The Best Credit Cards for Dining Out at Restaurants

The Citi Prestige® Card (Review) is great for eating out while traveling, with 5X points at restaurants — you won’t find deals like that too often, even on other premium cards.

The 5X rewards rate means this card could be a dining powerhouse: Transfer your ThankYou points to an airline partner and you could get upwards of 2 cents per point, which would give you a cash back equivalent of 10% or more.

Those points come with a fairly high annual fee, but if you’ll travel and use the card enough each year it shouldn’t be much of a problem. You’ll get a sizable travel credit, Priority Pass Select membership, and a unique hotel perk: Your fourth night is free when booking through ThankYou.com, up to twice per year.

• Point transfer: To a variety of frequent flyer programs, including Etihad Guest, JetBlue TrueBlue, and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
• Annual $250 travel credit: Good for airline tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals, and other travel purchases
• Complimentary 4^th Night Stay: Get your fourth night free when booking four nights in a row through ThankYou.com and paying with your card, ThankYou points, or a combination of both. Capped at twice per year.
• Priority Pass Select membership: Access to over 1,000 Priority Pass airport lounges and restaurants around the world; the cardholder and two guests can enter for free, and additional guests cost $27 each
• Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fee credit: A credit for the application fee of either Global Entry ($100) or TSA PreCheck ($85), once every five years
• Citi Prestige Concierge: Call for non-emergency help any time you need it.
• World Elite Car Rental Program: Elite memberships at Avis, Silvercar, and National
• No foreign transaction fee
• Annual fee: $495

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® (Review) gets a lot of praise, with features and perks travelers love.

They include 3X points on dining and some excellent point redemption and transfer opportunities, which can boost your effective earnings quite a bit. Combine that with the same good rate on travel (after using up the annual travel credit) plus airport lounge access and primary rental car insurance to help you get around, and you’ve got one of the best travel credit cards on the market.

• Point transfer: Transfer your points at a 1:1 rate to a variety of airline and hotel loyalty programs, like United, JetBlue, and Marriott.
• 50% point bonus: For redeeming for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards
• $300 annual travel credit: A $300 travel credit every year that will be automatically applied toward a broad range of travel-related expenses charged to the card
• Complimentary Priority Pass Select membership: Provides access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide plus a selection of restaurants. The cardholder and two guests can enter for free; additional guests cost $27 each
• Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection: Provides complimentary services and benefits at participating hotels and resorts, including room upgrades, daily breakfast for two, and special gifts
• Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fee credit: Get a statement credit to offset the cost of applying for Global Entry ($100) or TSA PreCheck ($85), once every four years.
• Elite Hotel Benefits at Relais & Châteaux: Accelerated progress towards Club 5C member status with Relais & Châteaux luxury hotel and resort properties
• Visa Infinite Concierge: Call for non-emergency help of all kinds, like making dinner reservations or finding good tickets to a show.
• Special car rental privileges: Rental upgrades, discounts, and promotional offers at Avis, Silvercar, and National Car Rental
• Lyft Pink membership: One free year of Lyft Pink, which includes 15% off rides, relaxed cancellations, surprise offers, and priority airport pickup
• DoorDash membership: A free membership (DashPass) for a year, which provides free delivery for orders of $15 or more
• $60 annual DoorDash credit: Get $60 in DoorDash credits in 2020, and $60 in credits in 2021.
• Shopping and Travel protections: Purchase Protection, a Primary Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver, Trip Delay Reimbursement, and more
• No foreign transaction fee
• Annual fee: $550

If you’re not ready to spring for the Reserve, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (Review) makes an excellent restaurant card for the occasional traveler.

You won’t get a lot of fancy perks, but you will get 2X points on dining and travel, plus a comprehensive selection of shopping and travel benefits. They’re not as flashy as big statement credits and lounge access, but they can be valuable in their own right, especially the primary auto rental insurance. And you’ll get some excellent point transfer opportunities too.

• Point transfer: Transfer points at a 1:1 rate to leading airline and hotel frequent travel programs, like Marriott Bonvoy or United MileagePlus.
• 25% point bonus: For redeeming for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards
• 15,000-point referral bonus: Get 15,000 points for every friend you refer who applies for the card and is approved, up to 75,000 bonus points per year.
• DoorDash membership: A free membership (DashPass) for at least a year, which provides free delivery for orders of $15 or more
• Luxury Hotel Collection: Book eligible rooms to get perks like daily breakfast for two, complimentary WiFi, room upgrades, early check-in, late check-out, and unique gifts.
• Shop through Chase/Chase Offers: Earn more points by shopping at participating retailers with the Shop through Chase and Chase Offers marketplaces.
• Visa Signature Concierge: Call to speak with your Visa Signature Concierge, any time, day or night.
• Premium Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver: Get primary coverage on eligible rental vehicles so your premiums won’t go up after an accident.
• No foreign transaction fee
• Annual fee: $95

Most travel cards are focused on, well, travel, and dining seems like an afterthought. But the American Express® Gold Card (Review) didn’t pass on the opportunity to serve up a more complete dish.

You’ll earn more points on food than anything else with this card — at restaurants, along with U.S. supermarkets (the latter up to $25K spent annually). So any foodie will be ready to go out or take up the mantle of chef. There’s even a $120 dining credit each year; the eligible restaurants are few in number, but some popular meal delivery services are included so it shouldn’t be too hard to use (how hard is ordering a calzone, really?).

• $100 annual airline fee credit: Use this to pay for incidental airline fees at an airline you select, like baggage fees and in-flight food and drinks. Does not apply to flight tickets.
• $120 annual dining credit: Earn up to $10 in statement credits per month for purchases at eligible restaurants and food delivery services, like GrubHub, Seamless, Boxed, The Cheesecake Factory, and participating Shake Shack locations.
• The Hotel Collection: Provides up to $100 in credits and room upgrades (when available) for every eligible hotel stay of two nights or more.
• Point transfer: To a selection of airline and hotel partners, like JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, Marriott, and Choice Privileges.
• Amex Offers: Find significant discounts at a changing selection of merchants and websites, like (at the time of publication) Dropbox, Blue Apron, Sling, and many more.
• Complimentary ShopRunner membership: ShopRunner provides free two-day shipping and returns at participating online retailers.
• No foreign transaction fees
  
• Annual fee: $250

Dinner, drinks, and a movie? One card to rule them all — the Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card (Review) gives you 4% cash back on all three. It even earns 8% back at Vivid Seats (a marketplace for concerts, sports, and theater) until May 2020, so there’s no excuse for being bored.

You will have an annual fee to pay after the first year, however. If you won’t use the card enough to make it worth the cost consider the less rewarding but annual-fee-free version, the Capital One® SavorOne® Cash Rewards Credit Card (Review).

• World Elite Mastercard Concierge: Call any time for non-emergency help with making reservations, finding hard-to-find gifts, and more.
• World Elite Mastercard benefits: Including Price Protection, Extended Warranty, MasterRental Insurance, Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance, and more
• CreditWise: Check your VantageScore 3.0 credit score for free, based on your TransUnion credit report, and see information from that report.
• No foreign transaction fee
• Annual fee: $0 intro for first year; $95 after that

No annual fee? No problem. The Wells Fargo Propel American Express® card (Review) is unassuming but it packs a punch. It features four bonus categories to earn 3X points in, a bit unusual for a card without a yearly fee (in a good way).

The appeal of this card is simple: If you like the reward categories, it could be a contender. Otherwise, check out the runners up.

• Entertainment Access: Get special offers and access to presale tickets for big events.
• Free Credit Score: Check your FICO Score 9 for free whenever you’d like, based on your Experian credit report.
• Cell Phone Protection: Pay your cell phone bill with this card to get coverage against damage and theft, up to $600 with a $25 deductible.
• Shopping and travel protections: Including Purchase Protection, Extended Warranties, Worldwide Inconvenience Insurance, and Travel Accident Insurance
• Purchase and Balance Transfer APR: 0% Intro APR for 12 months, then 15.49%-27.49% Variable
• No foreign transaction fee
• Annual fee: $0

Hotel credit cards aren’t only good for hotels — they often have other bonus categories as well, although they’re not always very valuable. But some, like the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card (Review), award quite a few points per dollar for dining (6X), in this case at U.S. restaurants only.

It’s true that hotel cards are usually best used at their co-branded hotels. But if you’re getting a good rate and will use those points to book rooms wisely, using hotel cards at restaurants can be a rewarding strategy.

• Complimentary Hilton Honors Gold status: Includes an 80% point bonus, room upgrades when available, complimentary breakfasts, and more
• Limited Priority Pass Select membership: 10 free visits to Priority Pass lounges per year; additional visits cost $32 per person
• Annual Weekend Night Award: For spending $15,000 in a calendar year
• Complimentary ShopRunner membership: ShopRunner provides free two-day shipping and returns at participating online retailers.
• No foreign transaction fees (Rates & Fees)
• Annual fee: $95

With bad credit comes fewer opportunities. But that doesn’t mean you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

Where many secured credit cards don’t come with any rewards at all, the Discover it® Secured (Review) has a solid 2% category for restaurants as well as gas stations. It’s limited to $1,000 in combined spending per quarter, but that’s still top notch for a secured card.

Not only that, your first-year rewards are all doubled — so you can get a 4% cash back equivalent on dining and gas in the first year, with 2% back for everything else.

• Free Credit Score: Check your FICO Score 8 for free, based on your TransUnion credit report.
• Security deposit: $200 to $2,500
• No foreign transaction fee
• Annual fee: $0

Small business owners have a few choices when it comes to restaurant cards — the right card for you really depends on what you need it for. Spending a lot of time on planes and in hotels? Or is it more for trips to the office supply shop? What about internet and phone services, or Amazon purchases?

The American Express® Business Gold Card (Review) is flexible, automatically providing 4X points in the two categories you spend the most in each month, out of six. And yup, one of those is U.S. restaurants.

So you’ll only earn 4X points at U.S. restaurants if it’s one of your top two spending categories for the month — and if that’s true, you’ll probably be earning a lot of points. But otherwise you’d only earn 1X point, and if that’s the case we suggest checking out the runners up.

• 25% airline bonus: Get 25% of your points back when booking eligible airfare through Amex Travel using Membership Rewards Pay with Points.
• The Hotel Collection: A $100 hotel credit and room upgrades (when available) for every eligible two-night stay
• Point transfer: To a selection of airline and hotel partners
• No foreign transaction fee (Rates & Fees)
  
• Annual fee: $295
• Employee cards: Get up to 99 employee cards; the first card costs $50 per year, and all subsequent cards are free

As a student with limited credit you likely don’t have a ton of options — but some of those options are pretty good. The Bank of America Cash Rewards™ Credit Card for Students (Review) is pretty rewarding, letting you pick your own 3% cash back category each month. Of course, restaurants are one category.

It’s a pretty good student credit card all around, with a one-time signup bonus, an intro APR, and an opportunity to earn bonus rewards.

• Bank of America Preferred Rewards: Eligible bank account holders get a 25%–75% bonus on rewards earned, depending on how much money is held in BofA and Merrill Lynch bank accounts.
• Free credit score: Check your FICO Score 8 for free, based on your TransUnion credit report.
• Visa Platinum or Signature benefits: Depending on creditworthiness
• Purchase and Balance Transfer APR: 0% for 12 months, then 16.24%–26.24%Variable
  
• Annual fee: $0

If you’ve got a wholesale club membership, you may have access to a decent restaurant credit card too. These cards require a membership but have no annual fee on top of that; they provide some decent rewards at their co-branded stores and elsewhere.

Costco members can check out the Costco Anywhere Visa^® Card by Citi (Review), which earns 3% cash back at restaurants (and 2% back on most Costco purchases). There’s a business version too.

Or, if Sam’s Club or BJ’s has your allegiance, check out their cash back cards in the runners up.

• Just pay with the Costco Visa: Your credit card will be counted as your membership card when making Costco purchases.
• Shopping Protections: Like Purchase Protection and Extended Warranties
• Annual fee: $0 (Costco membership required, a minimum of $60 per year)
• Open-loop card: You can use this card anywhere Visa is accepted.