tarheel99

I know it is off the beaten bath, but the Hooters in Roanoke, VA is in the network.

JDiver

Hungry Hunter / Cliff House / Carver's / Mountain Jack's / the Whaling Company (same outfit, Paragon Steakhouse Restaurants in the end,) seem to be iDine in a number of locations. Check out the website, as they sell gift certs for multiple locations, and check out the Rewards Network to see if the ones you have in mind are qualified.

N.B. Paragon went bankrupt, and apparently was unable to survive reorganization - this post is no longer accurate, to say the least.

tarheel99

Champps Americana in and around Minneapolis is in the network.

William2005

Black Bear diner is a chain of 30 or so diners in the west. The Gilroy CA location participates in idine (no credit on Fri/Sat). I have no idea if they all participate or just a few.

The company website indicates that "any cashier" will sell you gift cards.

In my one visit I thought the food was above average for diner fare, and the service excellent.

William2005

Do you think you could buy a certificate at the Hungry Hunter near SFO that participates, and use it at the Cliff House in San Francisco (which doesn't)? That would be pretty cool.

chicaloca453

As is the hooter's in downtown msp. my friend is so excited to get miles when eating at hoters.

moe's southwest grill in newport, ky (cvg area) is on there, and they have locations outside that one.

in Lexington, KY, Ruby Tuesday is on the network. And they have locations in a lot of places.

So if you're in one of these places, buying a big gift certificate might be in order.

LotzOStuff

Just started thinking abouut this idea, and used the "Search" feature. People really ought to check it out, neat little feature...

Anyway, wanted to see if the Melting Pots deal had panned out in its entirety for you.

Also:

- Did you go to the location or callthem and have them sent to you?
- Were they the national chain, scannable gift cards, like I've seen elsewhere?
- Any other caveats since you pulled this off?

Thanks, I am more and more amazed by FT every day!!!

ZeppoX

Moe's is part of a hidden chain called Raving Brands, which includes restaurants by other names. Don't know if they accept one another's gift cards, but that often is the case when a corporate parent owns multiple chains (e.g., Macaroni Grill, Chili's, On the Border and Maggiano's honor one another's gift cards, as do Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Bahama Breeze)
Raving Brands info

best

Any restaurants in the Macaroni Grill chain on Rewards Network?

sinner7

El Pollo Loco in El Segundo, CA, just one mile from LAX.

dglewis76

Acapulcos in the Boston area. It has 7 or 8 restaraunts where you can use GC while you can only earn miles in some of them.

2muchfun

Here's another twist. Only one East Side Marios (National Canadian chain) in Toronto offers Miles but it's quite out of the way in Brampton. I was passing by there on the way back from golf and opted to drop in for lunch (to trigger my 1,500 Priority Club RN new member bonus ^ ) and, more importantly, to buy a gift card to be spent at the one close to my home and the one close to my work and in their Casey's affiliated chain.

Well... the gift card machine is broken! But not the Visa. So I will get Miles for my dine but no luck in getting a gift card.

I wonder if the national chains (with franchisees) have internal policies restricting/limiting Miles (via "the machine is broken" trick). Afterall, this franchisee would get the cash from the sale of the gift card while the other one providing food/service with payment via gift card is absorbing the costs. Unless they have internal chargeouts which equalize the whole thing. Don't know. Maybe we are getting paranoid with this broken machine thing!

2muchfun

Points Scrounger

There were a couple of joints here that used debit-type gift certs instead of paper ones. Great for promos with aggregate spending as you got the large charge upfront during the promo period, and could use the gc's later on blacked-out weekends. However ... the bloody gc terminals were quite unreliable, and sort of awkward to use even when operational. The restaurants went back to paper certs after a while.

2muchfun

You're most likely right Stephan as she told me the GC machine was broken before I pulled out any of my credit cards....My bad for not being more precise in my comments. My original speculation was that the restaurant might have reached a certain limit (set by head office) in gift card issuance for the month and the manager could have told all employees that the machine is broken.....

Pure speculation for now, but if the machine is not fixed the next time I go, and the next time after, then I might have to revive the theory.

Cheers!

2muchfun

timrick

Hooters in Burnsville, 10 miles down I35 south is also in the network.
Too bad, the one at Mall Of America is not in.