Which is the most lucrative I-dine program?
 

I was introduced to the AA I-dine program by my brother. I promptly signed up and have earned plenty of miles. It was only afterwards that I found out that pretty well all US airlines (and Priority Club) offer the same program.

I have told many people about i-dine and I am frequently asked "which is the best program". So for other Canadians like myself who aren't partial to any american airline (Air Canada does not participate), which program is the most lucrative? I understand that different bonus apply at different times, but if you wanted to focus on one program, which one would it be?

Based on my limited experience, it seems that AA offers great bonuses, but I want to see if others agree.

TIA

I use the same program but with UA. One of the bonus programs with UA was spend $125.00/month from July, '06 thru Dec., '06 amd receive a 25000 mile bonus (which was paid in March, '07 IIRC). That's a pretty generous bonus IMO (with the milage earned on the $125.00 it came to a minimum of 32,500 miles which works out to about 43 miles/$!) This was offered as a celibration of the 25th anniversary of the Milage Plus program. They didn't do anything close to that this year though.

A co-worker of mine simply uses the Rewards Network rebate and receives between 10%-20% cash rebates and preferrs that to milage. That's another way to go, too.

It's my understanding that you can have multiple accounts with various airlines and play the game with whichever has the best bonus going. You just have to have seperate cards registered for each airline.

That is true! You can belong to as many idine/RN programs - as long as you register a separate credit card to each program. (Even though each program has their own phone number, all calls go to the same office in (IIRC) Miami.)

I myself use UA as my main program, but I also belong to DL and CO. Whoever has the most lucrative bonus at the time is the one I go with. To make it easy (for myself) to keep track of which card goes for which program, what I do is I associated the co-branded card with the program. So I used my UA Visa for UA, my CO MasterCard for CO and my DL AX for DL. That way, at the restaurant, when I pull out my MC, I know who it will get credited to. I don't have to think to myself, "Is this for DL or CO?"

You may want to do different.

M Girl:

As your friends aren't that interested in a U. S. airline, Priority Club points earned (8 base + 8 rating) will count towards Platinum hotel status.

Points

I agree with Points.... if you are looking for something more tangible than just the best points per dollar spent, I would absolutely go PC. The fact that you can earn status through dines is a great perk. As discussed in Montreal though, I never use PC, since Hilton properties are normally at or near every decent PC property.

Best of luck... and earn some points!

You can have one credit card account and two separate cards linked to two different rewards network accounts.

Example:
I have a Hilton Honors Amex, this gives 5 HH points per USD spent at restaurants. I add this account to my AA rewards network account. I earn 5 HH and 10 AA per USD spent.

I now request an additional signer be added to my HH AMEX and take out the card in my own name. Amex will not do any credit check whatsoever. The card will arrive with a different account number and then I add the Card number to my UA rewards network account.

All HH points now post to the same account. All charges now post to the same Amex account. I now carry 2 Credit cards, one marked UA and the other marked AA.

That's true, BUT that would only work with an American Express!

AX gives different account numbers to authorized users. However, for VI and MC, authorized users are issued a card with the same account number.

True for my TD Visa Gold Travel and SPG M/C but CIBC Aerogold provides different # for me and Mrs on the same account.

I personnally focus on DL and AA with Idines and move between the 2 depending on best promo. DL seems to have been giving the best since I discovered RN. I haven't done much with my PC program as, with a family of 4, I burn more flying Miles than hotel points.

I guess you must also look at the redemption rate for each program. Delta gives a bit more bonuses but not many decent Sky Saver redemption are available on Delta. So you get a bit more Miles but you need more Miles for the redemptions. So maybe better to stick with AA.

Too bad Aeroplan doesn't join RN. Their Advantex 2 miles per $ is pale in comparison...and Aeroplan charges a little fortune in taxes and fee on reward tickets...but this has been discussed at lenght in the Aeroplan forum.

But the earnings rate of 8 + 8 points per $ spend at PC dining is actually a somewhat worse value than 5 + 5 miles per $ spend at airlines. And, more importantly, I can tell you from several years of watching that PC dining very rarely has good bonuses, while for example AA has them left and right.

And, btw, if you truly don't have any good use for AA miles, you can transfer them to Hilton HHonors! Some devaluation of course, but given the better promos and better regular earnings at AA dining than PC dining, and in particular your preference for HH, you might get more value out of AA dining for the purpose of HH transfer out of PC dining.

it seems that the best ones are those which have some kind of promo that time.

I live in Toronto so my preferred carrier is Air Canada as I can get direct flights to most major cities. However, last year, I booked 2 biz class tickets on AA from Toronto to Acapulco (mind you with a stopover in Chicago) for 120K miles. And when I booked the tickets 9 months before our planned trip, I could find zilch in the way of seats on AC despite being flexible and willing to look at any 7 day trip in February departing on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday (economy or biz class). With AA, I had a choice of at least 10 possible date/class combinations that were available. So perhaps collecting on a carrier that isn't known for serving your city isn't such a bad thing!

I think it'd be best to focus on one program. Since I fly only for pleasure, and my destinations are mostly served by AA, I choose to focus on earning ONLY AA miles to help me achieve Lifetime Gold one day. I make all of my credit cards, online surveys, iDines, and anything else earn AA miles.

However, if you hold elite status on multiple carriers, I'd just use whatever would get you to the next status faster.