I actually prefer the address functionality to the zip code function. When you type in your hotel address, it will give you distance from the location rather than all in a zipcode. This is especially helpful because if your hotel is on the other side of the "zipcode" from the post office that is associated with that zipcode, it will give you an artificial distance to the restaurants you are looking for.

I just used this in SFO tonight, and found that three restaurants within a block of me were in a different zip, but the restaurants in this zip were well over a mile away.

Hope this helps.

I do use the address functionality in iDine. What I am looking for is ways to improve searching on opentable.com.

¡Hola! margarita girl - IMO, opentable.com is a bit klugey; I haven't found a very easy way to narrow things down. It's a bit of a PITA to use when traveling to larger venues, IMO, but the points keep me using it when it is convenient.

For idine/rewards network I would recommend calling ahead to the restaurant/bar and inquiring as to whether they have a minimum purchase amount to use a credit card. I recently had problems at two NYC restaurants/bars that required a minimum purchase of $20 to pay via credit card.

Which CC were you trying to use? I'm not 100% certain that there aren't NYC exceptions, but minimum purchase requirements are verboten per VISA's and M/C's merchant agreement. I'll search this forum and OMNI for threads and post more.

{edited to add}: Much excellent discussion...
MERCHANT CREDIT CARD ABUSES: What They Cannot Ask You To Do (non-FT content)
Credit Card Minimum Purchase
Misleading merchants

Also: Minimum charge on credit card
what constitutes a restaurant visit?
Was offered 15% discount for paying cash by the restaurant? Take that or the miles?
Minimum Charge?

The two establishments that required $20 minimum for all credit card purchases regardless of type were The Pinch Bar & Grill on Sullivan Street and Wicked Willy's on Bleecker Street. My wife and I had already consumed our drinks at the Pinch Bar so I just paid with cash. I contacted rewards network and explained the situation and they posted some courtesy points. As for Wicked Willy's we inquired before we ordered and when we were informed about the $20 minimum we walked out.

Actually, I was curious about which credit card(s) you tried to use, not which merchants. Because regardless of merchant, VISA and MC prohibit merchants from imposing a minimum purchase price on cardholders. Period, full stop.

I would bust The Pinch and WW's if I were in your position, not only to VISA and MC, but also to RN. VISA and MC will happily take your report and inform the merchant that they're in breach of contact. @:-)

They both said all credit cards (Visa/MC/AMEX), I am not sure if either takes Discover. I reported both to RN and they didn't care. The individual that I spoke to a few weeks ago said that it is up to the merchant. They did give me some courtesy points for The Pinch, I think just to appease me. As previously stated we didn't make a purchase at WW's.

I read the instructions about filing a complaint and for Visa/MC it says that they want a copy of the sales slip. We didn't get one for the two beers we purchased at the Pinch and obviously we didn't get one at WW's since we purchased nothing. I will call Visa & MC tomorrow and report back on what they say.

If they have a minimum it is typically a waste of time to argue with it. But interestingly on a small charge take out restaurant manager just said: py next time you come in and we add this then: because it costs too much to run thru the small charges.

Mastercard violation link
 

Visa gives a run-around with Visa Central saying "Report it to your own [Visa-issuing] bank!" and the bank saying "It's a Visa problem, not one with us [specifically]." Here is the link to report Mastercard violations - I used it the other day for a non-iDine joint with a 50-cent surcharge under $20! Give it a couple of extra seconds if it appears not to load correctly.

http://www.mastercard.com/contactus/contactus_mv.html

Thanks, I used your link to report both instances to Mastercard. You were correct about Visa, I was basically given the runaround. I did report it but one of the individuals I spoke with didn't know if it was a violation (issuing bank) while the other couldn't even comprehend the problem (visa). I provided them with the details anyway.

This is kind of related to maximizing your earnings - there's an iDine resto that was good, declined in quality and we didn't go for some time. We went last week and - it had much better service and food, but... it's leaving iDine, so February 1, it's dine for miles history. So we'll go one more time - and protect our selves from the possibility of Rewards Network denying us the dine because the resto is not a member anymore.

I brought the listing up for that area, highlighted the block of information about restaurant in question and used Win2PDF (any other program that prints to a PDF, or even copying it to the clipboard and using a graphics program to make a JPG, BMP or whatever of it,) to make a document we can send in a mini-screen capture that demonstrates clearly the restaurant was a participant and eligible resto through and including January 31 (in this case.)

(Win2PDF and similar programs are seen as another printer option in most cases, so one can select an area or merely print the entire page to an Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) and be done with it pretty easily. Some of these are available free (with an advo line) or for small amounts of money.)

I'm sure others have thought of this, but I wanted to document this for those who may not have - and for me, it means if the dine fails to record, I am not out 15 miles (new Jan 28 - Mar 31 AA promo) and five HHonors points per dollar.

Great tip.... could you consider outlining all the steps, and putting it in a sticky? I think that would be huge as on three occassions now I have lost $500. dines!!!!!

Great tip indeed. I always do a print screen of the restaurant on RN (hit Ctrl and PrtScrn at the same time, then open a word document, then right click in it and click paste. Then save the document as RN 2008-01-XX-Yummy rest.doc or whatever).

This has served me a few times for restaurants that were leaving the program and for which I was buying GCs in the last few days of eligibility. You can e-mail it directly to RN if need be.

2muchfun

I've added the Win2PDF and similar programs information; I think anyone could use it or the ensuing tip from 2muchfun, and prefer to leave these in this tips and tricks thread, which is tacked to the Unofficial Users' Guide sticky so it never strays too far. ;)

I also lost a couple of dines the way you did :(- I am now a bit more canny and cautious before I go for the big dine. But this thread shows many ways we can lose points / miles, and ways in which we can leverage iDine and other systems (e.g. opentable.com, dinnerbroker.com).