For those of you who eat out a lot, do you know about iDine? It's a rewards program you can stack with your credit card rewards.
You register whatever credit cards you want in your account with them (up to 5), and you earn additional cash back whenever you use your cards at a participating restaurant. They have a list of those on their website that you can search to find ones near you. There just happens to be a few of our favorites on our local list.
You earn from 5% to 15% back in the form of AMEX gift cards, depending on your total spend at participating places over a year's time. It starts at 5%, over $250 spend is 10%, and $750 spend gets you 15% back. And keep in mind that this is totally separate from, and in addition to, any credit card rewards you earn. We signed up a few weeks ago and have already built up a decent amount of rewards credit.
The only catch is that you have to fill out a quick survey about each visit. I didn't realize this until after I'd signed up but it's really no big deal. They only take maybe 15 - 20 seconds to do, and we eat out so much that our reward will more than likely end up being the full 15%. I'm good with that.
Chase Sapphire Reserve $30,000 | Amex BCP $30,000 | Discover It $30,000 | Citi Simp $16,500 | NFCU Cash Rewards $14,400 | Citi DC $9,800 | Chase Freedom $9,000 | VS $4,100 | Kohl's $3,000 | Loft $3,000
Nice.. Never heard of it and checking it now. Thanks for sharing the goodies..
Interesting looking service. Kind of like the FRN dining network.
If I recall... IDine is what used to be called the Transmedia card... .. It originally was a "pass through" credit card, but gave you a percentage back when used at restraunts that accepted it.... (Transmedia Networks Card) .. Also was interesting is it was card-agnostic, since it originally was not a MC/VISA/Amex ... it colud be linked to whichever.. Didn't matter what the restraunt accepted with the original Transmedia Networks grey card...
In fact its the *same* service provider as Rewards Network Dining...
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/rewards-network-inc-history/
@dwz55 wrote:I had it when it was for Best Buy points, I converted to IDine in July and have spent 3000$ so far with 2250 being at 15%. In August it goes baclk to 5% again.
So does this mean that you only get the 15% on everything ABOVE $750? I thought that once you hit $750 you got the 15% on all of it.
Just took a look at it. It seems like an interesting idea, but having to write reviews after dining at a restaurant and having to receive marketing emails from them in order to receive rewards kind of makes it a non-starter for me. I hate marketing emails so much, I spent months unsubscribing from all of them so I can have real email actually reach my inbox without 5x the amount of junk. And I know that they say "writing a review will take 2 minutes", but for at most 15% return, it seems like a complete PIA. Assuming that you're on the 5% tier, you'd only get $2.50 back on a $50 bill (likely how much a bill would be for 2-3 people). And if you're just dining by yourself, you might just spend $10-15, netting you $0.75. Hardly worth the time, aggrevation, and spam to me. Is there something I'm not seeing here?
I was under the impression the "reviews" are mandatory, but maybe not...? It's just one of those click-the-bubble things (poor, good, excellent, not at all likely, very likely, etc.) with only about 5 or 6 questions, and a place to type a quick sentence if you want to. Literally 15 - 20 seconds. I just log in occasionally and do several at once in just a couple of minutes.
edited to add: We joined a couple of months ago and I don't think I've received ANY marketing emails from them yet, so they definitely don't spam you all the time.