AA Idine Posting Screwup Rate Study
 

Given that my wife and I have been eating at these restaurants like mad to get as many 250-mile bonuses as possible in the AA promotion, I just went thru my credit card statements and matched them up with the program's credits. For a 60+-day period----

For my wife's account: 15 posted, 4 were missing (79%). Then spent some time writing iDine.

For my account: 19 posted, 6 were missing (76%). Then spent more time writing iDine.

In the past, perhaps three years ago, I posted here my estimate that over a 6 month period I received only about 80% of my iDine credits without action. It's pretty dismal to say that years later they still haven't improved this; in fact, my guess is that both incompetence and design are at work here. They obviously have a short-term financial incentive not to give you your credit.

In my opinion, this is foolish, as folks like me get pretty darned discouraged and aren't going to participate properly, perhaps tubing the company (I think it goes without saying that the above numbers demonstrate that I'm JUST the type of client iDine wants to have.....). Since I know they're struggling, you wonder why the Einsteins who run the "Rewards Network" can't get their data processing act together....... Instead, they keep juggling the program parameters, the rewards, the restaurants, the means of getting credit, the website's look, everything BUT making it reliable and simple. You'd think eventually these geniuses would try that......

Me; I'm looking forward to the end of the promotional period in a few days, when I can forget about dealing with their miserable website that won't let you print out a directory, and is only 79% reliable in any case, and just eat where I happen to be, in a restaurant that looks good, instead of playing this frustrating game.

I’d be the first to pile on if there was a problem, but my failure rate on Idine this year has been zero, and that’s with well over a hundred dines to date. While not perfect, I have been very impressed with their overall accuracy and customer service (and, no, I don’t own stock).

I'm with Jailer that my meals have been posting correctly and promptly. A question to the OP though: of those 10 cited as "failures" above, requiring followup, are you counting multiple visits to the same joint, or are those 10 different venues?

Three are multiple posts of one restaurant (which is listed as a $600 joint, not once-only), none of which posted, but all different dates. None of the rest are multiples: they're just one-shot hits at places which showed on the website as available, but haven't showed up with the mileage. One of them has left the program since, but ALL showed as available for rewards on the date we dined.

I, too, thought iDine had done much better in the interim: I quit auditing my dines for about a year. But lately, it's back to the old tricks, at least here in California.

I note that perhaps an unscrupulous local sales rep here and/or in LA could be the explanation: luring in restaurants that later back out seems to be pretty common, at least by the number of places that show up and are gone in a matter of 30-60 days. Maybe iDine doesn't want to issue miles if the restaurant doesn't pay; Maybe your area has a better rep....

I've only had one problem with miles posting this year. I even had a dine post from a charge my ex-girlfriend made. (I had registered her card under my account). The only problem I had was detailed here . As I explain in the thread, I think the owner/manager had decided to run my transaction on his one machine that wasn't linked to Idine in order to cheat me out of my miles, and in order to prevent Idine from getting it's 30% (that's what other threads have claimed is Idine's usual cut from Idine transaction). My miles finally showed up in my account as "Pending" after I mailed in copies of my credit card receipts. It took about two weeks from when I sent my receipts for the transactions to finally show up in my account. I anticipate that in a few days, the miles will officially post ot my UA account.

Amazingly enough, zero problems for me, but then again, I have only been to idine restaurants like 5 this year ;)

I have a 100% success rate so far this year also. The only dines that haven't posted for me yet were last night and the night before's and I would expect them within the week.

I still don't have my 500 mile bonus for September, but those usually post at the end of the following month.

I am waiting hopefully to see if all my 250 pt bonuses post after Oct end. Would love to know what the actual time frame on those will be!

I seem to remember that the 250 bonus will post 6-8 weeks after Nov. 1.

I have very few problems with Idine posting. I keep very good records and fax in any transactions that don't post in a timely fashion. It is rare that I have to do so. I have hundreds of transactions for 2005.

I just love the program. I hope they stay in business a long time. I also hope they follow the current promo with another that is as good. I fear they will start a $25 minimum for all bonuses. And I think they will lose business if they do.

Wish I had some insight on the OP's problem with failure to post.

Absolutely no problems with IDINE's posting
 

We surely could use more restaurants in our area! Heading out for one more 250 mile bonus lunch today!

I had a few problems with IDine posting, but most were my own fault for using a restaurant that wasn't in the specific partner program, missing blocked dates and missing that restauants had been deleted. It taught me to double check before each dine.

Hi oldpenny! What's with that in Fort Worth? Why has Idine never really caught on there? We have 85 restaurants here in SAT. Dallas has many as well. I think the Idine rep in your area needs to get busy.

I haven't been doing studies but of the restaurants that I cared to sample, few have come and gone in 30-60 days either in West LA or in central OC (the two areas where I use iDine the most).

I've only had one missing dine in the last half year (among 100+ dines across AA, UA, NW, and PC) that wasn't my fault (the my fault one was dining on a day of the week that Daphne's doesn't give miles), and that was on a recent visit to Chicago, and then it didn't surprise me for technical reasons: (1) The restaurant's name on the receipt was slightly different than iDIne's listing. (2) You enter this restaurant (Karyn's) through the adjacent store by the same/similar name, but the store and restaurant seem to have separate card machines, and who knows if both card machines were correctly registered with iDine? (This was an oddball type of restaurant -- only raw food! -- so I dunno if many iDiners have tried it. In fact, given how empty the restaurant was, I dunno if many diners PERIOD have tried it :) .)

I've now gotten *my* response from IDine. In querying about the six missing posts to my account, they countered with three form letters. One tells me that I already got credited with one of the dines (they're wrong. I'm credited with a dine at that location on another date.) The other two say I needed to preregister for the restaurant.

In checking the website, it appears they've NOW changed the uncredited restaurant to a preregistration place, but it certainly wasn't when I dined there (or I would have avoided it). I wrote them a letter arguing the point again. We shall see if they own up to changing the restaurant's earning style.

On the other three dines, they said NOTHING. No "gee, we're sorry", or "you will be credited" or anything. Just nothing but denial letters in the envelope. However, in about a week or so, each of the others showed up on iDine's "My rewards" as "Pending". Two of them then subsequently showed in my AA account.

Nothing has yet been received by my wife on her inquiry. I filed it about a week later, so we'll see.

Thus, it's clear that at least for California restaurants (all have been in the LA and SF areas), you still need to watch and audit your dines. Even 2 on a sample of 25 is too many.

Call IDINE
 

Call IDINE at 800.479.5981. They can view inbound charges for your card and can usually confirm that they are present. If you then FAX in copies of the receipt or credit card statement they will fix the problem. They are 100% responsive from my experience

No posting problems what so ever with IDine this year, but I would like to see some better quality eating establishments in South Florida added, most of my IDine points come from business travel.




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