The Chinese Restarurant across the street from where I live (Chan's Place) just came off too..
:-(

Reality Check: I-Dine screws up at least 5-10% of the time, requiring you to really audit the credits. I-Dine is slowly changing every darned restaurant over to "No Friday or Saturday" service, eliminating miles for your Fri/Sat meals. Numerous of the I-dine restuarants are changing over to "only get miles for lunch" type deals, too, thus further turning this into a big darned puzzle, requiring you to spend a lot of time fooling with the system or book to get actual miles........

In short, it is become even less user-friendly than it was. AND according to the articles in Barrons, etc., they are in danger of collapsing if they don't actually make it this year....... A start-up which may go down, so we may have "GAME OVER" without warning at any time.

Yes, I play the games as noted above. Yes, I like I-dine when it works. But this is not a reliable partner---- those of us who have been using them for years know all too well how "high involvement" this requires you to be, or else you find that the benefits are not as advertised. I wish them well. I hope they succeed, and that I gain many thousands of miles in the future. But given the "never quite ready for prime time" act they display, I await the sad day......

SST , You said it. The whole truth!You are so correct.

If anyone is interested in iDine Prime (20% back instead of 10 miles per dollar), please let me know. The memberships generally go for a $49 annual fee, but as a member, I have the ability to give gift memberships for $19. If you want to set something up, I'd be happy to give that gift and we could arrange payment via Paypal.

If anyone has a problem with this post, I apologize and feel free to delete/edit.

Dave

I have to totally disagree with you SST. I know you are in CA and anything trendy or fashionable hits there first. But, here in SAT (and other places I travel to) I have accumulated a boatload of miles from Idine. The restaurants I go to don't have restrictions and they post to my mileage accounts 98% of the time.

I like this program because it is so lucrative and requires a minimum amount of time to monitor. I hope the program stays around a long long time. It is just the easiest way to get miles for something we all do anyway.

When I travel I rip out the corresponding pages from my Idine book and try to sample the restaurants. I have had very good luck so far.

Paradocs: *Despite* the fact that I live in California (and therefore somehow get dinged for fashion trendiness whatever this has to do with the topic), those of us who have been using the program since its TransMedia incarnation (and we're talking about 8 or 10 years here) have seen the thing go from semi-unreliable to reliably unreliable, to (now) both slightly unreliable (remember I said they don't post about 10% of the time)and now a big "game" to play.

My frustration is that quite soon, if you're without access to a computer while out picking a place to dine (yes, in Trendy Fashionable California we leave our computers at home and spend time in the city out, perhaps becoming hungry at some point), it'll end up useless because they are changing the program to "only xx days of the week", and even "only at these particular times, with a reservation booked thru I-dine", and THEN you run the "wonder if it'll post?" roulette game.

[Before, it was simple: like you said, just tear out the pages where you're headed, pick what looks good, voilà: lotsa miles].

"Gaming" of this nature reduces the utility of the program (and like I also said, I'll still "play" and earn, hopefully, tens of thousands of miles, but man---- they take every good thing and turn it into a big Production Number...... ).

You see, one other thing about life today is that I personally am getting *weary* of every darned business trying to turn their particular schtick into High-Involvement Purchase Decision mode. And I have a tendency to think I'm not alone. If they make it too frustrating (I know this is a mileage restaurant, but do I get miles today? At Dinner or only at Lunch? Have I checked my various statements to see if they posted? Drat, did I use the wrong credit card, the same one I already used this month?), many (probably not you or me, my friend, because we're Mileage Mavens) will just say "skip it". And then I-Dine will fold.

So just enjoy your dining, and rack up those points now, same as I am, because all good things come to an end. This program is just starting to change just a little too much, and that makes me think they're starting to get desperate, which precedes "GAME OVER" about 90% of the time; no prediction on when.

[Evidence: take a look at your latest directory for San Francisco's areas. There was only TWO "Fri/Sat Excluded" restaurants about a year ago. There were NO "see your computer for eligible dates/times" entries. Get a look at The Future (it's just starting now!....) ]

{Apologies and due credit here to the Firesign Theatre about 1972, from whom I borrowed that last tagline}

[This message has been edited by SST (edited 03-28-2002).]

I've been with iDine since the end of Transmedia. Biggest negative since them is the number of non-participants, as well as the lack of mid-range joints. On the plus side, iDine has done a good job of getting the miles over to the airlines at the beginning of each month. I've never had a problem regarding restaurants that haven't posted. The Friday/Saturday exclusion doesn't seem as bad here in NYC, although there are some in the book. Frankly, I don't understand how they can identify take-out charges vs. dine-in, but there must be some way as a few places do specify "dine-in only" in the book.

Some good points have been made about the level of involvement needed with this program. In addition, in some cities you have to make a reservation of the computer to actually get the benefits. Ex--Atlanta--Front Page News restaurant.

I think I will sign up for the iDine regular instead of Prime to get points instead of cash. One advantage of going this route is that you dont have to pay off the $49 membership fee.

SST: I think you should get bonus miles for a Firesign Theater reference.

Got an email from iDine today - I wanted to get a convenient listing of area restaurants (in electronic form) so I could sort and format to my preferences. Their response:

(Hey, this thread made it into the 3/27 Mileslink! A first for a thread that I started!)

recently signed up ua visa card on line. they send me an email quickly, reporting the mi's.

latest was 3/25 use, got email today. it said they would post in the next 30 days.

Can you register 1 credit card with 2 different FF clubs, and earn miles on both at the same time? Can you register 2 cc with one FF#? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by brians51 (edited 03-29-2002).]

Yes and no (respectively).

You can enroll up to three cards in one i-Dine program - linked to one airline.

You can enroll three different cards in another i-Dine program linked to a different airline.

etc.

A credit card can only be linked through iDine to one airline. (this is possible to track since i-Dine runs all of the programs.)

I made a chart of the limited number of IDINE restaurants in my area that we visit, less than 5, with a check box for each month. Making sure that I check the IDINE site for updates, I make sure that we don't repeat a restaurant in a given month unless we really want to very, very much.

For those in the Fort Worth area, the new Bellagio's on Bryant Irvin is very good. IDINE for sure. Medium priced family Italian restaurant. Check the WEB site for which days IDINE is honored. Dinner for 4 with bottle of very nice wine, desserts and tip will yield me a nice 1,000 or so FF miles.

We have friends who only use cash, so they give us their cash and I pay the bill on my linked card. What a deal!

Yes, there are people who still use only cash.

Prehistoric!

[This message has been edited by oldpenny16 (edited 04-01-2002).]

oldpenny.... whats cash?