Eating Out, Earning Points!

There are many ways to gain rewards points, some obvious and some not so obvious. Once of these not so obvious methods involves eating out at restaurants, something most of us do on a regular basis. If you properly prepare, you could double or triple the amount of points you would receive from these meals.

Choose a credit card that gives extra points for restaurants. Many cards offer various points for restaurants so choose which one works best for you. If you have a card that needs to meet its minimum spending requirement and offers extra points for rewards for restaurants, use that. Personally if it is the correct quarter, I would generally use the Chase Freedom to receive 5% rewards otherwise I would use Chase Sapphire Preferred for 2X since Chase Ultimate Rewards points are very flexible.

Many rewards programs (i.e. MileagePlus, Southwest Rapid Rewards, IHG Rewards, etc.) including dining plans. These plans usually offer additional bonuses for signing up and your initial usage, with seasonal bonuses offered throughout the year.

You would just need to sign up on their respective websites and add the credit card you previously selected. Not all restaurants accept these rewards programs so you would have to search which restaurants do beforehand. When you would use the credit card at one of these approved restaurants then you would be eligible for the rewards points.

Also all of these dining plans are administered by the same company, The Rewards Network. As such, you cannot link the same credit card to multiple rewards programs. From our own experience, they flagged the purchase until we called them and we had to tell them which rewards program to credit the points to.

However, you could still link your credit card to programs not associated with The Rewards Network. These programs work the same way, you would sign up for their program and add your credit card information to link it up to their respective program. Yelp Rewards offers cash back. Uber’s Visa Local Offers provide Uber credits. American Express Offers provide points/cash back. Once again, the restaurants which accept these programs vary so you would need to do your research beforehand.

Now finding a restaurant that accepts all of these programs may be difficult, it all depends where you are. Recently we ate at one restaurant where we received points from the card, dining rewards program, and Yelp cash back. We have not been able to get more than a triple dip but maybe you will be more fortunate!