» Diners Club LeCard Restaurant Savings Program, Citicorp Diners Club, Box 5824, Denver 80217; 800-234-6377. Free to holders of a Diners Club card ($80 a year).

Diners Club is the only major charge card with its own dining program. (Banks occasionally bundle free or trial membership in the established dining programs for MasterCard and Visa cardholders.) LeCard gives 20% off the total food and beverage charge—including alcohol, tax, and tip—at nearly 1700 restaurants in 26 states and the District of Columbia. About three quarters of the restaurants are in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, or Texas. Major cities include Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Dallas/Ft Worth, Los Angeles, Miami/Ft Lauderdale, New York, and Philadelphia.

You receive a quarterly directory and may dine as often as you like at any listed restaurant. The discount is reflected on your monthly statement. You also receive Club Rewards points on the post-discount amount of the bill redeemable for frequent-flier credit on most major airlines.

» Entertainment National Dining Directory and Entertainment National Hotel & Dining Directory; Entertainment Publications, Box 1068, Trumbull CT 06611; or 800-445-4137. $27.95 a year for the dining book, $42.95 a year for the combined hotel/dining directory; MC, V.

A dominant player in half-price hotel discounting (and a corporate sibling of the Dinner on Us Club), Entertainment Publications also has a dining program with almost 2500 restaurants in 38 states, the District of Columbia, and five Canadian provinces. The basic deal is a 20% discount on the dinner bill (excluding tax, tip, and alcohol).

Both directories have the same 157 pages of restaurant listings. The combination hotel/dining directory also contains half-price listings for 3500 hotels and resorts, coupons for $25-125 savings on round-trips on American Airlines, and discounts on vacation packages, car rentals, amusement park and museum admissions, sightseeing, and other travel services.

The directories note the restaurant locations, days and hours when discounts are valid, and average dinner costs for two before discount. The national listings for two of the cities we checked are sparser than the dining choices in the company’s local, all-purpose coupon books, as the table A Taste of Four Cities shows.

You present an Entertainment dining card before the bill is totaled. The 20% discount is essentially limited to the food tab; alcohol, taxes, and tip aren’t discounted. You pay with cash or a charge card. There’s no limit on your visits or maximum charges at participating restaurants.

Entertainment also offers a charge-card option, Entertainment Gold. It’s basically the same program as Dinner On Us Gold Awards, which we discussed earlier.

» Premier Dining, Entertainment Publications, 2 Carriage Row, 183 Eversholt St, London NW1 1BT; 011-44-171 387 5757, fax O11-44-171 3875770. AE, MC. £48.95 ($73.50 at a late-December exchange rate) a year.

Yet another member of Entertainment’s empire, Premier Dining covers more than 400 restaurants in England, Scotland, and Wales. You get 25% off the total check, including beverages and tax (since VAT is included in the posted price), for unlimited visits. Service (tip) is included when it is listed as a separate item. You must phone ahead for a reservation and identify yourself as a Premier user.

The program’s directory comes with a membership card and includes 109 London restaurants, listed by postal zone—clear to most Londoners, but a bit obscure to US visitors. Locations outside London are listed first by region, then by shire, then by city. The directory, updated twice a year, includes brief dining descriptions (mini-plugs), along with each restaurant’s address and phone.

» Diners Club LeCard Restaurant Savings Program, Citicorp Diners Club, Box 5824, Denver 80217; 800-234-6377. Free to holders of a Diners Club card ($80 a year).

Diners Club is the only major charge card with its own dining program. (Banks occasionally bundle free or trial membership in the established dining programs for MasterCard and Visa cardholders.) LeCard gives 20% off the total food and beverage charge—including alcohol, tax, and tip—at nearly 1700 restaurants in 26 states and the District of Columbia. About three quarters of the restaurants are in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, or Texas. Major cities include Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Dallas/Ft Worth, Los Angeles, Miami/Ft Lauderdale, New York, and Philadelphia.

You receive a quarterly directory and may dine as often as you like at any listed restaurant. The discount is reflected on your monthly statement. You also receive Club Rewards points on the post-discount amount of the bill redeemable for frequent-flier credit on most major airlines.

» Dining a la Card, Signature Group, 200 N Martingale Rd., Schaumburg IL 60173; 800-253-5379, fax 847-330-3472. $49.95 a year, AE, Disc, MC,V.

This program has a different ingredient: a rebate by check. Dining expenses at most of its 6122 restaurants are tallied automatically each month, based on your charge-card activity, and 20% of the entire bill, including tax and tip, is refunded by mail. (With a few nonautomated establishments, a copy of the check or other proof is required for reimbursement.)

You designate up to three charge cards (AE, Disc, MC, V) and charge your meal on any of them that a restaurant accepts. You needn’t tell anyone you’re a member of Dining a la Card. Your monthly charge card statement shows 100% of the restaurant charges, but Dining a la Card mails you a rebate and statement of your dining activity the following month.

You’re reimbursed for one visit (maximum $120) a month to each of the restaurants. The program sends you a bimonthly restaurant directory for the region where you live (East, Central or West) but you can request free out-of-area directories. A hot line provides an updated restaurant list and recorded descriptions of some of them.

Dining a la Card also cosponsors programs with Continental, TWA, and United that award frequent-flier mileage instead of a rebate cheek (see Miles for Meals).

» Dinner on Us Club, CUC Intl, 300 W Schrock Rd. Westerville OH 43081; 800-346-3241 or hot lines listed in area editions. $49 a year. MC, V.

This prodigious program, offered in 47 states and the District of Columbia, offers a plateful of discounts: two entrees for the price of one, dollar deductions on food dishes, and 10-25% savings on entire meals, excluding tip but including drinks and taxes. The main course is twofers: When two people order meals, the restaurant deducts the price of the less expensive entree (up to a specific maximum value). The program boasts the most dining places in the US, with 14,770 full-service restaurants—more than 32,000 total locations, if you count all the fast-food branches.

Discounts are limited to one visit, and are sometimes restricted to lunch or dinner. Solo diners get 50% off the entree price at many restaurants. In all instances, the discount is calculated at check time, when the waiter marks off a number on the back of your membership card to preclude a repeat visit.

You get a pocket guide that lists restaurants in your hometown or a nearby area. You also get a local Value Guide, with coupons for similar deals at more casual dining places and carryout restaurants, as well as for savings at concerts, baseball games, movies, theaters, and other local attractions. You can request any of 77 other free local guides or call a hot line to find restaurants while on the road. (A national directory was slated to come out in January.) The guides give only cursory information, but the hot line gives recorded descriptions of some restaurants.

Dinner of Us Club recently added a charge-card Gold Awards program. You register a MasterCard or Visa card and receive 25% off the entire dinner bill on the first visit to a participating restaurant, 10% on return visits. Gold Awards is linked to a separate roster of eating places—1712 in 37 states and the District of Columbia. You can call a hot line to request a pamphlet with the latest listings for up to three local areas or to request a national directory.

» Transmedia Restaurant Directory, Transmedia Network, 11900 Biscayne Blvd, N Miami 33181; 800-422-5040, 305-892-3300 in FL, fax 305-892-3317; hot line 800-422-1231, 212-759-1598 in NY. $50 a year ($25 for first year) for 25% dining discounts, free for 20% dining discounts; $50 a year for 30% Transmedia Dollars cash rebates on air travel; $9.95 a year for Frequent-flier Miles Transmedia Card. AE, Disc, MC, V.

Transmedia has almost 7000 restaurants. US locations are concentrated in Boston, Chicago, Connecticut, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, South Florida, and the Washington-Baltimore area. Transmedia is the only national program with a solid presence abroad (426 restaurants in the UK, including 196 in London; 160 in France, including 123 in Paris; 406 in Australia, including 176 in Sydney and 168 in Melboume).

In Transmedia ‘s main program, members may choose to pay $50 a year to get 25% discounts on all food selections and drinks, including alcoholic beverages (tax and tip excluded), or join for free and get 20% discounts. If you charge less than $1000 a year, the free card is the better deal.

You pay for meals with your membership card. The restaurant sends the tab to Transmedia for billing to your preselected AmEx, Discover, MasterCard, or Visa account. The undiscounted bill and a 20% or 25% credit for the food and beverages appear as separate items on your monthly charge-card statement. There are no limits on when or how often you may dine at participating restaurants.

Transmedia also offers two options for travelers who prefer to earn travel credit. The Frequent-flier Miles Transmedia Card awards 10 Continental, United, or US Airways miles for each $1 in restaurant charges, excluding tax and tip (see Miles for Meals, below).

Or you can opt for Transmedia Dollars, where Transmedia accumulates 30% of your dining charges as credit you can exchange for cash rebates toward air tickets. When you want to cash in your Transmedia Dollars, you send in the receipt portion of an air ticket—on any airline, in any class of service, from any airline ticket office or travel agency—and Transmedia mails a check. Credit in excess of the face value remains in the account until you make a future withdrawal.

Besides dining, you can use the Transmedia card to get 20% or 25% off the rack (regular) rates at 145 hotels listed in a benefits directory; the card cannot be used to pay for discounted rooms. The directory also offers 20-25% discounts on (limited) parking and entertainment, and a 10% discount on purchases from 19 mail-order catalogs.

Transmedia sends you a bimonthly benefits directory and restaurant guide for your region (Northeast, Mid-Atlantic/South, Central/West). The guides, however, contain scant information on the nature of the dining places or their prices. You can get an international directory or any of the other regional guides free upon request. Transmedia also provides a 24-hour hot line for restaurant additions and deletions.

» Dining a la Card co-brands programs with Continental (OnePass Dining; 800-677-4848), TWA (Dining a la Card Miles 800-804-7109), and United (Mileage Plus Dining; 800-555-5116).

When you enroll, you receive a regional (Continental and TWA) or nationwide (United) directory of restaurants that award 10 miles per dollar spent on the entire tab: food, beverage, tax, and tip. You get credit at any one restaurant for only the first visit per month; the maximum mileage you can earn per visit is 6000 miles.

» Mileage Plus Dining is free, but it’s restricted to Premier very-frequent-flier rnembers (25,000 actual flying miles a year). OnePass Dining and Dining a la Card Miles are unrestricted but charge $49.95 a year (AE, Disc, MC, V), with a free two-month trial membership. (Continental and non-VFF United frequent fliers can also build mileage using a Frequent-flier Miles Transmedia Card, as we’ve described above).

When you enroll, you register up to three charge cards (AmEx, Discover; MasterCard, or Visa) that you plan to use at the restaurants. If you already belong to Dining a la Card’s stand-alone program, which issues 20% rebate checks, you must register different credit cards for the mileage and rebate options.

If a charge card you register is an airline card that already earns mileage for general purchases, you still get the one mile per dollar that the card awards, along with the 10 miles you get from the dining-card program’s airline partner. You could, for example, register your American Airlines charge card in the United dining program.

» Continental, United, and US Airways have ties to the Frequent-flier Miles Transmedia Card (800-422-5090, $9.95 a year. AE, MC, V) which also gives 10 miles per dollar, but only on the food and beverage portion of the bill. The mileage accrues in a Transmedia account until you request that it be applied to one or more of the thee frequent-flier programs (mileage must be redeemed in 500 mile increments). Meals are paid using a special Transmedia card that is coded differently from Transmedia’s 20% and 25% discount card You can own both a discount and a mileage card, but can use only one per restaurant visit.

» CUC lntl, parent of Dinner on Us Club and Entertainment Publications, pilots the mileage programs for American (AAdvantage Dining Program, 800-267-2606) and Delta (SkyMiles Dining, 800-346-3341); there’s no charge to join. The programs give three miles per dollar charged for food, beverage, and tax (tips excluded) at about 3000 US restaurants. The American program includes more than 50 London restaurants, for which you receive four miles per £1.

You present your frequent-flier membership card when paying the bill. Your receipt shows the mileage earned for the meal, which is automatically credited to your frequent-flier account.

» Alaska Airlines (DineAir Program, 800-207-8232) also gives three miles per dollar charged for food and beverages, including alcohol (tax and tips excluded). Its program features 300 restaurants along the airline’s routes in Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. There’s no charge to join, but members must spend at least $20 on a meal to earn mileage.

» Northwest (Dining for Miles, 800-447-3757) offered the first airline dining program. It had been offering two miles per $1 spent (excluding taxes and tips) but, as of press time, was switching to a CUC-run program on the model of American’s and Delta’s.