I charged fomr restraunts on my Visa Plat UA, and they showed up as for instance.

EDO SUSHI RESTAURANT(Dining and Entertainment)

Now since its "Dining" would that count towards MP Dining? Or would I just get the double miles with my Plat UA card?

Restaurants have to be members of Dining Plus for you to get credit. No tie, specifically, to UAL Visa as any registered credit card will work with D+. I don't recal now whether it was an opt-in entry in my D+ profile, but I get an email for every qualifying meal that also summarizes the points and bonus earned.

Of course, every now and then you'll happen to eat in a D+ restaurant that you didn't know was a member and you'll get some unexpected mileage.

Doubt it. 80% of my time, im out of the country.

My rule of thumb is - was it a good restaurant? If so, there's only a .01% chance it belongs to iDine. The vast majority of restaurants in iDine are desperate for customers, which excludes most good restaurants.

Good point. It was tasty, and here in Poland, so no chance.
thanks

While I find that most of the restaurants on iDine are probably trying to attract customers, most of the ones around me are either new or they are somewhat inconvenient to get to. There are about 10 restaurants within 15 miles of me on the list and I would only consider one of them to be not very good (and surprisingly, it's actually the most popular place on the list). The other 9 or so are all very good and my wife and I go to frequently. They just aren't in the two main areas of towns that we go to so we would never have found them without iDine. But they are all very good places.

Consider yourself extremely lucky. You obviously don't live in the SF Bay Area...

I'm going to move this one on over to the iDine forum.

letiole
UA co-mod

Our favorite, local Thai restaurant (found independent of any idine search) is a member. We usually eat there -12 times a month. Besides the normal 10 miles/$, it'll get us 25,000 bonus miles under the 6 month promotion which doesn't involve any behavior modification other than noting whether we are just before the end of a month or at the start of a new month.

Are there any restraunts outside USA? I didnt see any.

Only if you count Canada.

Do an Advanced Search, search by Metro neighborhood, and scroll to the bottom of the dropdown box. Behold: eight Canadian iDine 'neighborhoods.'

You mean Canada is not the 51st state?

What you're seeing is simply the category that the merchant is in. Lots of credit card statements (including cards that have nothing to do with miles in any way, shape, or form) categorize merchants in this manner. It has nothing to do with miles, unless the card itself is running a promo where you get extra miles with purchases at certain categories. (Most often in recent years tho categories have been gas stations, groceries, and drug stores, and in that case Dining and Entertainment would be a category which would exclude you from bonus miles!) The categories' other function is in producing end-of-year statements which summarize your spending by category.

Meanwhile, only a tiny fraction of restaurants overall in the USA and Canada are in MP Dining. (Tho due to clustering, in certain areas there may be a few within a few minutes walk of each other.) There is no MP Dining program outside of the USA/Canada at all.

While it's theoretically possible to occasionally accidentally get MP Dining miles if you use the card at every restaurant (tho it depends on where you are how likely it is), you won't get many miles from the dining program unless (a) you do at least 12 qualifying dines every year, (b) you pay attention to the bonuses, and most importantly (c) you regularly check to see which restaurants are in the program (as restaurants get added and others drop out regularly).

If you have any questions about whether a restaurant you didn't look up beforehand particpated on the day you ate there, just look it up when you come back. Typically (tho not guaranteed) they'll have the same pattern of qualifying days every week. (Yes, you have to check, because even participating restauarnts don't necessarily give miles every day of the week. Plus some only give miles for one dine a month.)

If you're outside the USA/Canada, the only way to get extra miles from dining that I know of is to eat at hotel restaurants and charge to your room bill, if it's a hotel where you get points (convertible to miles later) or miles proportional to your spending and including all your incidentals. (If you're at a hotel where only you get fixed miles/points, even that won't work.)

So Dining and Entertainment isnt 2miles/point for the plat UA?