An Idine personal record
 

of 17,749 AA miles last month, thanks to some bonuses, a senior staff Xmas luncheon, and a family trip. At that unsustainable pace, it would take 10 months to earn two B/C tix to Europe (one for me; one for my Idine-induced gut).

FWIW, for my bonus-seeking nickel, Idine is the most hassle free program taking the least effort for the most return. Maybe one dining reward failed to post last year, which was quickly resolved by one fax.

Quoting Mr. Creosote:

"Bring me a bucket" http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Excuse me ex-pal, since you were in the buying mood, you could have called your ex-best-friend in the LBC!

By the way, did I ever mention to you that you stole my OMNI Award then pulled some silly stunt to further enhance your OMNI aura?

How in the world did you get so many points!? 17,000 miles is 1,700 in food expenditures right? Doable, but still a lot of dining out.

What types of restaurants are mostly part of iDine? I've spent $7,000 on dinners (22 business associates, and, yes, a bit over the top) and at least $3K at 2 iDine locations I found in my hometown.

Maybe I should sign up.

There are all kinds of restaurants that are affiliated with iDine. If you go to iDine.com, you can see the restaurants for your city/neighborhood.

Most iDine locations I've found give 10/miles per $ spent INCLUDING tax and tip.
For $7,000 you could receive any easy 70,000 miles for just registering a credit card.

And there is something new for 2004 that is supposed to start today where they give 25% bonus miles (12.5 per dollar) if you are on United Idine. They haven't given the details, but had a special fasttrack if you ate at 4 Idine rest. in the last couple weeks.

I've found that it is not unusual for them NOT to post, and I have to call and then email a copy of the receipt. Be sure and save your receipts and double check.

Why wouldn't people sign up for this? It's free, you don't do anything, if you never use it you just don't get any miles, but if you happen to be in an Idine restaurant, even if you don't know it, a few days later you get an e-mail telling you that you got some miles.

The miles are just too easy to get not to sign up.

An idine place caters our monthly manger's meetings; another provides pizza a couple times per month to inmates in one of our halfway houses; and, I have a tab at the place right next door to my office. Further, there are about 8 eateries w/in walking distance to my main office and as many or more w/in 5 miles; and then there's quarterly advisory boards, not to mention travel....

Given the choices, I have not felt that I've given up any quality.

And Dave ol' pal, I'd buy ya lunch even w/out the miles. B

Pretty much all places have a $600 per month limit.

Per month per card. Register three cards, and you have tripled your limit. Join another airline's program, register three more cards.....

How many c.c. do you have? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif I have 4 and my wife thinks I'm crazy. Love those miles!

You don't need a ton of credit cards, visa and mastercard check cards count, most everybody has one or two of those, and you can also use the prepaid gift type cards that many people use for traveling.

If you are looking at 70,000 miles, then a couple of three or four dollar fees for a prepaid credit card is money very well spent.

Doesn't show up on your credit report as a line of credit, no application, etc.

I was in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago and tried to get some i-dine credits. Even with a up-to-date list of restaurant I was very disappointed. Many were shut down and the rest had limited hours of operation despite what the website stated.

Not a good i-dine run.