amyrosa47

Just got an email from iDine saying:

"As of April 1, 2017, iDine® will be adjusting its rewards to better reflect spending habits among our members.

Members who spend less than $750 per year at participating iDine restaurants, bars, and clubs, will earn 5% back in American Express® Reward Cards.

Members who spend more than $750 per year at participating iDine restaurants, bars, and clubs, will earn 10% back in American Express® Reward Cards."

Used to be that members earned 5% up to $250 in dining, 10% between $250 and $750, and 15% above $750 .... no more. Major devaluation in rewards.

Curious what other dining program people prefer or might switch to now?

diburning

There's an alternative?

sdsearch

Not really an alternative company, but this setup with dollar spending determining earning never existed in the airline and hotel subprograms.

In the airline and hotel subprograms, you earn one way up to 10 dines a year, and after 11 dines a year you move up to higher earnings. (For example, with legacy airlines using miles, you earn 3 miles per $ at first but 5 miles per $ after 11 dines.) And the level you get with 11 dines carries over for the rest of the current year and into the next year.

For those who redeem their miles for longhaul international business class, even before the above-mentioned "cash back" devaluation, legacy airline miles may have trumped "cash back" iDine. Now, you only need to value you miles at 2.1 cents per mile or more (based on your redemption patterns) for using a miles subprogram to have a better value than the "cash back" iDine subprogram.

demkr

Yeah this is a pretty massive devaluation. I do frequent restaurants that happen to be on the program, but I now may reconsider doing UA mileage rewards now instead of iDine.

Though right now I have about $15 in earnings since my last card, so I'll finish up with iDine after it hits $20.

Seems like RewardsNetwork in general, which several years ago used to offer significant and frequent bonuses, is just becoming less and less valuable. Mileage earning may be slightly better depending on how frequently you dine.

I think that in the other programs you don't necessarily have to complete the surveys on every dine to earn ,but that may have changed in the past few years. The UA page does say that the VIP members get bonuses from time to time, so maybe those will be worth it (assuming no devaluation).

sdsearch

No, you don't have to any surveys in the airline programs, unless you have the rare promo that requires it.

This thread should a reality check on that:
If you don't dine for a while at UA dining, you may get a bonus of 250 or maybe 500 miles on the next dine or two, or something like that, once a year perhaps. If you do dine with them regularly, you're even less likely to get a bonus. But in any case, it seems like it's been a couple years since a non-signup bonus has earned 4 digits of miles.

chix

IDine / Rewards Network is a crock. They will be gone soon.

Open Jaw

I will earn my next reward card and then leave the program. I spent the money to get to the 15% then they changed the rules. I am done!

sdsearch

I presume you mean you're just leaving the cashback program? Because elsewhere you wrote:

Open Jaw

Yes, I meant the cashback program. I joined the cashback program last year to see if I could earn some good money. Well, this reduction really damages that objective. It just doesn't seem to be worth the extra hassle. AMEX cards are not accepted at some of my favorite places. Moreover, the cards are not refillable. If you have a balance of $20.23 but only spend $20, you lose 23 cents that month, and that adds up over time. After March 31, I will refocus my dining on miles. Reward flights and hotel stays are more valuable.

demkr

Essentially, the program is just going to become a "might as well" thing with me. I'm not going to go crazy like I did in 2009-2010 era of promos going to every restaurant I could. There are a few places that I go to that are on Rewards Network, and when I go there, I'll earn the (devalued) cashback/mileage credit. No biggie... I'm close to my next rewards card, and I haven't decided yet whether or not to go back to earning miles or stick with the current program.

Even going to the $750 level to get 15% back was a challenge, and by the time I got there, I'd have only a few months to enjoy further benefits with the anniversary stuff.

I think MOGL now is slightly better than RN, but they're a bit more complicated in that each restaurant has different earning rules, there's no status levels, etc. They're a good program though, especially in California

diburning

MOGL sucks. It's a half-baked attempt at a functioning program. Your best bet is to try to find another cash back program that uses Empyr as a payment capture service (such as Yelp Cash Back) instead of dealing with MOGL. (Most programs with the exception of RN uses Empyr to capture transactions. Programs that use Empyr will not let you register the same card across multiple programs processed by Empyr.)

sdsearch

Wow, I looked up MOGL, did restaurant searches in a couple areas of SoCal I'm familiar with and found a sizable overlap with restaurants that also participate in Rewards Network. Of interest: One restaurant they show is shown on RN as "leaving soon, 3/31", and it'll be interesting (if that restaurant does indeed leave RN) whether it'll leave MOGL at the same time.

They claim you can earn points toward hotels and airlines, but there's no details on that, and then in Help for partners all I find is Hawaiian Airlines and Virgin America (which is not long for this world on its own, and Alaska Airlines which is swallowing it up is aligned with Rewards Network, not MOGL).

So without knowing anything more about MOGL, given that I'm into real airline miles or real hotel points (which are harder to get elsewhere at RN's exchange rate), not cashback (that I can get lots of other ways), I'm not impressed at all.

klankeo

You can get cashback on MOGL. You just need to register a debit card as the card to receive the rebate. You don't have to receive Virgin America Elevate points.

I've used iDine, Mogl, and now Thanksagain to receive triple credit for my dines.

diburning

How often are you able to triple dip? I've only done it once, and this may be a coincidence, but as soon as I triple dipped, that restaurant dropped out of RN abruptly (no leaving soon message) and also disappeared from ThanksAgain although they are still on MOGL.

klankeo

I've been able to do it at about 4 locations near me. I've done it consistently, only one has dropped out of idine, but kept the rest of the programs.