I don't know if this has been covered elsewhere, but I am curious as to whether members belong to more than one I-dine program, and how that might work.

For instance, I get Delta SkyMiles for I-dine when I use one credit card, and I signed up for UPromise which also has an I-dine feature, and I know CO and NW and others all do, too.

Many of the restaurants listed for DL have limited earning (usually one time per month). I can only assume that the others have similar limitations. Can you, though, use DL one time, UPromise one time, NW one time, etc.?

I am curious to know how this would work, and to see how many others belong to more than one I-dine program.

Thanks,
Stevekoe

Yes, it's possible to join various programs so long as you use a different card for each program. And, I've had success using Card A for miles for Airline A and Card B for Airline B within the same month.

I have a regular acccount with Idine and then also a United MP Dining by Idine account. One word of caution, I recently ate at a restaurant that was listed on the Idine.com website. When I got there I ended up putting the bill on a credit card I had registered with the UA MP Dining account and not the regular Idine account. Did not get a credit so after numerous calls to MP Dining it was determined that this particular restaurant didn't participate in the UA MP Dining program but it did participate in the regular Idine program. End result is no credit for a business dinner costing over $395. Double check everything with them! I even go as far as to print the pages listing a specific restaurant I am dining at so I have it in case there is a problem getting a credit.

And I discovered that there is one restaurant in town that only accepts UA dining - so I have to remember to use that card when I want to get miles for the meal. I would go back to that restaurant and ask them if they could credit the one card and charge the other explaining that this was a business dinner and you accidentally used your personal credit card. You never know. It once happened in the days of Transmedia when on vacation, and after I got a fax back from Transmedia discovered the restaurant that we had eaten at the night before was Transmedia. I went back, and they credited it on one and charged on the Transmedia card.

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Ms.DtG

Also, don't assume that points are available every day of the week. You can check online for each place listed as to what days the points are offered. One of my favorite restaurants has changed from every day to only Monday to Thursday.

Brian

WOW! I never heard of that one before! I always thought idine was idine whether they called it dining for miles, advantage dining, or whatever each airline called it! Did not know the airlines were starting to add in or subtract their own places not on the master idine list! DO we see the downfall? Sounds like bad or loss of management to me! (and if any of you have followed the ways of cell number portability, it is very much like the trouble they are having too, since some carriers currently cannot transfer certain lots of numbers from others, but the customer finds out the hard way. Aghhgh!)

Anyway, with any dining for anything points and miles, I guess I would recommend always checking online with both the idine site and the airline site, finding your place of eats, printing these out, keeping receipts from all restaurants and bars, and the copy of when the transaction comes thru on your bank statement (although the date may show up a bit later) and keeping all of this in a small packet until AFTER you see the miles post to that airlne or program!

Even the emails some dining gigs will send you later on may be needed so that if you have a problem, this stuff can be faxed or mailed into the company to dispute errors.

I have cards with every airline I need miles in. I have even used 2 cards or even 3 to pay for one meal knowing I will get some miles in each airline because of one bar bill. You can tell the waiter how much $ to put on each card. I have charged up hundreds at a time, but yes, just to see what happened, I charged up $1 and did actually get 10 miles! It goes down ot the nearest 10cent and I think they round down, so a charge of $58.30 is 583 miles while a charge of $58.39 might still only be 583 miles.

...and seeing as how I am the Marathon Man, you know that this dissertation obviously continues -- for those who would be interested... Kindly indulge me for more semi-related thingz of idine:


I switch my cards and idinables around a lot too--AFTER I see miles post or at least after I get an email confirmation that miles will post. You find that AA postings are the fastest at a week plus to see your miles, and in fact, I am hoping Alaska's are close to that since I am currently waiting for only a few hundred as we speak so I can redeem a mileage award I have on hold with them for ticketing right now! NW and DL have been the slowest for me running at 5-6 weeks to post. UAL is about 4 weeks in my world. You can set all of your airline choices up online on via the reps on the phone, but you may know that part. And if you call any idine number from one of the airlines, you can still talk about the other airlines and change or add things.

I am always friendly with idine people because they do offer a pretty good service, I think. And they have to sit ther and take down people's card numbers all day so I feel for this job. SO if you call, have the cards in front of you and be prepared to repeat back info you just gave them--which you need to do if ever switching cards. Using the web site accounts of dining may be the best thing but sometimes you need to talk live to someone in case of errors. I had probs when trying to add a card that the phone reps could see but I could not see when online after adding it. I even shut the internet and logged back in. When i called, CS could see it and then, after the call, I could too. eird, but it once again proves that no, there are still some things that take a live person to work out!

You can also make it so your card assigns itself to say, your wife's or husband's or friend's account! You can switch that out later if you wish, but generally, I have found that that person must call in if the initial card assiging was done over the phone. So even though it's my card, if I assigned it such that when I use it to eat, my wife gets some miles, SHE would have to call in to get it switched out. Some let you do it over the web even if you started with phone, but one other thing I found out is that if you sign up or change things on the phone, some transactions may not show up on the web side. I had this happen when AAmerican did a 250 bonus mile promo. You had to do so many idine transactions in a certain period. I did them but even though I was getting the miles, none were showing up in my web account of idine. I could not get the miles even when I sent in copies of eveything.

I gave up on that one because I win all the big battles I need to fight in mile-dum. Time is money.

But either way, you should be fine juggling things andadding things as long as you keep RECORDS of what and when in all your accounts!

IT is hard enough to keep track of what we sign up and assign pins and access codes to in life. I have this list so long of all my accounts I am wondering if I need a PIN to get into THAT!

Well, good luck.

MM

I have found United posts pretty quickly. Ate out on 3/3 and it was posted some time last week. American, too, is pretty quick.
Northwest is a bit slower, but not too bad -- more like 2-3 weeks. Just signed up with America West to round out some miles, but have not used them yet.

But I was NOT aware that some restaurants participate with certain airline dining programs but not others. Seemed like no matter whose Website I downloaded, the same restaurants in my area (Wash DC) were on there. I will be more vigilant now.

Not too much problem with iDine. Now Hotels from iDine is another story. But off topic.