Eat out, earn more: Guide to card-linked dining programs for airlines, hotels & more

One of the ways to earn points, miles and/or cashback on your everyday spend is to link your payment card(s) to dining programs that offer rewards. When paying for meals at participating restaurants with one of those linked cards, you earn bonus rewards through that dining program. Once you’ve registered and linked your card(s), this is therefore an easy way to rack up rewards with no further thought being needed.

Many of these programs offer additional bonus rewards when first signing up provided you spend a certain amount for your first transaction and subsequently write a review. Some of them then offer even more ways in which to earn bonus points from hitting earning thresholds to writing further reviews and more.

In this post you’ll find a list of all the different card-linked dining programs available, along with their signup bonuses (where applicable), earning rates, suggestions for how to maximize your earnings and more.

List of card-linked dining programs & signup bonuses

Here’s a list of all the different dining programs out there with registration links, along with their current signup bonuses (where applicable) and requirements for earning those bonuses.

• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Dining – 500 bonus miles
  • Earn 500 bonus miles when spending $30 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• American Airlines AAdvantage Dining – 500 bonus miles
  • Earn 500 bonus miles when spending $25 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• Bilt Dining – No bonus
  • Direct link to registration
• Choice Privileges Dining – 500 bonus points
  • Earn 500 bonus points when spending $25 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• Delta SkyMiles Dining – 1,000 bonus miles
  • Earn 1,000 bonus miles when spending $30 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• Fetch Rewards Dining – No bonus
  • Stephen’s referral link (referral code is D2CA8 if needed)
• Hilton Honors Dining – 500 bonus points
  • Earn 500 bonus points when spending $25 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• IHG One Rewards Dine & Earn – 1,000 bonus points
  • Earn 1,000 bonus points when spending $30 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• JetBlue TrueBlue Dining – 500 bonus points
  • Earn 500 bonus points when spending $25 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• Marriott Bonvoy Eat Around Town – Up to 6,000 bonus points
  • Earn 1,000 bonus points when spending $30 in one transaction & complete an online review within first 60 days.
  • Earn 2,000 bonus points the second time you spend $30 in one transaction & complete an online review within first 60 days.
  • Earn 3,000 bonus points the third time you spend $30 in one transaction & complete an online review within first 60 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• Rakuten Dining – No bonus
  • Direct link to registration
• Shell Fuel Rewards Dining – No bonus
  • Direct link to registration
• Southwest Rapid Rewards Dining- 500 bonus points
  • Earn 500 bonus points when spending $25 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• Free Spirit Dining – 500 bonus points
  • Earn 500 bonus points when spending $30 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• T-Mobile T Dining Rewards – No bonus
  • Direct link to registration
• United MileagePlus Dining – 500 bonus miles
  • Earn 500 bonus miles when spending $25 in one transaction & completing an online review within first 30 days.
  • Direct link to registration
• Upromise Dining – No bonus
  • Direct link to registration
• Upside – No bonus
  • Stephen’s referral link

One of the useful things with the spending requirements is that they include tax and tip. That means that, for example, a signup bonus requiring $25 of spend could be hit when ordering an $18 meal and paying $7 in tax and tip.

Something important to be aware of is that the majority of these dining programs are administered by Rewards Network and they don’t let you double dip. That means that you can’t register the same card with, say, the dining programs for American Airlines, United, Delta and Bilt in order to earn miles/points with each of them. If you register a card with Program B that was already registered with Program A, it’ll be removed from Program A and registered with the new one instead.

Also be aware that the various Rewards Network dining programs sometimes increase their signup bonuses. It might therefore make sense to hold off on joining a new dining program until there’s an increased offer.

Earnings on dining spend

Regardless of whether or not you earn a bonus for signing up, you will be rewarded for your spend at participating restaurants.

For most of these programs, the number of miles/points you earn per dollar of spend will depend on how many times you’ve eaten at a participating restaurant during the current calendar year and whether or not you’re opted into their emails. The more frequently you use the program, the higher your earnings per dollar spent will be. This is a feature of most of the programs administered by Rewards Network. Once you’ve earned the higher status level, it’s valid through the next full calendar year.

Note that for some of these programs, at the lowest level you’ll only earn the specified rate per $2 of spend rather than per $1. I’ve highlighted those in bold, but it makes sense to at least sign up for emails to earn at a higher rate.

Here’s a breakdown of how much you can earn with each program.

• Alaska Airlines
  • VIP (earned after 11 transactions) – 5x miles per $1
  • Select (opt in to emails) – 3x miles per $1
  • Standard (no email signup) – 1x mile per $2
  • Every 3,000 redeemable Mileage Plan miles earned via partners (including their dining program) also earn 1,000 Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs)
• American Airlines
  • VIP (earned after 11 transactions) – 5x miles + 5x Loyalty Points per $1
  • Select (opt in to emails) – 3x miles + 3x Loyalty Points per $1
  • Standard (no email signup) – 1x mile + 1x Loyalty Point per $1
• Bilt Rewards
  • 2x-3x (depending on the participating restaurant)
• Choice
  • Standard – 5x
• Delta
  • VIP (earned after 11 transactions) – 5x miles per $1
  • Select (opt in to emails) – 3x miles per $1
  • Standard (no email signup) – 1x mile per $2
• Fetch
  • 30x-60x per $1 (equivalent to ~2%-5% depending on how you redeem your points)
• Hilton
  • VIP (earned after 11 transactions) – 8x points per $1
  • Select (opt in to emails) – 5x points per $1
  • Standard (no email signup) – 2x points per $1
• IHG
  • VIP (earned after 11 transactions) – 8x points per $1
  • Select (opt in to emails) – 5x points per $1
  • Standard (no email signup) – 1x point per $1
• JetBlue
  • Select (opt in to emails) – 3x points per $1
  • Standard (no email signup) – 1x point per $1
• Marriott
  • Marriott Bonvoy elite status members (Silver & higher) – 6x points per $1
  • Marriott Bonvoy members with no status – 4x points per $1
• Rakuten
  • 5% cashback or 5x Membership Rewards
• Shell
  • 10c off per gallon for every $50 spent with a limit of 20 gallons. This is on top of the 5c or 3c off per gallon you get for Gold or Silver status respectively.
• Southwest
  • Select (opt in to emails) – 3x points per $1
  • Standard (no email signup) – 1x point per $2
  • n.b. These points are also Companion Pass qualifying points
• Spirit
  • VIP (earned after 11 transactions) – 5x points per $1
  • Select (opt in to emails) – 3x points per $1
  • Standard (no email signup) – 1x point per $2
• T-Mobile
  • Dining on Tuesdays – 10% cashback
  • Dining every other day of the week – 5% cashback
• United
  • VIP (earned after 11 transactions) – 5x miles per $1
  • Select (opt in to emails) – 3x miles per $1
  • Standard (no email signup) – 1x mile per $2
• Upromise
  • Upromise cardholders who pay with that card – 5% cashback
  • Those not paying with a Upromise credit card – 2.5% cashback
• Upside
  • Percentage greatly varies depending on the restaurant

Additional earning opportunities

In addition to the signup bonuses and earning rates, several of the dining programs have extra ways that you can earn bonus miles. Here’s a list of those:

• Alaska Airlines
  • Book a reservation & pay with a linked card & earn 50 bonus miles (limit 1 per day & 8 per month)
• American Airlines
  • Book a reservation & pay with a linked card & earn 50 bonus miles + 50 bonus Loyalty Points (Limit 1 per day & 8 per month)
• Choice
  • Book a reservation & pay with a linked card & earn 50 bonus points (Limit 1 per day & 8 per month)
  • Earn bonus 10 points every time you review a dining experience (Limit 1 restaurant visit per member per participating merchant per day)
• Hilton
  • Book a reservation & pay with a linked card & earn 50 bonus points (Limit 1 per day & 8 per month)
• JetBlue
  • Book a reservation & pay with a linked card & earn 50 bonus points (Limit 1 per day & 8 per month)
• Marriott
  • Book a reservation & pay with a linked card & earn 200 bonus points (Limit 1 per day & 8 per month)
• Southwest
  • Book a reservation & pay with a linked card & earn 50 bonus points (Limit 1 per day & 8 per month)
  • Earn 10 bonus points every time you review a dining experience (Limit 1 restaurant visit per member per participating merchant per day)
  • Earn 500 bonus points after earning 1,500 points from dining and completing online reviews (Offer available one time only; signup bonus points excluded from total)
  • Earn 300 bonus points for every 1,000 points earned from dining and completing online reviews (Signup bonus points excluded from total).
• Spirit
  • Book a reservation & pay with a linked card & earn 50 bonus points (Limit 1 per day & 8 per month)
• United
  • Book a reservation & pay with a linked card & earn 50 bonus miles (Limit 1 per day & 8 per month)
• Upside
  • Upside frequently offers additional gas savings when making any four Upside transactions in a calendar month which includes dining, gas and grocery transactions.

Which dining program is the most rewarding?

With so many dining programs available and very few opportunities to earn with more than one of them by stacking, which program is the best one to use on a day-to-day basis?

For most people, that’ll be a decision that’ll be highly personalized. Someone who’s shooting for status with American Airlines might prefer the AAdvantage dining program due to the ability to earn Loyalty Points in addition to AAdvantage miles. Someone who’s trying to earn a Companion Pass might opt for Southwest’s program. If you’re wanting to earn status with Bilt in order to be eligible for higher transfer bonuses on Rent Days, Bilt Dining could be your best choice. If you’re highly invested in the American Express Membership Rewards ecosystem, you might prefer to focus on Rakuten Dining in order to earn 5x points. For anyone preferring cashback and who’s also a T-Mobile customer, earning 5% cashback six days a week and 10% on Tuesdays will be an attractive proposition.

To try to quantify value though, I thought it’d be helpful to calculate potential earnings. This has been done by taking earning rates and multiplying it by the Reasonable Redemption Value for that program.

Signup Bonus

This first table displays the value that can be earned from the new member bonus for each program.

As you can see, Marriott is far and away the winner of this category, although there is a bit of a caveat. That’s because at the time of publishing this post Marriott is offering a three-tiered welcome bonus. You earn 1,000 bonus points after your first transaction (and writing a review) within 60 days of joining, then you get another 2,000 bonus points for your second transaction (and review) within the first 60 days, then a further 3,000 bonus points for your third transaction (and review) within those first 60 days. If you can max that out within your first couple of months of joining, that’s easily the most rewarding welcome bonus.

Other than Marriott, I was surprised to see that it was Delta with the next strongest offer; that’s because it’s offering double the number of miles that the other airline programs enable you to earn. Up until a few days ago, Hilton was the next highest on this list as they were offering a temporarily increased bonus of 2,000 Hilton Honors points. That’s since dropped to 500 points which has dropped them in the table accordingly.

Earnings with VIP status (where applicable)

This next table displays the effective percentage return you’ll get with nearly all of the programs if you have VIP status which is the level you’d earn from your 12th transaction onwards in a calendar year.

As you can see, the top earner is T-Mobile on Tuesdays. Other than that, earning 5x Membership Rewards via Rakuten Dining is the best value option (based on RRV), closely followed by Alaska Airlines, American Airlines and then United.

Earnings with Select status (where applicable)

It takes 11 transactions before you’ll start earning at that higher VIP rate though. As a result, the table below displays earnings based on Select status where applicable. That’s the status many of these programs offer for simply opting in to emails.

Once again, the top earner is T-Mobile’s dining program, but only on a Tuesday. Also once again, the second best earner is Rakuten, with a fairly sizeable gap before the next entry of T-Mobile on non-Tuesdays. Bilt places fourth, but only if the restaurant you dine at earns 3x rather than 2x. Otherwise, those with any kind of Marriott status can earn a decent return that slightly exceeds Alaska earnings. Again though, that’s all based on our Reasonable Redemption Rates, so your valuations might be different.

Example earnings in a year – Welcome bonus + 5 transactions of $30

As you can see, the value you can get from these dining programs can vary widely depending on if you’re only considering the welcome bonus or only looking at one type of earning rate.

A more realistic approach might be to consider the earnings you could earn over the course of a year if you only focus on one dining program. This next table takes a fairly conservative approach as it assumes you earn the signup bonus and eat at five restaurants during the calendar year and spend exactly $30 each time. That wouldn’t be enough for VIP status, so these are calculated based on Select status (where applicable).

Marriott is once again the big winner, regardless of whether you have status in the Bonvoy program or not. Delta has a strong showing, primarily because its program has a higher welcome offer right now versus most of the others. There’s not much in it for most of the programs though, so someone chasing status might prefer Alaska, American or Southwest instead.

Example earnings in a year – Welcome bonus + 20 transactions of $30

I thought it’d also be worth running a scenario based on someone who eats out a little more frequently at participating restaurants. In this instance, they dine at eligible restaurants a total of 20 times in a calendar year, spending $30 each time. The calculations are therefore based on the Select earning rate for the first 11 transactions, then the VIP rate for the remaining 9 transactions.

Does that make much of a difference? Let’s take a look:

Things are a little closer this time. Marriott’s Eat Around Town program wins out again courtesy of its superior signup bonus. However, it’s closely followed by Southwest and the reason for that is due to the additional bonuses you can earn with that program. You earn 500 bonus Rapid Rewards points after earning 1,500 points through dining spend and reviews (not including the signup bonus) which can be earned one time, as well as an additional 300 bonus points for every 1,000 points you earn through spend and reviews. This scenario of 20 transactions of $30 each therefore earns a total of 800 bonus points as it would earn you 1,800 points through spend (20 * $30 * 3). However, do note that the 500 bonus points can only be earned one time, so this equation only works in the first year. You will still earn 300 bonus points for every 1,000 points earned in the future though.

T-Mobile Dining also isn’t too far behind, but only if you only eat at participating restaurants on Tuesdays.

Rakuten does well despite its lack of a signup bonus thanks to its strong earning rate of 5x Membership Rewards. After that, it’s fairly close between Alaska, American, Delta and United.

It’s interesting seeing Marriott winning out because the rest of the hotel dining programs ended up looking pretty weak overall.

Card-linked dining program tips & tricks

Those are all the ways that you can earn bonus miles, points or cashback directly from the various dining programs, but there are also numerous other ways to maximize these transactions. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but here are various tips and tricks to help you earn and save as much as possible.

Make multiple cheap purchases to quickly earn VIP status

Most of these programs offer an increased VIP earning rate once you’ve completed 11 transactions in a calendar year. A quick way to get there would be to make several cheap purchases in different transactions, perhaps over different days. You’d therefore earn at the lower Select rate for those initial low cost transactions, thereby ensuring that your more expensive dining later on will earn at the VIP rate.

For example, at the time of writing this Moe’s Southwest Grill is available in some locations. I imagine they have menu items for $2 or less, so you could rack up 11 transactions for ~$20. If you were to do that in January, you’d have VIP status for the rest of that year and all of the next year which could be well worth that initial ~$20 investment, especially for those who eat out frequently and/or spend a lot when doing so.

Something important to bear in mind with this approach is that if you’ve just joined a dining program, you’ll still want to spend enough in a single transaction to earn the welcome bonus. For some programs that’s $25; for others it’s $30. That purchase doesn’t necessarily have to be your very first purchase in the program, it just has to happen in the first 30 days of joining (or 60 days for Marriott’s offer at the time of publishing this).

Card-linked spending offers

There are often Amex Offers, Citi Offers, Chase Offers, etc. for both restaurant chains and local restaurants. Sometimes those locations are eligible restaurants in these dining programs, so you can save while earning.

Update: TonyBank and Kyle have shared in the comments that Citi Offers also use Rewards Network. That unfortunately means that those won’t stack with Rewards Network dining programs for airlines and hotels.

Dining credits

Some Amex cards (such as the Amex Gold card and select Delta cards) have a benefit for Resy which offer a statement credit when dining at a restaurant on Resy’s list. Similarly, personal Chase Sapphire Reserve cards have a twice-annual credit for Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables dining establishments.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some kind of overlap between these restaurants and those that participate in the dining programs listed above. If so, you can earn miles/points/cashback through the dining program while earning statement credits on your credit card.

Pay with a card that earns more on dining

Seeing as you’ll be paying the restaurant directly, it’s worth paying with a card that earns more for dining purchases. Alternatively, it could make sense to use a card where you’re working on the minimum spend requirement towards a credit card welcome offer.

Take advantage of bonus card deals

Leading up to the holidays, as well as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, restaurant chains often offer bonus cards when buying one of their gift cards. For example, you might buy a $30 Moe’s Southwest Grill gift card and get a $10 bonus card which is valid for a period of a couple of months.

If the stars align and a restaurant on a dining program runs one of those kinds of deals, you could buy a gift card with one of your linked cards to get a qualifying dining program transaction, while also earning a bonus card for future use.

Be aware that online gift card purchases are unlikely to work if payment is processed by a third party like CashStar.

Link new credit cards to your dining program(s) of choice

When you get a new credit card, if you’ll be trying to hit the minimum spending requirement through everyday spend, it’s worth remembering to add it to a dining program so that you don’t miss out on bonus points/miles/cashback that you’d otherwise have been able to earn.

Focus on a different dining program in turn

As we saw in an earlier section, one of the main ways to get value from these dining programs is by earning bonus rewards from their signup bonuses. For some people, the optimal approach will therefore be to pick a program when it’s offering an increased offer, then move on to a different program when that’s increased its bonus. You could do this for your partner’s loyalty program accounts too so that you can double up on each program’s bonus. Bear in mind that you can only earn a bonus once per program, so it’s worth timing it for when there’s one of those increased offers.

This approach won’t always make sense though. For example, for someone whose focus is on earning status with an airline like American Airlines, it could be better to dedicated their card-linked dining spend in the AAdvantage Dining program in order to earn both redeemable miles and Loyalty Points.

Question

Are there any card-linked dining programs I’ve left out about? Do you have any other tips and tricks for maximizing your earnings with these programs? Let us know in the comments below.

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