Earning Points Doing My Favorite Activity - Eating Out

Would you like to earn up to 7 points per dollar simply eating at your favorite restaurants  Sounds to good to be true, huh? Its not! Dining Rewards is probably the easiest points earning secret out there.

Many major airlines and hotels offer dining rewards:

Alaskan Airlines

American Airlines

Delta Airlines

Hilton

Priority Club

Southwest Airlines

United Airlines

US Airways

Dining Rewards, also has partnerships with these rewards GoodDining, eScrip, Best Buy Reward Zone, Upromise, Fuel Rewards, and American Express IDine.

Each one of the links will take you to a different program. You are able to earn points from one program only.

Here is a step by step guide to earning points from your favorite restaurants:

1) Pick a hotel or airline that you would like to earn miles with

2) Register for the program

3) Register all your debit / credit cards - I have kicked myself one, two, three times now for not registering a new credit card and leaving points on the table.

4) Search for restaurants in your area

5) Dine out and use your registered credit or debit card. You will get points based upon the amount charged to your credit card card, including tax and tip

6) A few days after eating out, an email will arrive asking you to take a survey based upon your dining
experience. You must take this survey to get points. The survey is no longer than 10 questions long.

7) Sit back and wait for your points to hit your accounts. Sometimes it has taken 3 weeks for points to hit my account.

Repeat steps 4 - 7 again, and again, and again.

The beauty of this program is that you are earning points for doing something what you are already doing. Chris and I are big fans of this program and will tailor where we eat to earn points. On a few occasions, the deciding factor between 2 restaurants (one participating in dining rewards and one that does not), the one that does participate wins out.

Earning the big points:

If you eat 12 times at restaurants participating in the program, within a calender year,you earn VIP status. VIP status gives you more points per dollar. For example, Delta Dining Rewards offers 3 points per dollar for basic members. If you hit VIP status, one earns 5 points per dollar. If you have the Chase Sapphire card (which gives you 2 points per dollar spent at restaurants), you earning a whopping 7 points per dollar for eating out.

Helpful Tips:

1. Register all of your debit and credit cards
2. Keep a watch of restaurants in your area that are partnering
3. Check your emails for bonus opportunities, you have to register to participate in the bonuses
4. Complete the surveys
5. Don't abuse the system - I have heard reports of people not getting points for swiping their card multiple times in a day at the same restaurant.

Dining Rewards won't make you point rich, but it will help increase your points balance.