Airline Dining Programs
 

I have heard alot of negative stories about these programs-- posting last miles after numerous phone calls, etc.

However, if I sign up for four or five dining programs and register the same credit card # with all of them, will I get miles for all the airlines' programs??

If not, how do they decide which airline miles I would get?

Do all the programs have the same resturants or do they vary? I know the Northwest and American programs sounded like the same exact resturants.

Hard to know. I registered for both United and Delta Dining and most of the restaurants were the same. With United you register a charge card, with Delta you don't. They issue another FF card and you show it when you pay the bill. However, the place I tried to use it told me to save the receipt and send it in later and that was policy. Supposedly, their computer could not do this automatically.

american, twa, and united programs are administered by the dining-a-la-card company. they keep track of which credit card you use for each program, so you cannot use the same credit card for more than one of those airline's programs.

continental & usairways uses transmedia as their dining sponsor. they give you a transmedia card tied to one of your credit cards; so once again, you cannot get credit for more than one program per meal.

the one way to get points on more than one airline is to use one of the above programs in conjunction with delta's skymiles dining. delta is all alone with their program, so if you can find a restaurant that is participating in both delta and (dining-a-la-card OR transmedia), pay for the meal with your credit card/transmedia card and present your delta skymiles card.

this isn't as easy as it sounds, though, since delta only has about 1,000 restaurants participating nationwide, and the other programs have over 6,000.

Does the UA or AA program have a membership fee? I was just reading about the UA program, and I don't think it does, but I couldn't tell for sure.

UA dining program has no fees. I have also not experienced problems in UA's posting of miles to my account.

Given that there's no fee, I guess I should probably just go ahead and sign up for the program ... what do I have to lose?

Is it only limited to certain cards (Visa or Mastercard), or can I sign up my AMEX card?

they work with amex, discover, mastercard, and visa.

American's dining program is free.

ANd from my experience when I try to dine at places looking for UA miles, they end up being posted faster on AA.

So Justin I would say if it's free sign up for as many free dining programs as you desire and hopefully the miles will get credited before you are old and grey.

For an explaination of what I mean: read the past posts on the Mileage Plus dining program.

Personally, I've given up on the dining programs. They are so poorly managed that
I'll be lucky to get one in five dinners credited. But you may have better luck.
CATMAN

I just learned that Delta has a new dining program that is administered by Dining a la Card. Users will receive 10 miles per dollar spent, including tax and tip. This is a great improvement over the 3 miles per dollar spent on food and beverages only under their old program. Also the number of restaurants will increase significantly.

I believe this is the same company that administers the American program, and I have had little trouble getting the proper points when I dine at the participating restaurants. You do have to stay on top of who is participating in the program, though. The list changes frequently, and I believe there is only a 60 day window to receive credit for dining after a restaurant has dropped out of the program.

Call 1-800-232-4298 to register for the new program. You can register up to three credit cards, and the points are to be credited to your SkyMiles account within 60 days.

Thanks for the information on the new Delta dining program. Just out of curiosity I called all the restaunts in Manhattans Little Italy that were listed in the Delta 1998 Dining guide. Not one was a participant. The one Chinese restraunt in the east 40's. (No free advertising here) Great food by the way. could not process my request because the "network was down" They admitted it is a pain in the....when they have customers waiting 20 to 25 minutes for a Delta dining miles transaction to process. I hope this is a better outfit. 10 miles per $ including tip sounds good.

Mike

Well, I signed up for the Delta program on Thursday night. They took three credit cards (I used my corporate and personal AMEX card and a MasterCard for restraunts that might not take AMEX). I should be receiving a membership packet in 7-10 days.

Since I'm in San Diego this week, we'll see how it works (hopefully my membership is active). I had breakfast and dinner at Dining A-La-Card restraunts today (which I assume will be the same as in the Delta program ...). I got a list of restraunts off of the Dining A-La-Card website (http://www.dalc.com I think it was ...).

Whiskey ~ Do you know if Delta is running a bonus promotion possibly? I'm thinking since it's a new program they might try that ...

I'm registered for Delta's (old) Skymiles Dining... and let me tell you what a pain in the rear end that is! Some restaurants that were listed in the program no longer do so, and even so it was primarily the high-end restaurants that participated. Hopefully the new program will work out better in the long run.

I certainly do not expect getting FF miles for dining at McDonald's... but I wouldn't be surprised if that will ever happen! :)

Beckles--Sorry, but I don't know if Delta is running any sort of promotion with the switch in their dining programs. I haven't even seen them announce the change yet; I just happened to find out about it when I called the old program administrator to get a copy of their 1999 restaurant listing. I asked the agent at Dining a la Card about any sort of promotion when I signed up for the new program, but he wasn't aware of one.

My guess is there won't be a promotion, however, since American didn't have one when they made the same switch in dining program administrators at the beginning of 1998.

I had good luck with Delta Dining in the past, and liked it better than the AA program, because I could actually track it better, and there seemed to be more resturaunts.

December mileage got posted rather quickly, but toward the end of the month, I found that several establishments would not honor the card. Now I see why.

I suppose I now have to sign up for the new program. If it were not for this forum, I would have never known about the change.

I called the Delta Skymiles Dining Program tonight as I had not gotten the information they said they would send to me.
The woman who answered the call said that it will take 6-12 weeks to get any information about the program, but that I am enrolled.
She did give me a website that lists the restaurants that are supposed to be participating.
http://www.dalc.com/ which is the Dining a la Card website. She said to use the search = by city= and those are the participating places
She also told me that you could not use the same credit cards on the Delta program that you use on another program(United, etc.)
Floyd

Continental now uses Dining A La Card as well. I received my directory from them about a month ago. I dined 3 weeks ago, I'll let you know when the miles show up!

It seems like Dining a la Card is running all the programs now! Since this has happened you can't use the same credit card for more than one FF program. At least with old programs there was more variety in the restaurant choices, although Dining a la Card is certainly quite good. I guess the only remaining independent program is Transmedia. Anyone know of any others?

Can anyone confirm whether or not CUC International in Trumball CT ran the "old" Delta Skymiles dining program? I have points that are owed to me(from Dec. 98 in here in Manhattan).THEY WILL SOON HIT THE 8 WEEK LIMIT I rather deal with these issues over the phone. Than faxing a letter at this point.. Apparently the 1800 for the program is no longer working. Thanks in advance for any information.

Mike

Mike: CUC International DID INDEED administrator this program but just to warn you I have had my greviences with them last year when several restaurants I ate at did not post Delta SKymiles. I request Delta Skymiles. It was A LONG PROCESS (and the funny thing is that the Restaurant stays showed up on MY AA DINING PROGRAM!!!)

If you need the address of this place or the SkyMiles DIning guide and letter, e-mail me and I'll get it out to you. As I said, I've given up with dining programs. They give me INDIGESTION!!!! :{

DID YOU SAVE ALL YOUR RECEIPTS?? (One of the rules in the 1998 Delta SkyMiles Dining Guide says the program will honor credit with copies of receipts.) I'm sure you did but had to ask.

A couple of things to try:

*DId you call 1-800-821-3463? I guess that's the number that's not working.
*Call Delta SkyMiles and ask to speak to customer service. If there are changing they should have told the SkyMiles Dining members. Explain your situation and while you're at it request BONUS MILES FOR YOUR FRUATRATION!!!

Another reason why people may LOVE THE WAY DELTA FLIES... BUT NOT HOW IT MANAGES IT"S PROGRAMS!!!

AN OMMI QUESTION: with Dining-A-LA-Cart managing MOST of the Airline dining programs, doesn't that create a monopoly? And aren't Monopolies illegal??? (I'm diving into law...These are NO BIG DEAL questions but that's how I see it.)


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:) CATMAN :)

I signed up for Mileage Plus Dining toward the end of last year and so far (knock wood), I haven't had any problems. The miles aren't very timely, but the do show up (and it's approx. 100 - 200 miles, so getting them immediately isn't my highest priority). Sorry to hear that others have had a problem, I will definitely keep a close eye on mine.

Regards,
- Anna

I've been in United's Mileage Plus Dining program since October and haven't had any problems with miles being credited. As Anna said, they are a bit slow.

From talking to them on the phone it seems they send the mileage info to UA once a month. Given UA's "timeliness" in updating the miles on the website, that can make for some long delays in seeing some items on your statement.

My main difficulty is that there aren't enough places where I like to eat in the program. In fact, a few I do like have dropped out since I started. Still, as long as it's free and there are some places I like, why not http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

-QL

Catman - I realize your question on monopolies was probably rhetorical, but here's an answer anyway:

It isn't illegal per se to be the only company doing something - but it may become illegal if you try to use market position to force out other businesses that want to do the same thing. If Dining a la Card is doing a bad job (I would tend to agree), sounds like an opportunity for a competitor. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif (Of course, there are those nasty start-up costs. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif )

A company that does something so well that it has no effective competition is often called a "niche" company instead of a monopoly.

Counsellor... THanks for your fine explaination. It's nice to have at least two lawyers among our little family (I'm including the great Jerzee attorney DJLAWMAN!)

My question was part rhetorical and part curiousity like my cats. I was wondering if running most of the airline mile/dining programs was a monopoly. Now I understand better.

Though they could do a better job crediting my miles!!!


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:) CATMAN :)

Here is some scoop on Transmedia and DALC.
You pay with the Transmedia card then your credit card gets billed. So, I get ten miles from Transmedia then net a free one mile on AMEX. So I can end up with 11 miles per dollar.
Same system on DALC, but you pay with the credit card. Don't try to register the same card for multiple programs on DALC. The last FFP is where the miles will be credited. And if you try to register the card again the computer will find it on another program.
Also you can buy other stuff with either program catalogs, a few hotels, etc.
But, I think there is not a 6000 mile per meal limit on the Transmedia card like the DALC program. (Yes, that is enforced.)

The Transmedia points accrue like the AMEX so you can choose which airline you want. DALC's are automatically credited on your FFP statement.

I use both, they are very handy when you are responsible for entertaining recruits on your company's tab.

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more scoop:

dalc gives you miles on food, beverage, tax & tip; transmedia only on food&beverage -- but not on alcohol in NC or SC.

dalc miles apply ONLY on first visit of the month to restaurants, transmedia applies to all visits.

As part of Diners Club credit card you get(strangely enough) a 20% discount as part of the free LeCard program. No miles per se, but it does save you some cash.