Valentine's Day Dinner: The Right Card Makes It Free

Valentine's Day is the second highest restaurant revenue day of the year. Americans spend approximately $4.7 billion on dining out on February 14th. A significant portion of that goes on the wrong card.

Here's what "the wrong card" costs on a $200 Valentine's dinner (typical for a nice restaurant in most cities): at 1% back, you earn $2. At 3x points worth 1.25 cents each, you earn $7.50. At 4x Membership Rewards points worth 1.5 cents per point through transfer partners, you earn $12.

The difference between the worst option and the best option on this one dinner is $10. Multiply that over 52 weekends of dining out per year and you understand why card optimization for dining specifically matters.

The February 14th Strategy

If you have the Amex Gold: You're earning 4x on every dollar. On a $200 dinner, that's 800 points. At 1.5 cents per point via transfer to Marriott or Delta, that's $12 back on a meal you were already buying. Over a year of $320/month dining spend, 4x returns $230.40 in point value.

If you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred: 3x on dining. On the $200 dinner, 600 points. At 1.25 cents redeemed through the travel portal, $7.50. Good, not maximum.

If you have no dining bonus card: Tonight is a reasonable time to consider applying for one. Not because of this dinner specifically, but because February through May is dining-heavy (Valentine's, St. Patrick's Day, Mother's Day, graduation dinners) and the welcome bonus on the Amex Gold is worth $750 in travel if you hit the spend requirement in the first three months.

The Restaurant Reservation Strategy

This is a separate thing from card rewards but worth mentioning: Amex has a reservation service called Resy that often has priority reservations for cardholders at popular restaurants on high-demand nights. If you have a Gold or Platinum and haven't connected your Amex to Resy, do that now for future reference. The difference between being seated at 7:30pm at the restaurant you wanted versus 5:15pm or 9:45pm is real quality of life.

What I'm Doing Tonight

We're going to the Italian place. I already booked the reservation through Amex's dining program, which sometimes offers small perks at participating restaurants. The Amex Gold goes on the table. Marcus will probably try to use his Sapphire Preferred. I'll let him — he's still learning the category optimization, and 3x dining is still better than his debit card was.

We'll argue about the check for approximately 45 seconds, split it, and both earn points. This is what a functional relationship looks like.