Rewards Network Dining iPhone App
 

I thought I would share my experience with the iPhone app.

I use the app to find restaurants near me to dine at so I can rack up more miles.

I found a great BBQ joint near me and have been visiting often. When one of my dines didn't post, I sent RN a note. They got back to me and said the dine in question would not be credited because that specific restaurant only credits a person for miles once each month.

The problem is, there is no mention of it on the restaurant's info in the app. It tells me that I can get miles for today, and the next couple of days, but mentions nothing about being limited to once per month. This is a seriously failing that you should keep in mind when using the app.

If I go to RN's website I can see that there is a monthly limit, but that isn't helpful to anyone relying on the app and is 'on the go.'

While the number of miles is small, my exprience is frustrating for two reasons: 1) I would have chosen a different restaurant had I known the limit, and 2) Instead of now being able to get 5x per $1, I'm still two dines short of that status.

I'm still debating as to whether I'm going to ask them to credit me the miles and status since it was their app that failed to inform me of that restaurant's limitation.

There are many more things the app doesn't show. (Well, I have the Android version, but I'm sure it's similar to the iPhone version in what is shows vs doesn't show)

It doesn't show:

• Restaurants that only give miles for certain credit cards (not necessarily all the credit cards they accept).
  
• Your recent dines. That co-mingles with the 1x/month issue, because even if you remember that a particular restaurant is 1x/month, you may not remember whether the last time you ate there was this month or last month!

The last few days they've just been sending out emails (one program at a time) about their new mobile site. But that's a mobile site, clunkier to get to on many phones. The app, there's no news of that improving.

Basically, I only use it when I'm in an area where I don't know the restaurants, and haven't had time to check the website, and so if I'm using it for a restaurant I've never dined at before, I can't run into the 1x/month issue yet. But I would never rely on the app alone for a restaurant that I've dined at recently, since I know the 1x/month issue exists, and by not seeing it in the app, I can tell that it's missing info, not something the just "went away" magically.

Did you not know there were 1x/month restuarants before you ran into one on the app?

Even when you're using the website, if you don't "click through" to the main page for the restaruant, it doesn't tell you if it's 1/month. So RN has been trying to "hide" that information for years. I don't know, therefore, how likely it is that you can get them to "fess up" that it's "their fault" if you were using only the app...

I had no idea that the 1x/month limitation existed for any restaurant. Normally I don't go out for lunch very often, but since Chase Freedom is 5x for restaurants this quarter and I have that card registered with the RN program, I decided to hit up some close restaurants more frequently.

I assume the likelihood of them granting me the miles and status is slim, but the worst they can say is, "no."

However, your point about which credit cards are accepted is something else I missed, and makes the app even less valuable.

While that is the case, the most likely issue is restaurants that take Amex but don't give miles for Amex. Second most likely issue is with Discover. (Though there it's often backwards: For many restaurants that list Discover on the RN website, when you get to the restaurant it turns out they don't take discover at all. Annoying when Discover is the one giving 5x!)

It's very rare that a restaurant take a Visa and MC but not give miles for one or the other. So if you're only using Chase Freedom that wouldn't likely be an issue.

An update:

I did ask for an upgrade in status since those two missing dines would have put me at the 5x level, and I requested the missing miles. They did not provide the status upgrade, but gave me the miles.

I didn't expect anything more than miles, and I've already reached the 5x status anyway. While the number of miles was small, it was more a matter of principle to me.