Often the most easily overlooked way to earn airline miles quickly is dining programs. Many people new to the world of miles and points don’t realize you can link your credit card up to an airline dining program. By adding your credit card to a dining program you can earn extra miles on top of those you earn with the card alone.
For example, if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card you can earn 3 Ultimate Rewards points and up to 5 AAdvantage miles for a single purchase at a qualifying establishment. Given that I value points at $0.015/each, that’s like getting 12% back on ALL qualifying purchases.
How Does AAdvantage Dining Work?
American Airlines AAdvantage dining is a program where members can earn extra miles on (mostly) dining purchase. The program is powered by Rewards Network which is also the company behind several other dining programs.
The best part of all of this is that it’s incredibly easy to use. All you have to do is visit your dining program of choice (AAdvantage Dining in this case) and register. Once you register you’ll have to link your dining program account to your loyalty account.
Next, in your profile, add any and all credit cards you may use for dining purchases. You can add as many cards as you want to a single dining program, but you can use a card for multiple dining programs. For me, I just add every credit card in my wallet as to avoid missing out.
Once registered, log-in to the dining program to identify qualifying establishments to dine. Then, when you pay, you automatically earn both credit card and dining program miles. It couldn’t be easier. There’s nothing more that you have to do.
Remember To Update Your Credit Cards Often!
Well, almost nothing. See, if you’re like me chances are you have had your credit card information compromised once or twice. On top of that, you often have card that expire and the bank sends you a new card. Or, perhaps, your metal credit card has fallen apart and you need a replacement. Either way, almost every time the credit card company will send you a new card with a different card number, or at very least, a different expiration date.
While this doesn’t cause any issues to your everyday spending, it does cause issues for you dining program of choice. If you fail to update your card information to your new card you won’t earn the extra miles/points you should be earning when visiting those qualifying establishments.
Also, in the case of the AAdvantage Dining program, by missing out on qualifying purchases you may not re-qualify for VIP status which rewards you with 5X AA miles per transaction!
Needless to say, it’s quite important to make sure your credit card information is updated and correct in your dining program profile.
Final Thoughts
I hate to admit this, but the reason I thought of this is because I failed to do this. Earlier this year my Chase Sapphire Reserve card became compromised and Chase sent me a new one. The new card had a new card number and I never added the new card to my AAdvantage Dining Program profile.
After about two months I noticed I was no longer getting those obnoxious emails to rate visit to a qualifying establishment. This is/was odd because even when I didn’t make it a point to visit a qualifying location I would hit at least one a month. A random dive bar down the street for example might somehow be in the network.
Then today, I received an email from AAdvantage Dining which let me know that they missed me. It was when I got that email that I realized my card information must be dated. Sure enough when I logged in I found out that all three of the cards I had listed no longer exist. I quickly went through my wallet and added every card I have.
Hopefully this serves as a friendly reminder to 1) sign up for the AAdvantage Dining program (or whatever program you want) and 2) make sure all of your credit card information is current on any dining program you may be apart of.
