Tomorrow is the first Friday of this month. That means it’s
3x dining on your Chase Sapphire Preferred. Don’t really feel like dining out
or just want something simple? No worries, go and pick up gift cards for your
favorite restaurant tomorrow and you’ll earn 3 UR points per dollar and can
then spend the gift cards at a later time.
This presents a double dip
opportunity with airline dining programs. If you have a particular hankering
for Cinnabon, that’s great. You can earn 3x on all purchases tomorrow. In
addition, if you have the patience to force ask the cashier to separate
each of your purchases separately, then each transaction counts as one dine
towards your dining program status. After 11 dines, you receive VIP dining
status. Then you will earn 5x on your dining expenses at restaurants within the
Rewards Network.
This means you could potentially earn 3 UR and 5 airline
miles per dollar at these restaurants, the most popular being Cinnabon and La
Madeleine. The net value back could be 16% of your money spent. Receiving a 16%
kickback when you eat out can lessen some of the pain of fine dining.
Theoretically, if you purchased $7500 worth of La Madeleine
gift cards on First Friday, then you could earn enough miles to fly yourself to
Paris in United Coach and have some real French food. Or If you were really
aspirational, you could purchase $14,000 worth of La Madeleine gift cards and fly
United Business class to Paris, or any other European destination where United
flies.
Btw, I only pick on United because they are a Chase UR
partner, and they have a miles-earning dining program. And yes, the only reason I brought up Paris was so I could post another picture of me and my son in Paris, with him donning a beret.
Enjoy first Friday!
A reader asked for further clarification on the above. Here is my response.
ReplyDeletefirst, you sign up for the dining program and register your Sapphire card. You'll get bonus miles for registering and going to your first dine. US Airways, American, and United all have the same dining program. Delta and Southwest may too, but I have not registered with either. Then you mosey on down to La Madeleine and purchase gift cards in as small a denomination as possible in separate transactions. After 11 dines, you will earn MVP status and will then earn 5x miles on the dining program side. All this while still earning 3x UR points on your Sapphire.