Miles for Dining : Free Travel Basics

February 20, 2014 by

Miles & Points for Dining

There is another easy way to earn Miles & Points – The Rewards Network Dining Program.  Similar to the Shopping Portals, you can earn Miles & Points for doing something that you would normally be doing anyway…eating!  In order to earn miles from this program, you sign up and register the credit card(s) you will use to pay for your restaurant bill.   You dine at one of the participating restaurants, and you earn the miles per dollar listed on their website.  You can also often get bonuses from time to time for signing up for the individual programs.

This is how it works:

Join a Rewards Network program

1.  Join.  The Rewards Network has many different frequent travel programs as partners.:

- Alaskan Airlines

- American Airlines

- Delta Airlines

- Hilton Hotels

- IHG Hotels

- Southwest Airlines

- Spirit Airlines

- United Airlines

- USAirways

Decide which of these you want to earn (hint: you can sign up for more than one, but see more info about that below).  Sign up here).  You will sign up by giving your information (name, address, etc).  You will also have to give the information for the debit and/or credit card(s) you plan to use to pay for your dining.

Here is one important part: Only register any of your cards for ONE program.  For example, you can’t use your SPG Amex for BOTH the Southwest Dining and the USAirways Dining.  You can sign up for both Southwest Dining and USAirways Dining, just make sure that you use 2 different credit cards when you join.

Eat at one of the Network Restaurants

2.  Dine.  You can search for participating restaurants by zip code, city, state.  I have found that there are generally lots of choices in my area and also in places where I am traveling.  I have also been surprised by points showing up in one of my frequent flyer accounts after dining at a participating restaurant without even knowing it was in the network.  All of the restaurants within the Rewards Network will be the same, no matter which frequent travel program you sign up with.  Some are available for points earning every day & some black out the weekends or other days.

 Earn Miles & Points

3. Earn.  After you dine and pay with the linked credit card (don’t forget that part, it’s important), you will get your points…up to 5 points per dollar.   I usually get an email right after the payment processes saying “thank you for dining at xyz” and asking me to leave a review.

At different times, the programs will have sign-up bonuses as well, so don’t sign up for every program right away.  For example, at the time of this writing, Southwest has a 300 mile bonus for signing up for their program and completing the dining requirements.