a problem last year with Maza not posting my miles properly, Idine told me that I can either fax/mail my credit card receipt, or a copy of my statement showing the transaction.

Edit:
As for losing interest in Idine, I'm still interested, but I was slow to hit Idine places at the beginning of the year b/c of the stupid bonus system. As was discussed in another thread, the bonus made some of us avoid eating at Idine places until we could set up a big Idine meal. We did this b/c the bonus only counts the first 3 dines after registration.

oldpenny16

I sent in my receipt and a sanitized copy of my credit card bill and am hoping for the miles to post. The restaurant, Sabu Sabu in Ft Worth Texas was no good; so this added insult to injury!

Watchful

Ditto for me! The bonuses have been great to launch '06.

Points Scrounger

I haven't lost interest. So far I've managed about half the 10 Delta and 8 Priority Club meals (min $15), as well as 2/3 AA ones. As for AS offering no promo, I stick my occasional cheap patricipating Indian buffet visits there for 2007 elite credit.

Give Rewards Network about 7 -10 days for the credit to show up on your account at their site. If not, then call to verify they have received the receipt.