It feels like dining out keeps getting more expensive.
For my family, that feeling revolves around our three children getting older and eating ridiculous amounts of food.
Rewards programs like Dine Rewards can take the sting out of the cost of eating at their sit down style restaurants.
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How Does Dine Rewards Work?
Dine Rewards allows you to earn rewards by visiting any of the Bloomin’ Brands restaurants. These include
- Outback Steakhouse
- Carraba’s
- Bone Fish Grill
- Fleming’s
Rewards
The purpose of Dine Rewards is to get you to eat at the Bloomin’ Brands restaurants more often.
To that end, they only give you discounts on future meals. This is great for anyone that frequents these restaurants.
Once you earn a reward, you can get 50% off of a meal, up to a $20 value at Outback, Carrabba’s, and Bone Fish Grill and up to $40 off at Fleming’s.
Be aware that your reward does expire 90 days after the date of your third qualified visit.
How to Earn
Earning credit for your visit requires that you spend at least $20 on your total meal purchase or $40 at Fleming’s.
Once you accrue three qualifying visits, you qualify for the 50% off on your fourth visit.
Refer a Friend
You can also earn rewards by referring other people to the Dine Rewards program. You get $5 deposited into your Dine Rewards account for every person you refer.
As a bonus, the person you refer also gets $5 when they sign up. So let’s be friends, and you can use my link.
Redeeming Rewards
The rewards are automatically loaded to your account. They can be redeemed by giving your server the phone number associated with your account.
Birthday Surprise
Every year on your birthday, Dine Rewards will give you a free appetizer with the purchase of an entree.
It’s not the greatest of the birthday freebies, but it is a nice perk of the program.
Is Dine Rewards Legit?
Yes, Dine rewards is a legitimate rewards program that works with any of the Bloomin’ Brands restaurants.
I have personally been able to redeem the rewards regularly with no problem from the servers.
The only problem I have had is that the servers do not usually ask if I have an account. So, I have to make sure it gets added before paying.
Company History
Bloomin’ Brands was started in 1988 as a joint venture between Tim Gannon, Chris Sullivan, and Bob Basham.
They started with only one chain of restaurant chains, Outback Steakhouse in Tampa, FL. Three years later, they took the company public with 49 restaurants in their chain.
Today the company does about $4.2 billion in revenue each year.
Alternatives
- Firehouse Subs – One of the best fast food restaurant reward programs. They have a graduated system of rewards that lets you get free food at Firehouse.
- HOOCH – Earn rewards from a network of more than 250,000 partners. Points are rewarded, and you can redeem them for gift cards.
- Seated – Redeem points from partner restaurants for gift cards and VIP treatments.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Restaurants are all over the country.
- Rewards are fairly lucrative.
- Works in conjunction with rewards credit cards.
Cons
- Rewards expire after 90 days
- Rewards are only good for Bloomin’ Brands restaurants.
- Servers are not proactive in asking for rewards info.
Maximize Your Cash Back and Rewards
Getting the most from any trip to a restaurant requires a little planning.
The closest restaurant to my house that participates in Dine Rewards is Outback, so we will use them for this example.
To dine at Outback with my wife, we usually need about $50. Instead of just paying when we get to the restaurant, I want to make sure I get the absolute most money back.
To do this, I need to buy a $50 Outback gift card from my local grocery store. I do this with my rewards credit card that gets me 2% cashback on all purchases.
On top of that, my grocery store has its own gasoline rewards program. Since I spent $50, I get 5¢ off my next fill up, which is usually around 20 gallons.
Now, let’s add all that up.
- My qualified visit is worth one-third of the $20 I will get on my fourth visit, or $6.67.
- The gas rewards are worth $1.00
- The cashback from my credit card is another $1.00
Together we are looking at $8.67 in rewards and cashback that we would not have had if we just went to our favorite local restaurant.
While that extra $2 may not seem like a lot, it equates to 4% of that $50 gift card. Getting an additional 4% each time I eat at a casual sit down restaurant adds up over time.
Dine Rewards Review Final Thoughts
Dine Rewards is a nice rewards program, and it is excellent if you frequent the Bloomin’ Brands restaurants.
My wife and I can easily hit $20 when we dine at these restaurants, so it is a pretty low bar to hit for getting your qualified visit.
I went through our last few visits to Outback, and we tend to spend around $45 after tip for just the two of us. This means we could get an average Outback meal at $25 or 44% off of our normal price.
While I like a few other restaurant apps better, adding Dine Rewards if you like these brands is a no-brainer.
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