iDine rocks!
 

My top five reasons why iDine is one of the best ways to earn FF miles without flying:

5. I can register 5 different credit cards with 5 different airline's iDine program, and be able to add miles to each program at-will.

4. If I pay with a mileage-earning credit card, I get an additional mile/$.

3. If I register different cards with different programs, I can earn at the same restaurant twice in one month.

2. If I am Exec Plat with AA, I get a 500 mile bonus if I eat at three different places within a month.

1. I just earned 2,000 miles for dinner at a new restaurant downtown, and didn't even realize it at the time!

haven't seen the 500 mi bonus for the hat trick in 1 month, but the three scores have shown for feb. i love it.

Sometimes I earn more miles dining in a given month than I do flying!

It looks like johnndor had a revelation http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif One of those moments where the world all comes together for him/her.

It's really an excellant program which I use extensively on NWA & Delta. You can use the same restaurant 2x in a month by registering, say, Amex with NWA and Visa with DL. Customer service is excellant. 99% of the time visits thru the end of one month are posted to your NWA or Delta acct by the middle of the next month.

These are the problem areas and my suggestions in dealing with them:
1-500mile bonus for NWA for 3 dines last May & June. I never got this and gave up worrying about it. The same type of bonus on Delta for 5? dines recently posted as expected.

2-The printed Directory vs the website. Just because a place is in the directory, thru 4/02, doesn't mean they are still in the program. Places drop out at different times. I've had several situations in the period ending 1/02 where places were in the directory but dropped out. I've called the 800#, faxed in a copy of the charge slip, and have usually been given credit. I suggest on any place where you expect to have a large bill, say $100 - 1000 miles, you check the website first to make SURE the restaurant is still in the program.
3-Website lists NEW places which are not yet in directory.
4-Some places restrict credit to Sunday-Thursday only, with no FRI/SAT. Be careful.
ENJOY

A lot of times I'm on the run. Does take out count at the IDine restaurants or do you have to eat in the restaurant?

I am not very familiar with this program--do you get FF miles in stead of cash discounts/rebates, or in addition to the cash? Do you take 10 miles per dollar in lieu of $.20 per dollar--those sound like expensive miles.

Please please please please please IDINE add more restaurants to Arkansas. My family is beginning to think fine dining and IHOP go hand in hand. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I have had take-out credit every time... although you might check the website for individual restrictions... as mentioned above, some places dont' allow points on Saturdays, etc.

As far as cash discounts/rebates go, I'm not sure. It may depend on what program you are using ot get the cash? You can still use coupons, etc. as the restaurant does not know your card is linked to iDine when you pay. What program gives you 20% back?

I don't use iDine, so I'm no expert. I'm thinking about signing up. From their website, it looks like they have 2 programs--1 for miles and 1 for cash. The cash program is iDine prime. It requires a $49 fee, but you can defer the fee from your earnings. Most restaurants in the program offer a 20% discount, some only 10%. I think the way it works is say you run up a $100 tab at a restaurant including the tax and tip. You put down your credit card and sign for $100. Your credit card gets hit for $100 then gets a $20 refund from iDine. That's how it works if I understand it correctly.

Some may feel differently, but I think I'll take the $20 cash instead of 1,000 miles.

I love Idine. But two of my most frequented restaurants in SEA left the program a few months ago. How much money does it cost a restaurant to be listed on Idine? I've cut my trips to those restaurants at least 75% since they left the program.

You're right...that's a good program, too. If you do a lot of volume at the iDine restaurants, and you enjoy immediate cash more than miles, the Prime is the way to go. After you've recouped the initial investment, it's like a permanent happy hour at your favorite restaurants! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

The 20% discount program looks slightly different in that there is no 'first visit per month' rule, but rather a $600 spend limit per month rule (per restaurant). Also, the iDine site says Prime members get additional discounts on hotels, cruises, etc. 99% of the time I see that claim, the discounts are worthless. Any Prime members have experiences to share?

[This message has been edited by rmccamy (edited 03-26-2002).]

When you consider the value of a mile times ($0.02 *10), against the 20%, it is really a wash. I think of iDine as a piggy bank in which I can make small deposits at a time. You know how long the 20% is going to stay in my wallet? I will probably spend it without much thought.
With the miles, is like putting them in a no-interest savings account. It's a non-liquid asset; it's there for the long haul.

And I agree with Soonerman, enough with the IHOP stuff. In El Paso it's either IHOP($) or the Bistro ($$$$). Nothing in between.

My lobbying efforts are not paying, I always write in the credit card receipt " Please Join www.freshcustomers.com but none of my favorite restaurants have joined. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

A pretty complete list of airlines' Idine programs and links to them is available on my site below. Click on Free Frequent Flyer Miles in the left menu, then on Other in the top menu.

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The Personal Travel Experience of Gary Steiger - including how to get free frequent flyer miles on the web.
http://home.earthlink.net/~pgary/TravelFrame.html

For those interested, here's how iDine works, generally:

1. iDine signs up restaurants, by giving them cash advances against future dining credits. So a restaurant may get an immediate check for $10,000.

2. The restaurant gives iDine $10,000 in food credit, plus allows iDine to take over their credit card processing services.

3. When people who have registered with iDine (note: they registered their credit card) buy food at the restaurant, iDine bills the person ordering as usual on their credit card, but doesn't repay 100% to the restaurant. The percentage that iDine keeps is credited against the future dining credit iDine owns from that restaurant.

4. iDine makes money from "interest"in the amount of future dining credits they get, associated fees, plus they are now the processor for all of that restaurant's credit card charges. The restaurant gets immediate cash for reinvestment or a vacation, or Las Vegas. Whatever.

5. The marketing pitch to restaurants is that by making the points/discount offer valid only during off peak hours, and limiting it to once per credit card per month, it is all incremental revenue, so sharing it with iDine isn't bad, especially when it got you $10k at the front end.

All in all, pretty nifty marketing.

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?

I haven't used iDine in a while, why? don't know. I guess they don't have too many restaurants in my area, but still, 500-750 miles or so extra a month is nothing to sneeze at. I'm on the iDine website right now, checking for restaurants. Will have to call to update the credit card info.

Linda

You can update your credit card information online, you don't have to call anymore.

Step 2 should read:

2. The restaurant gives iDine $20,000 in food credit, plus allows iDine to take over their credit card processing services.

Thats how Idine makes a profit : They then sell the $20,000 food credit (for which they paid the restaurant $10000) to their members for $20,000 minus the cost of 200,000 FF mile
(or 20% cash) rebate. Periodically Idine sends the restaurant 50% of the food credit used up in cash, thus replenishing the food credit.

For those people who had Transmedia and were converted to Idine, there was the option of no fee and 15% discount. I preferred the miles. For those paying $49, it's about $200 spending just to break even so you have to know what you are spending. IDine has always given me miles for restaurants who dropped out of the program, but were listed in a directory. Those that have day to day restrictions are listed separately under a location, so if you don't want to bother with finding out, just don't go to those restaurants. I have found some pretty good restaurants by using the book, so I love the program. Now, under AA's program, the web says you have unlimited visits up to $600 and I have told them by phone of this, and they say it is a mistake, but they have not fixed it. I don't know how they would handle payment with a subsequent visit in a month.

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DtG

I've been pretty happy with idine, I believe I've always had miles post, but I don't keep too much track on it, I know that I end up with a few hundred/thousand extra miles every month and that's good enough for me. There have been quite a few dropouts here in Austin recently, especially some of the pricier restaurants where its easy to rack up miles. (I planned my upcoming rehearsal dinner at one of the dropouts.. would have made 5000 miles off that easily!)

What I did was to keep the free 15% card as an old Transmedia customer and open an additional miles account linked to AA to keep my miles there from expiring as I do almost all of my flights on DL.

I also have been using Open Table for some time (FT has recently posted a link on their home page to them). Some Idine restaurants are also Open Table members so that you can receive double credit. Open Table is an excellent reservation tool for your home city and also when traveling. Often times you can get into "hot" restaurants that tell you they are totally booked on the phone by going online with Open Table. Last year I made a trip to South Beach and they had several of the best scene restaurants listed and I was able to get in without a problem. It appears that a portion of the available tables are always reserved for online reservations. At home in NYC, at least once a week I make a last minute reservation with them within one hour of the time I wish to dine in many of the city's best restaurants.

If I-Dine runs all the airline dining-for-miles programs, do all the restaurants listed for a particular airline work for every airline? For example, I've registered my CCs to accrue USAirways miles. USAirways doesn't have an on-line listing of restaurants, but United does. Can I look at the United list, patronize one of the restaurants on it, and be sure I'll get my USAirways miles?

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MHT, BOS, PVD

I switched my IDINE from United to Delta, and was told that United has some restaurants that Delta doesn't have. If the IDINE rep was correct, then you probably wouldn't get credit unless it was specifically listed as US Air. But then again, who knows.

Oldpenny, It's very unfortunate that a city as big as FT. W. has such a small selection of Idine restaurants. I keep an eye on the ones offered there because my mother and other family live there. They won't participate because there are so few (and they are not the die hard miles collectors you and I are).

Dallas seems to have a much more vast number.

Here in SAT we have over 60 restaurants. So it is very easy to select them for well over half of our dining out.

I consider it a real coupe when I can collect a friend's cash and charge the entire meal. Just wish it happened more often! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

United has a double mile promotion started 4/1-5/30 at selected restaurants, Sun-Thurs only. At their I-Dine site you can get a list by state of those participating.