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Despite inflation cooling from record highs, you’ve probably noticed that dining at a restaurant is still more expensive than it was in pre-pandemic years. Because of this, you should make sure you’re doing everything you can to subsidize your food and beverage costs, including paying with a credit card that earns bonus points or cash back at restaurants.
But which credit card should you use to pay your restaurant bill? With many options available, we’ve put together a list of the best credit cards for restaurants and dining for November 2023. Let’s look at the dining credit cards we like and why we like them.
The best credit cards for dining out in November
There’s no one card that’s best for every foodie. Instead, we looked through the features, earning rates and fees of some of the most popular credit cards and found six cards that are great options for restaurant and dining spending.
Here’s where each card shines.
- American Express® Gold Card: Best overall earning potential.
- Citi Premier® Card: Best earning bonus points on dining and other everyday expenses.
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card: Best for earning travel rewards with a low annual fee.
- Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card: Best for hotel points.
- Bilt Mastercard®: Best for earning travel rewards with no annual fee.
- Citi Custom Cash® Card: Best for cash back.
Let’s dive into the details of each of these cards and see how they compare to one another.
Related: Are you using the right credit card when ordering food for delivery?
American Express Gold Card: Best overall earning potential
If your main goal is to earn the most points every time you eat out, then the American Express Gold Card is the one for you. With this card, you’ll earn a whopping four points per dollar spent for every dollar you spend on dining worldwide.
The Amex Gold earns valuable Membership Reward points, which will allow you to transfer your points earned to 20 different loyalty partner programs. And with frequent-flyer site The Points Guy valuing Membership Reward points at 2 cents apiece, you’re ultimately earning an 8%+ return every time you pay for your dinner. This is the highest return you’ll receive from any other credit card on this list.
On top of strong rewards earnings, the Amex Gold also offers up to $10 in statement credits per month (up to $120 annually) at select merchants. These include Grubhub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com, Milk Bar and select Shake Shack locations.
Other Amex Gold benefits include earning four points per dollar at US supermarkets (up to $25,000 per year; one point per dollar thereafter) and three points per dollar on flights booked directly with airlines or through amextravel.com. You’ll also earn to $120 in Uber Cash credits every year — which is another way to justify the $250 annual fee (see rates and fees). Uber Cash can be redeemed for Uber rides and Uber Eats orders in the US.
Welcome offer: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $6,000 on eligible purchases within the first six months after opening the account.
Annual fee: $250
Learn more and apply now for the Amex Gold card.
Read CNN Underscored’s full review of the Amex Gold card.
Citi Premier Card: Bonus points on most everyday expenses
If you’re a fan of Citi ThankYou points, then the Citi Premier Card is your best opportunity to earn this valuable currency. With this card, you’ll earn three ThankYou points for every dollar you spend at restaurants. Plus, you’ll also earn three points per dollar with other common merchants, including supermarkets, gas stations, air travel and hotels.
When it comes to redeeming your Citi ThankYou points for travel, you have two different options: book through their own travel portal or transfer points to a partner loyalty program.
With the first option, you can redeem points through the travel portal — which works similar to booking a trip through Expedia or Orbitz — where your points are worth 1 cent per point. This means if you have 60,000 ThankYou points, for example, your points are worth a fixed $600 towards travel.
The second option is to transfer your points to one of Citi’s 16 partner airline and hotel programs at a one-to-one ratio. This includes easy-to-use programs like JetBlue TrueBlue and Wyndham Rewards. However, the program’s most powerful partners are international airline loyalty programs, which take time to learn but can be extremely valuable for booking airfare with Citi points.
The Citi Premier also comes with an annual $100 hotel credit on reservations of $500 or more when you book through ThankYou.com. However, the card lacks the travel protection benefits you might find with other travel rewards cards, like rental car coverage and trip delay protection.
Welcome offer: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on eligible purchases within the first three months after opening the account.
Annual fee: $95
Learn more and apply now for the Citi Premier card.
Read CNN Underscored’s full review of the Citi Premier card.
Chase Sapphire Preferred: Travel rewards with a low annual fee
As one of our top recommended credit cards, the Chase Sapphire Preferred offers an easy way to accrue points on many of your purchases, especially when it comes to eating out. With an affordable $95 annual fee, cardholders can earn three points per dollar spent on dining (including eligible delivery services, takeout and dining out), as well as streaming services and online grocery services. You’ll also earn five points per dollar on Lyft rides (through March 2025), two points for every dollar spent on travel (or five total points if purchased through Ultimate Rewards) and one point on all other purchases.
The Sapphire Preferred earns Chase Ultimate Reward points, which are worth a strong 2 cents apiece, according to The Points Guy. This means the three points earned every time you swipe your credit card at a restaurant are valued at 6% back when redeemed for travel.
These points transfer at a one-to-one ratio to 14 different travel partners, including United MileagePlus, British Airways Executive Club, Air Canada Aeroplan, World of Hyatt and more. Using these transfer partners lets you maximize the value of your points, since you can take advantage of “sweet spots” available within each program, like booking domestic flights on American Airlines for under 10,000 points with British Airways.
If you don’t want the hassle of airline and hotel point availability, you can instead redeem your points earned through Chase’s travel portal at a fixed rate of 1.25 cents per point. Like the Citi portal, this will let you book most flights and hotels as you would on Expedia or another online travel agent.
Other card benefits include an annual $50 credit on hotel stays purchased through Ultimate Rewards, a 10% anniversary point bonus on all purchases made the previous year, complimentary DashPass membership that’s valid for at least 12 months (must be activated by Dec. 31, 2024) and a comprehensive suite of purchase and travel protections.
Welcome offer: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on eligible purchases within the first three months after opening the account.
Annual fee: $95
Learn more and apply now for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
Read CNN Underscored’s full review of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
Hilton Surpass Card: Hotel points and perks
If hotel points are what you’re after, the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card will get you off to the right start with earning points while dining out. The card earns six points per dollar spent at U.S. restaurants. While that might sound like the highest earning out of all of the cards on this list, Hilton Honors points are typically worth less than some of the other travel rewards program as the The Points Guy values their currency at 0.6 cents apiece.
The Hilton Surpass also earns 12 points per dollar at Hilton hotels, 6 points per dollar at U.S. gas stations and U.S. supermarkets, 4 points at U.S. online retail purchases and 3 points per dollar on all other purchases. Again, these are solid but not industry-leading returns on everyday spending.
Further, the Hilton Surpass card has a handful of Hilton-specific benefits. First, it automatically awards card holders Hilton Gold elite status. This elite status includes a fifth night free when redeeming your points to book a room, complimentary breakfast or a food and beverage credit, space-available room upgrades and bonus points on paid stays.
Just remember, you’re earning Hilton Honors points with this card. This leaves you without the same flexibility as you have with some of the other cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred which can transfer points to multiple travel partners. Fortunately, with more than 6,000 properties worldwide, it’s easy to find a Hilton property wherever your travels might take you.
Welcome offer: Earn 170,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 in purchases on the card in the first six months after opening the account. Offer ends 1/17/2024.
Annual fee: $150 (see rates and fees)
Learn more and apply now for the Hilton Surpass card.
Read CNN Underscored’s full review of the Hilton Surpass card.
Bilt Mastercard: Travel rewards with no annual fee
The newly popular no-annual-fee Bilt Mastercard is a must-have in your wallet if you rent your home. It’s the only credit card that lets you pay your rent fee-free and earn flexible travel rewards on every rent payment. As you’d expect, this can add up over the course of a year.
Even better, the Bilt Mastercard has category bonuses for many common purchases, including dining out. With this card, you’ll earn three points per dollar on dining, two points per dollar on travel (when booked directly with an airline, hotel, car rental or cruise company) and one point per dollar on all other purchases (including rent). Plus, you can earn up to five points per dollar on Lyft rides.
And on the first of every month (Bilt calls this “Rent Day”), all points earned on purchases (excluding rent) are doubled. So if you happen to dine out on the first day of the month, you’ll earn a whopping six points per dollar spent on your meal.
However, there are a couple of restrictions to be aware of. You can earn up to 100,000 points per year on rent payments. All payments after this limit do not earn rewards. Further, you must make five transactions with your Bilt Mastercard every statement period to earn Bilt points on any purchase.
Bilt also recently launched Bilt Dining program, which allows you to earn an additional five points per dollar spent at participating restaurants. However, these restaurants are currently limited to New York City, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago and Boston.
Bilt Rewards points earned can be transferred directly to 10 different partner loyalty programs at a one-to-one ratio. Some partner programs include American Airlines AAdvantage, United MileagePlus and World of Hyatt. And if you prefer a more simplistic approach, you can redeem your points through the Bilt travel portal where points are worth 1.25 cents apiece.
Welcome offer: None.
Annual fee: None (see rates and fees)
Learn more and apply now for the Bilt Mastercard.
Read CNN Underscored’s full review of the Bilt Mastercard.
Citi Custom Cash Card: Up to 5% cash back on dining
The Citi Custom Cash Card lets you switch up your spending habits from month to month and still maximize your cash earned. This is because the card earns 5% cash back on up to $500 spent in your top eligible category each billing cycle (then 1% cash back). Unlike many other rotating category credit cards, you do not need to designate a category in advance. Instead, you’ll automatically earn the 5% cash back in whichever category you spent the most in during the billing cycle.
If you dine out a few times a month, the Citi Custom Cash might be the perfect card to designate solely for dining out, since restaurants is one of the eligible 10 categories. With the 5% bonus, you can earn up to $25 cash back per billing cycle, for a total of $300 per year.
And if your habits shift a few billing cycles per year and you find yourself not eating out much, you can instead prioritize another one of the Citi Custom Cash’s category bonuses — such as gas, travel, grocery stores, etc. — to earn your 5% bonus.
With this card, you’ll earn Citi ThankYou points, which can be redeemed for a statement credit at a rate of 1 cent per point. However, if you pair this card with a premium Citi ThankYou card like the Citi Premier, you can combine your accounts and then transfer your points earned from the Citi Custom Cash to one of Citi’s many hotel and airline partners.
Unfortunately though, on all other purchases that don’t fall into the top eligible category, you’ll only earn 1% cash back. For this reason, you might also want to open a second cash-back card, such as the Citi® Double Cash Card which earns 2% cash back on everything you buy — 1% when you make a purchase and another 1% when you pay it off.
Welcome offer: Earn $200 cash back after you spend $1,500 in the first six months of account opening.
Annual fee: None.
Learn more and apply now for the Citi Custom Cash card.
Read CNN Underscored’s full review of the Citi Custom Cash card.
Click here for rates and fees of the American Express Gold card.
Click here for rates and fees of the Hilton Honors Surpass card.
Find out which cards CNN Underscored chose as our best travel credit cards currently available.
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