gardener

If he gets 12 dines in 2007 he will be elite for all of 2008. Alternatively, if he gets 12 dines in 2008 he will be elite for all of 2009 and for the part of 2008 after he has 12 dines.

So if he is most of the way to 12 dines for 2007, get the last few and be done with it. Otherwise I would start after the first of the year.

In any case it resets 12/31 so no point in doing 9 or 10 or 11 dines this year!

ALadyNCal

Thanks for the info -- he has NO DINES at all yet So I will wait till 2008 to start ^

kebosabi

Ah, the memories.

I remember the day when I found this board and found out about rewardsnetwork. I immediately researched the threads related to this matter, signed up for idine, and went out to eat.

Well, it was actually drinking 12 cups of coffee in 12 consecutive days at my local participating diner

thepointsguy

Any way to convince RN to comp elite status in other RN programs, once you achieve it is your main program?? Ex. I just got Delta VIP..would like to do AA & CO dines to keep those accts active, but can't justify not earning 10 miles/$ (unless there is a crazy bonus). Just thought I'd ask!

margarita girl

Can't you just buy a coffee, and consider the cost reasonable to keep your accounts active?

sdsearch

RN makes less money if you have multiple accounts and only use each account when there's a bonus, compared to someone who stays in one account and uses it whether there's a bonus or not. So why in the world would they want to help you get to elite in multiple accounts???

No one ever "comps" within the same company. All the "comps" you hear about at airlines, hotel chains, etc, are one competitor comping another. But all the dining programs at RN are done by the same company, it's even the same FAX number for all of them to report a missing dine. So they have no ireason to comp anyone other than through the "fast track" promos they've set up for everyone (officially aimed at newcomers to RN period, but able to be used by newcomers to a particular RN dining program, even if they are elite at another).

Meanwhile, you haven't been paying attention (to other threads here). CO doesn't have 10 miles per dollar, because they don't have the "plus 5 miles for rating your dines" promo that everyone else has. So you max out at 5 miles per dollar there. (And they have pretty much nothing in terms of other promos either.) So just do one coffee a year at CO RN and be done with it!

thepointsguy

That doesn't make any sense. My understanding is that RN take a cut of my dines (the restaurants are those who pay for it). Allowing me "vip" status in multiple programs will no doubt make me spend as much as possible.isn't that the goal of these programs to begin with? Why do they care if they pay me 10 dl miles or 10 aa miles? Its all coming out of the restaurant's pocket (rightfully so, since I'd never go to these places and spend $1k plus a pop if it wasn't for RN).

sdsearch

No doubt? Maybe you're thinking of yourself, but RN doesn't. Lots of people spend to get to elite level but not much more (until/unless a rich promo comes along).

And I don't understand why you'll spend more? An elite level only last for one year, and you said you wanted these to keep miles alive, and you only need one dine per year to do that!

Meanwhile, I don't understand why you'll spread around your dines between programs if you earn 10/$ at multiple programs, but won't do the same number of dines in just one program if you only have one program at 10/$? The main reason I got into multiple programs was to deal with 1/month resaurants, but that's me taking advantage of a loophole, if RN wanted you to have an easy way to work around 1/month restaurants they'd gid of those. (They may not be signing up many new ones, but there's certainly several within a few blocks of my house.)

So IMHO RN tolerates people having accounts at multiple airlines, but doesn't encourage it, and thus would have little interest in making that easier by "comping" elite status.

Meanwhile, if you've read other threads here, you'd know how "automated" most of RN is. You ask them a question by email, they respond with a stock answer, and when you write to say that answer didn't address your quesiton, they resend the stock answer! When you talk to a human, they're just a note-taker, and they say they'll forward the info to some other department, which I suspect is a person who works part-time one hour a week. When they have a bug at a website, it gets acknoweldged but then not fixed for months if not years. When you point out to them that a restauarnt has gone away (a different restaurant has taken over the same locaiton), they can take months to correct that on their listings (on and off line)!

So I wouldn't expect RN to "bend" at anything, because there's no one you can easily find with enough authority to bend anything! My experience with RN is that it works if you accept whatever they've offered you, and doesn't work if you don't accept that. Don't expect, for example, the level of service you'd find at an airline FFP program or a hotel chain's frequent guest program.

You have to understand who's the customer at RN. It's not you, it s the restaurant. You're the bait, not the customer. RN's energies are first and foremost focused on getting money out of restaurants. They deal with you to the degree necessary to provide bait to the restaurants (someone who will repay the restaurant's loan).

vrbaba

12 dines is the regular offer to become a VIP. Where is the Fast Track to VIP information? Am I missing something or do you mean to just split bills and get 12 transactions asap?

Is there a minimum charge you need to put on the CC to qualify for the VIP level?

I signed up for the newbie bonus - earn 1500 miles after spending $25 on one dine before 7/31. Is this ONE time only or each time I spend $25, I can earn 1500 miles?

This could get addictive quick...

martinp13

vrbaba, you know the answer: one 1500 and that's it! No repeating-bonus soup for you!

And no, there's no minimum amount you have to charge for it to count as a "dine". Some promotions require a $25 or $50 minimum to qualify for a bonus, but 12 charges of any amount (subject to the restrictions of each restaurant... remember, some don't give miles every day) get you to VIP.