Dinner for 100, best card to use?

Later this year the elder of my two children will be bat mitzvahed. This involves an after-party including lunch or dinner for all our guests which will probably take place in a restaurant and will cost many thousands of dollars.

Assuming our restaurant of choice will accept a credit card, would this spending qualify under either or both of the following:

1. Dining spending on those cards (such as Chase Sapphire Preferred) which have a higher return on dining.
2. AAdvantage Dining, or any of the other dining programs (assuming the restaurant we choose participates)?

If there's any leverage to be had, what's the best card on which to put this spending?

My guess is both options will work. I would guess most restaurants have only one merchant account for charging credit cards, thus they can't change the category under which it will show up on your statement.

If they bring it an outside caterer (I assume the restaurant is going to know they have a large party coming?), and the caterer does the charge it might not count as dining.

Someone with more knowledge of credit cards should probably chime in, though.

While our plans our not yet set ("Plans? We don't have to show you no stinking plans. We don't have no stinking plans!") it's likely we'll be using a restaurant where the restaurant itself will be providing the food and beverages. Payment would be made as a large deposit months before the event and the remainder paid shortly before the event.

I'd imagine it'll work with "dining" multipliers. I also suspect that you don't really want to have this event at a place that participates in the dining programs (but if you do, I don't see why they wouldn't apply).

We absolutely would not base our decision on that — but I'd hate to pass up 30,000 points (or whatever) just for not registering the right card. Of course, I'll have to check if there's a cap on the dining programs per-dinner miles (I'll be there is).

I don't know a lot about the dining programs but was under the impression that many good restaurants participate. Is that not true?

Quality varies by area. There's a reason that restaurants pay commission to the dining programs - sometimes that means inferior quality, sometimes it means a place is new and trying to draw more traffic, sometimes it means that they just have more capacity than demand.

The Citi Forward card has 5 points/dollar on dining if you happen to have or want that card.

I don't have it, but reading FTG's current post is what put me in mind of leveraging this large expense into extra points.

Forward points are just one-penny-per-point spendable currency, right? Not airline miles, and not transferable?

Correct. But sometimes it's better than penny/point, like $100 Amazon GC for 9,000 points.

To chime in: if either the first or second deposit is due in July-Sept, the first $1500 of that installment could earn 7500 pts on Chase Freedom, transferrable to the Sapphire Preferred (and then to airlines/hotels).

The second certainly would be. I don't have the Freedom though and I'm not sure I can get it by then (probably can, but just got the Sapphire recently).

If you can't, your wife or partner (or a friend) can get the Freedom and transfer UR points without a problem.

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemi...wards-membership-rewards-and-starwood-points/

The sign-up bonus is currently $200 = 20,000 pts, and the card is no-fee.

Or, I guess, if we could both get Freedom cards we could have the restaurant split the bill onto two cards and get 15,000 points against two $1,500 limits?

Can you really transfer from someone's Freedom card into someone else's Ultimate Rewards?

I was going to get my wife to go for the Sapphire preferred this month (as soon as we make a dent in the minimum spending on my own card). Could I get her the Sapphire and the Freedom at the same time?

Seems likely, if the restaurant will do that for you and if they code the transaction correctly.

Brian mentioned it here. If you go to Combine Ultimate Rewards Points at the UR site, there's an option to transfer to an "Other" account, which requires you to enter the credit card holder's last name and number.

I don't know. Someone else might know.

Could be possible, but experience and our CC research here on the forums says that's highly unlikely. If one of them is a Business version, then the answer would be most probably yes.

Totally agree about the Chase Freedom plan, if you can get one or two of them by then. If they restaurant also participated in a dining plan you would be looking at 5x points for the Freedom during the eligible quarter up to $1500 then another 5 points per dollar for a dining rewards plan (assuming you can get to VIP by then - it isn't hard). No idea how much your bill will be, but you are potentially looking at hefty chunk of miles and points. As in tens of thousands of miles and points..... Of course, I would not choose a sub-par restaurant just for the points for such a special occasion, but there are some nice restaruants on dining rewards plans, depending on your location.

When hosting a large dining event before (though not this large!), I bought gift certificates during a points promo period and then held onto them until the event.

As for getting the Sapphire Preferred and Freedom at the same time - unless these are her first Chase cards, I would consider it pretty unlikely. She would certainly have to call the reconsideration line for the 2nd card. I just converted an old Chase card to a Freedom. Didn't get any sign-up bonus, but didn't waste an inquiry for it either. So, that might be an option.

We both have Chase cards we no longer use, so that might be an option (although we lose the current 20,000 point bonus).

True, but that is what I decided to do in my case. I really couldn't/didn't want to use a Chase application for 20,000 - 30,000 points when I want to use them for much bigger things.

The Sapphire would work. BTW, if you don't have enough limit on your card for this, Chase will almost always make a temporary limit increase to deal with such issues, and they always give the points too. BTW #2 both Chase and Citi even give points for PayPal, at least if the payment goes to Kiva. Chase even gave me a temporary increase once specifically to do that.

It's still six months to mid-July.

The answer to "Can I get the Sapphire and Freedom together?" is perhaps different than the answer to the question "Can I get the Sapphire and Freedom five/six months apart?"

I believe there's a monthly limit to how many points/miles you can earn through the AA / US Air, etc. Dining rewards program. The workaround would be to spread the spending over multiple months ahead of the event to max out each month. Possibly also across multiple dining rewards programs/CCs.

If the restaurant you have chosen is associated with the AmEx Fine Dining or Fine Hotels and Resorts Program, going through them and paying with a Plat or Centurion card could get you impressive VIP treatment. Just regular MR points, but still an enhanced experience if this matters to you.

Do you have an experience with Amex Fine Dining? My understanding the best they can do is get you a table at a participating restaurant. What kind of VIP treatment an OP can anticipate at a participating restaurant?

It's extraordinarily unlikely that any restaurant we choose would be thus affiliated.

Correct - there was a cap of $600 on most of the RewardsNetwork (nee iDine) restaurants. If one's talking a meal of many thousands, the most fruitful route would be to look at ways of having the entire purchase qualify for credit card bonus points and/or artfully using highly discounted gift certificates of large denominations (if plausible).