What the longest you have had to wait for Idine to post? I think it just gotten crazy and thats why.

This used to be one of the best programs,

The transaction should show up @ Rewards Network within 4 - 6 days afterwards - for instance, a dine on the 1st of the month should appear between the 5th and 7th. If it hasn't shown up on your RN account at all as "pending" a full week later, it's time to phone them and ask. The longest I have seen a dine post "on its own" was about 2 weeks after the meal. I had snail-mailed the receipt about 10 days later, and it takes about a week after they get the receipt to actually get the miles posted manually. Back then, missing credits entered by reps based upon submitted receipts were clearly marked "manual ticket" in one's account, and this one showed up about the time my letter would have hit their office as a regular "automatic" (albeit a very late one), system-generated credit.
How long to post at your airline account itself? Anywhere from 2 - 4 weeks after the transaction.

I concur. I had one restaurant that would never post, so just faxed in the receipts after calling the help desk and 1 week later all is solved. Normally I see miles posted to RN account in about 4 business days. And usually 5-10 days later in my airline program of choice (whomever is going to give me bonus miles ).

I used to see all my dines post within 2-3 dines but now the majority dont post and Im required to fax in my receipt for credit. I have never received an explanation from the Cust Service Reps other than "sometimes this stuff happens....". Kind of frustrating but i guess its worth the extra steps to get the miles.

I'm kind of frustrated with the same problem. There's one restaurant in Washington, DC - Solar Cafe - that NEVER posts. I ALWAYS have to call and then fax the info to them. They say they're working on it with the restaurant, but I'll believe it when I see it. I've been told I'm not the only one with the same problem with this restaurant.

It could take 5 weeks or longer at some airlines. It's a multi-step process:

1. The dine has to post to RN first. Whatever amount of time that takes is independent of the rest of the process.

2. The miles have to be transferred. There not transferred electronically instantly the moment they post; they are aggregated with other diners' dines and sent "in bulk" to the airline, anywhere from a few times a week possibly with some airlines to as rarely as once a month definitely with some other airlines (like BA).

Adding the two together, it's quite easy, if you dined at the "wrong" time of the month (just miss a transfer "window"), for a dine to take over 5 weeks after the dine itself to post at BA. On other hand, it can take less than a week from the dine to post at ANY airline (including BA) if you "just sneak in" before the once-a-month transfer happens.

In other words, it's not a question of how fast it happens, it's a question of how often it happens.

I believe some places do this on purpose. This place in Chicago always does it to me, and I had a real problem with a really large dine. Someone explained in another thread that it might be due to a cash flow problem. Idine can take over 30% of the credit card transaction, so if a place is struggling, they try to avoid taking the hit so they have money to pay their suppliers etc.

I'd be curious how they get around it?

There was 1 restaurant in New London, CT (Gridlock Grill) that was in idine a couple of years ago. The only dine I had there did not post. (But I unfortunently never followed up! ) Then they dropped out of idine.

Recently, they came back to idine. My last (and only recent) dine did not post either! (You bet I'm going to follow up this time!)

You are not the only one with a problem with Solar. It's a nice opportunity to obtain elite status quickly, by purchasing, say, 12 cokes with rewards caps on them. So I bet iDine gets a whole lotta faxes of Solar receipts.

Back on topic: I am amazed that people report approximately 4 days as normal. In my experience, 6 days is quick, 8 is normal. Their FAQ says a dine should post "generally" in 3 to 5 days, but also says one should wait 10 days before following up. I never count on anything done within 8 days of a bonus deadline to post in time.

Simple. If we don't follow up, iDine has no way of knowing that the transaction happened. Even some of us who know the system don't always follow up. So it's worth a shot, especially for a place that already is getting soaked by the CC companies because their transactions tend to be small.

How do they put the charge through so as to bypass Rewards Network's "cut"? Whenever I've had to put through a missing visit request, the reps have told me that their office "investigates" the failure-to-credit.

You had better believe I send in puny receipts for under $5 that fail! One restaurant here takes 5 - 6 days to post; most transactions go through on the fourth day after the visit. On rare occasion, I've seen a post on the third day

I presume if they NEVER post it's because they changed the machine they run it through or changed their merchant number without notifying iDine (or iDine has that information wrong for some other reason).

If they often don't post but sometimes do, it could be because they have two machines or two merchant numbers and sometimes use one and sometimes another, but iDine is only aware of one of them.

I'd be fairly confident that iDine would be very concerned about a merchant obatining a second credit card set-up to bypass them after the first complaint of missing miles.

In a past thread, someone explained that restaurants had another credit card machine to run non Idine transactions. There are some legitimate reasons for doing this: 1) if you use a coupon, you're not supposed to get miles 2) if you negotiated some special group rate, you are not supposed to get miles. I always thought there was some way to flag the transactions as nonqualifying when they ran the card, but someone told me there was just a seperate machine. It makes sense that I keep missing my miles at Maza b/c the owner is there all the time and he runs the credit cards. In that some thread that I'm talking about, the person giving this info explained that the average person working wouldn't have a clue about Idine or this process so you often can get miles even when using a coupon b/c the waiter will just run the card as he normally does.