Earn Extra Rewards by Enrolling in Credit Card Dining Programs (2021)
Easily Earn Points for Free Travel, Best Credit Cards for Restaurant Spending
Most of our readers are likely to use a credit card that earns bonus rewards on restaurant spending to earn great rewards on their dining purchases.
You can occasionally earn some extra rewards by enrolling your credit card in a dining program. Once enrolled, you'll earn extra points or cashback when you use your credit card at a participating restaurant.
For example, if you enroll your Sapphire Reserve card in the United MileagePlus Dining Card program and use it at a participating restaurant, you’ll earn 3x Ultimate Rewards points directly from Chase and an additional 3x or 5x United miles from the United program.
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Dining program basics
- You probably won't earn extra rewards very often. Not that many restaurants participate in each dining program. There is a good chance that most of your favorite places aren't included. The same is true for the vast majority of the better reviewed and more popular restaurants in any city.
- However, because they are "set and forget", taking advantage of them doesn't take much effort. You simply take a one-time step to register your credit card with the dining program. Then, whenever you go to a participating restaurant, you don't have to do anything special or hand anything to the server. When you pay your bill with your linked credit card, you'll automatically receive your extra rewards.
- Many of these programs share an underlying platform. Reward Network operates the program for many of the major US airlines, hotel chains, and other organizations. And a company called "Empyr" runs the program for several "savings-oriented" services.
- You can only register any given credit card with one program on each of the platforms. For example, you could register with Alaska Airlines, Mogl, and Uber; but you couldn't register the same card with both Alaska Airlines and United Airlines. It is possible to register different credit cards with different variations of the same program, but there generally isn't a reason to do so.
- We recommend registering with as many of these programs as you can, but with no more than one per platform. This increases the number of different restaurants where you can earn extra rewards. Furthermore, at restaurants that participate in multiple programs, you'll earn separate rewards from each platform, plus the normal rewards you'd earn with your credit card.
There are some gems and plenty of decent places. But if you just go out normally, you are unlikely to visit a participating restaurant very frequently. And unlike the restaurant discounts from Groupon and the Entertainment Book, the added value from these dining programs aren't usually high enough to justify going out of your way to eat at at a restaurant you wouldn't otherwise.
Many people don't bother looking up whether a restaurant participates in any of the programs. They simply register the credit card(s) they use for restaurant purchases and go out to eat as normal. Every once in awhile, extra reward points just "magically" show up in their accounts.
Reward Network dining programs
Most of the airlines and hotel dining programs are operated by a company called “Rewards Network”.
- Each of these programs works with the same set of 11,000 restaurants. The main difference is the type (and number of points) you earn. You can view the list of participating restaurants online or in their app.
- You can only register your credit card with one of the Reward Network programs—choose the one that is most valuable to you. You’ll earn the base rate, if you agree to receive their marketing emails; a lower rate if you don’t; and an even higher “VIP” rate, if you earn rewards at a minimum of 12 (sometimes 11) restaurants each year. If you don’t want to see their emails, but still want the higher reward rate, you may be able to set up your mailbox to automatically send them to your junk mail.
- Local Rewards Network offers are also part of Citi Merchant Offers. But you'll only have access to offers from restaurants located near your home zipcode and you'll need to add each offer to your card. On the other hand, their cashback rates are slightly better than you can get elsewhere.
- Rewards Network also powers the local restaurant offers of Dosh. That means that if you want to take advantage of Dosh's offers on other merchants (covered in our shopping programs guide), it will block your ability to use another Rewards Network program for dining. To deal with this, you can register your primarily shopping-oriented cards with Dosh and your restaurant-oriented cards with one of the other Rewards Network options.
- Earning points from dining is one of the best ways to create some activity in your loyalty account, in order to keep your points from expiring. If an account is in danger of becoming inactive, simply switch your credit card over to the dining program associated with the desired account, go out of your way to eat at one of the participating restaurants, earn a few points, and then re-register the card with your favorite dining program option.
| Program | Base | “VIP” | Low |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 3 | 5 | ½ |
| American | 3 | 5 | 1 |
| Delta | 3 | 5 | ½ |
| JetBlue | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Hilton | 5 | 8 | 2 |
| IHG | 5 | 8 | 1 |
| Marriott | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Southwest | 3 | 3 | ½ |
| Spirit | 3 | 5 | ½ |
| Caesars Rewards | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| United | 3 | 5 | ½ |
There are some other Reward Network options that pay out as a cashback percentage, rather than as loyalty points. These include eScrip, Shell Fuel Rewards, idine, Club O Rewards, Rakuten, and U promise.
When there isn't an airline promotion, many people may be better off choosing to earn cashback with idine, instead of with an airline program. You’ll receive a base rate of 5% back and a rate of 10% back (if you spend over $750 per year), as compared to 3-5 frequent flyer miles.
Pei
- The Pei App has probably the best selection of participating restaurants. It is hard to confirm this in different locations across the country, but in the few cities we looked at, it included a considerably larger set of the city's better restaurants.
- Pei is also one of the best shopping apps, giving bonus rewards when you use your credit card at many stores. Earn Extra Rewards by Enrolling in Credit Card Shopping Programs.
- Cards are registered via Plaid. Rather than entering the card number and expiration date, the Pei app will open up the log-in screen for your credit card account (hosted by the bank). After you sign in, all of your cards from that bank will show up in the app and you can click on each one to add them to the system. Any new cards will show up in the app automatically.
Rewards are usually 5%, but 10% rewards aren't uncommon. At chain restaurants like Chipotle or Chick-fil-A, rewards are usually only around 1%.
Other programs
Empyr-operated programs
- The Empyr platform has a smaller set of restaurants, especially since Yelp stopped participating in the program. But there is no harm in linking your restaurant credit card(s) to one of its programs.
- You'll typically receive 5% cash back, but each Empyr-based program can set their own rates. The reward rates from Mogl and NerdWallet have a wider range, sometimes offering more and sometimes less than the rates for the same restaurants from Swagbucks.
Mastercard business credit cards
Any business credit card from Mastercard can be enrolled in Mastercard’s Easy Savings program. You’ll earn 4% back, when you use your linked card to pay at any of the participating restaurants. They have a large network, which is concentrated in chain restaurants like Pizza Hut, Outback, Potbelly, and Red Lobster. But it includes many good local options as well. Unfortunately, they aren't any Business Mastercards that also offer good bonus rewards on restaurant spending.
Thanks Again for airport restaurants
Thanks Again runs yet another simple to use rewaraurant reward program, but it focuses on restaurants and shops in US airports. Participation is still fairly sparse, but there is no reason not to sign up with them as well.
