Dining for miles is one of the easy and free ways you can rack up points. Register, use your credit card when you dine out, and if it happens to be at a participating restaurant you’ll earn miles automatically.

Rewards Network is the company that provides branded mileage-earning dining programs in conjunction with major frequent flyer programs like United MileagePlus, American AAdvantage, and Delta Skymiles.

When I first started earning with them in the mid-1990s, United’s program was only open to their elite frequent flyers. (I was actually excited to start earning miles for restaurant spend when I first became a Premier member in 1997.)

I used to rack up miles by choosing to schedule reimbursable business meals at participating restaurants, and steering groups of friends towards those restaurants — where everyone would kick in cash and I’d earn miles for the total bill that I’d put on my credit card.

Sadly the program became a whole lot less valuable July 1, 2005. But it’s still better than a hole in the head, as my grandfather used to say.

The real value comes out not just from earning a few miles per dollar on your restaurant spend (on top of the miles you earn paying by credit card) but from the bonuses that they offer. There are regular signup bonuses and incentives to review restaurants as well.

Sign up for United’s program by June 30 and earn up to 4000 bonus miles on top of usual points-earn.

• 500 miles for signing up and registering a credit or debit card
  
• 1000 miles if you spend $25 or more on your first participating restaurant visit within 30 days of signup
  
• Up to 2500 miles: 500 bonus miles on each of your second through sixth visits within 30 days of signup where you spend $25 or more

Imagine if this guy worked in a restaurant that participated in dining for miles.

Terms and conditions:

This bonus offer is open to all new MileagePlus DiningSM members who have not yet created a web login and registered a credit and/or debit card. To qualify, you must create a web login and register a valid credit and/or debit card by June 30, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, and remain opted in to receive emails from MileagePlus Dining with a valid, deliverable email address. You must also continue to satisfy any other applicable Online/VIP level criteria to earn this bonus.

To earn the initial 500 MileagePlus bonus award miles, you just have to join MileagePlus Dining as described above. To earn any subsequent bonus miles, you must dine at any participating restaurant, bar, or club within 30 days of joining, and spend at least $25 (including tax and tip) on each check. You will earn bonus miles as follows: 1,000 for your first qualifying visit, and 500 for each of your next 5 qualifying visits. All qualifying visits must occur within your first 30 days of MileagePlus Dining membership. Limit one bonus-qualifying visit per restaurant per day.

Please note that some restaurants offer rewards, including the bonus miles under this offer, only on certain days of the week, for a limited number of restaurant visits per month, or up to a maximum spending amount per month. For complete program Terms and Conditions, guidelines, restrictions and the latest rewards calendar, visit dining.mileageplus.com. Other limitations may apply. Terms and Conditions are subject to change.

Please note that all checks must be paid for with a credit or debit card registered with MileagePlus Dining at the time of the visit. You may only earn this bonus once for a maximum amount of 4,000 bonus miles. Offer may not be combinable with other MileagePlus Dining bonuses and each qualifying visit can only apply toward a single bonus, as determined by MileagePlus Dining. All account inquiries related to this bonus must be received by October 30, 2017.