Earning Miles For Buying Food Aboard Airplanes

On my recent Air Canada trip, I noticed an offer to earn Areoplan Miles for buying food on board.

The offer good through April 30, 2014 gives your 25 miles for spending between $10 and $19.99 (exclusive of taxes) in one purchase. Spend more than $20 and earn 50 miles. To earn the credit, you must give your Areoplan number to the flight attendant at purchase. That's the major downside of this promotion. Asking to the flight attendant's to enter the number seems cumbersome and must slow down service.

I think this promotion is a smart idea. US-based carriers should consider this type of promotion, as it might increase on-board purchases. For instance, the guy sitting next to me spent $9 on his meal and quipped to the FA that he should have spent a $1 more to get the 25 miles.

Yes, I know if you use the airlines credit card that you are flying, you can earn extra miles. However, why not extra bonus miles for spending XXX dollars. It might justify the parent in economy buying his three kid snacks on the plane. Or give a points addict, like me, a reason to spend more.

Just a though....



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Always Register Your Credit Cards

Dining Rewards is an amazing program. I have written about it extensively here and here.

The key to being successful in Dining Rewards is registering all of your credit or debit cards with the program. You never know when you might visit a Dining Reward's restaurant.

For instance, one of the items on my bucket list was to take my grandparents to dinner. I don't why this was important, but it was important for me to do. I think the significance of taking my grandparents out to dinner was that it was proof that I finally accomplished something. I could afford to take my grandparents out to dinner without eating Ramen the rest of the week.

Back to the reason for the post. My grandparents picked the restaurant and had no idea that I was going to pay for dinner. When the bill came, I paid it with my Chase Sapphire to earn 2 points per dollar spent on the bill.  I was expecting nothing more out of the dinner. So, you could understand my surprise when I received this email:

An extra 234 miles for only registering my credit card. Oh ya!

Conclusion:

Register all of your cards for dining rewards. If you don't, you could be leaving valuable miles/points on the table.

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