The 10X Chase Dining Promo Is Fool’s Gold
It has been blasted everywhere, earn 10X Ultimate Rewards with your Chase Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve cards! I get it, it sounds sexy, 10X earning is awesome. It gets clicks, new cardmembers and creates hype but lets face it the 10X Chase dining promo is fool’s gold. To be completely honest, we didn’t even think it was worth covering because it was that niche of a promo but I have seen it blasted everywhere so figured a PSA was in order. This is yet another lackluster promo by a credit card company that sounds great until you actually dig into it.
So Many Hoops
I’ll give you the brief overview of the promo. You can earn 10X on dining with your Sapphire cards if you order it through the Chase Dining site located inside the Ultimate Rewards portal. That is bulky to begin with and it has you wondering, is this some type of new Uber Eats or something? Kind of except it will give you like 3 options in your area. I am sure if you live in LA or NYC you will get more than most but if you are in a rural area forget about even having 1 option. These are specific restaurants that Chase has partnered with and there isn’t many of them. So you want me to drive 30-40 minutes to pick up food for 10X earning you say? Hard pass!
Some of these locations will only allow pick up on the weekends as well, limiting you even more. If you work near a location you may be out of luck grabbing dinner on the way home. To be fair, dining in is an option at most of them as well.
This entire system seems bulky and unnecessary and I don’t get why anyone would use Chase Dining in the future. Forget about all of that though, lets throw out a promo that sounds sexy, that everyone will cover for the title alone but that offers little to no value. Sounds great! Oh yeah cap it at $500 in spend too while you are at it.
This Is A Troublesome Trend
I love credits like anyone but when we need spreadsheets to keep track of them all we have lost cabin pressure. These are gimmicks by the card companies that sound great to the consumer but they know most will fail to use them. Throw in the fact that a portion of the bill is likely picked up by the partner, hello Peloton, and you really can’t lose as the lender here.
Let’s get the media to pump all these discounts and we can look like the hero, all while realizing that most people are not disciplined enough to use it past the first month. We could just make our products better, or lower annual fees instead, but where is the fun (i.e. profit) in that?
Final Thoughts
Sorry for this mini rant but I couldn’t believe how many people wrote about this like it was a good thing. It is highly unlikely that you will ever earn 10X Ultimate Rewards on dining with this offer. The hoops are many, the options limited but the headlines are damn sexy…let me tell you. I can’t blame Chase really, they know the game and they play it well. Hopefully they drop something meaningful on us the next time around instead of these smoke and mirrors.
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Mid-Michigan here. ONE restaurant on Tock… BUT… you need to PREPAY on Chase Dining, and the restaurant doesn’t offer that.
I could see if you made your reservation on Tock then paid with CSR. But having to pay through the portal is extra ordinary.
Hop on one leg… check. Pat head with right hand… check. Rub belly with left hand….
This is really meant for the bi-coastals in LA/NYC. There are tons of “Tock” enabled restaurant in LA. I just ordered take-out from one and found out one of our fave pre-covid restaurants is available on Tock, too!
In fact, without your post, I wouldn’t have looked, so I appreciate it so much!
That said, the Chase/Tock ordering experience is complete trash, and they really need to update their mobile site if they want to attract more spend. It’s really horrific that one has to use the desktop site just to order food, especially after a whole year of covid19 food-ordering experience
The set up is clunky for sure. Not ready for mass usage, that is for sure.
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I completely agree Mark. Chase seems to be going the way of American Express. I can’t imagine paying $550 a year for a CSR in the current market. If any of the no annual fee Chase cards offered access to transfer partners, I couldn’t even justify the $95 for a CIP.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the CSR next year when the limited time additions drop off from the $100 annual fee increase.
I don[t think that you’re ranting at all, just calling out dubious offers. I have a single restaurant in my area that is listed, so this offer is worthless to me.
I think it will be worthless to many which begs the question, why run it at all.
Agreed. Personally I get offended when my credit cards send me these “offers”. like what? After I paid $550 AF and spend 30k on my CSR, I’m gonna crawl on the floor for ten cents? Do I look like I work for you? TF outta here
I am in the DFW area… All I can see in a Metropolitan area of 8 million is a Culinary School attached to a Junior College where you can pick up once a week on Thursdays starting in March.
Disappointing to say the least. Good news… Snow and Ice have melted.
Thanks for the PSA.
Glad to hear the weather is starting to turn for you Doc!
Tock is designed as more of a high end dining app that has special meals and events. In LA, there are dozens if not hundreds of options but it is heavily skewed toward expensive fine dining.
I guess I’m just very lucky. Two of my favorite restaurants in Ann Arbor are available for take-out through this service and they’re not available through Grubhub, Doordash, or Uber Eats so I’m very happy about the option to get 10X this way!
That is awesome!
Two things:
1. As you suggested, this may have different levels of meaning for people in different regions. I live in LA, and about two-thirds of my usual places are on the Tock portal, so this won’t be a hard promo for me to use. But I imagine that’s not the case in Amarillo.
2. Why do you think it’s bad for CCs to be offering somewhat challenging-to-use benefits? In my experience, benefits are more generous when they’re “harder” to use and get watered down when ease-of-use increases (e.g., City Prestige 4th Night Free, award availability on partners that you used to have call to book but are now bookable online). In general, I’d think harder-to-use perks would relatively benefit those of us who read fine print, stay organized, etc.– generally, the people who read travel blogs. Curious to hear why you think otherwise.
If you look at the CSR they increased the annual fee $100 and then added limited time benefits. Lyft Pink has helped no one over the last year and the DoorDash credit is gone after this year so will they be replaced with Peloton type credits that only work for a fraction of cardholders etc. I would prefer increasing the annual fee and adding a grocery or gas bonus category etc. something that actually adds value vs limited time credits that are difficult to use in the hopes of causing breakage of my annual fee.
Thank you for confirming. I read it one time checked it out and found there was nothing in my area. Very disappointed.
It sounds great for sure until you realize how constrained it is 🙁
Agree. But not 100% confident I follow the details. Clicked into the “New” Dining portal on the UR Portal, and I find, “Tock to Go” with restaurants identified. But no mention of 10X earnings on the portal(s). Have a Chase eMail 02/19/21, subject, “don’t miss out on February offers you’ll love” inside, there are several offers listed, one related to dining is “Impress your sweetheart with Chase Dining Explore special takeout menus, restaurant reservations, gifts, and more. Plus, your points are worth 25% more through Apr. 30, 2021, when redeemed in Chase Dining.”
So far, not been able to identify the offer; targeted? Full disclosure, started earning URs this past fall, and this is only a second or third visit to the portal, for sure a newbee.
I don’t think there is a landing page for the offer at this time. A little more info on it here.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/chase-dining-earn-10x-points-on-up-to-500-in-purchases/
Alaska is the best airline for FF, but are you going to hate them if they don’t fly to the airport closest to you? If the promo works for some people, then let those people benefit from it. If this doesn’t work for you, maybe the next one will.
…and switch to decaf. Just a suggestion.
My point was this won’t be accessible for a majority of people and is a niche promo and that seems to be where the credit card companies are going…which is not good for us in my opinion. I don’t drink coffee but thanks for the suggestion 🙂
I agree, I was just looking at that and the next place I could order from is 1+ hour away….
Doesn’t surprise me. It will be worthless for most people.