Eating Out for Flyer Miles

The subject I am going to discuss relates to Southwest, Usair, American, Continental,Northwest,United,Delta and others.

On each of these airline sites there is a partner called Rewards Network. This is a site that I definitely recommend that everyone signs up for it. It is free to sign up and if you eat out this site is for you.

We use the Delta site to accumulate our miles on the Rewards Network.

The site lists restaurants all over the country.When I want to eat out at home or on vacation I enter the zip code to see if there are any restaurants that the family would be interested in going to. We have been to some amazing restaurants and of course some that we would never go back to.

Here is how the program works: Once you register your frequent flyer number with the Rewards Network you also have to register up to 5 credit cards.(any credit card)You may register your spouses cards under the same account. These credit cards on file are the ones you will use to pay for the bill at the restaurant you have chosen from the Rewards Network list.

The first 12 times you eat out you will receive 3 miles per dollar including tax and tip. After the 12 times you will go to the next level which is 5 miles per dollar (which the new level extends to the next year). That adds up very fast.

Have you ever gone out with friends and everyone wants to charge their portion of the bill?
Well, to get to 12 times fast, if the the bill is over $50, split the bill with 2 cards that are on your account it will get you to the next level much faster.

There is a promotion now on most of the airline Rewards programs that will give you double miles when you eat out on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

The card I use all the time is my Jetblue card because as I stated before, one of the perks is double on all restaurants.This called double dipping.

Each program always has promotions going on, once you register you will receive e-mail updates from them, OPEN THEM,they can get you extra miles.

Delta had a promotion : eat out 25 time during a certain period and receive an additional 25,000 miles plus the regular amount for each dine. That was a great promo.

Last year Delta had a promotion that you had to spend $450 from May 1-June 30 and you would receive an additional 5000 miles. We went out (7 of us) for Mother's Day in NYC and we were planning to go the Uncle Jack's Steakhouse (very expensive but wonderful). We spent the $450 . At the time we were getting 10 miles per dollar (now it is 5) so that came to 4500 miles and then since we spent the $450 we also got the 5000 bonus miles and of course we used the Jetblue card so I got 900 credits for Jetblue. It was a very Happy Mother's Day for me.

My husband's Delta account is the registered account with the Rewards Network from just eating out and working the system(all the promotions) I booked him his first class ticket to Italy. So mine came from everyday living expenses and his came from eating out. I still can't believe we are going. It takes time but the miles add up.