Membership benefit saves on dining out.

You decide to take your spouse out to dinner at a nice restaurant. You enjoy a few drinks, a fine meal, and a scrumptious dessert. The total bill, including tip, comes to $112. You pay for the meal with your major credit card and leave.

Does the meal cost you $112? Not if you are a DAV member who takes advantage of the iDine Prime program, one of your DAV membership benefits.

DAV members enrolled in iDine Prime save up to 20% at more than 7,000 restaurants nationwide, and if the restaurant where you enjoyed that great meal is among them, you will save $22.40 on your dining bill. That's right, your actual payment for your dinner out will only be $89.60, and no one, not even the waiter whom you tipped generously, will know you used a savings program.

Not bad. You wind up saving enough from dinner to throw in a movie, if you like.

Now wait a minute, you just paid $112 with your credit card. How do you save $22.40 without anyone at the restaurant knowing? That's the beauty of iDine. The savings is privately reflected on your credit card monthly statement. The full charge of $112 will be displayed on your statement followed by an iDine credit for the $22.40. The result, you pay only $89.60.

To enjoy these great savings, all you have to do is enroll with iDine Prime, register the credit cards (VISA, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover are accepted) you will use to pay for your dining, and pay a nominal annual fee of $39. But don't worry about the initial outlay of the $39 annual fee. Your first $39 of savings will be applied toward the annual fee. After that, you'll automatically save up to 20% every time you eat at an iDine qualified restaurant.

Before dining out, you can make sure the restaurant you plan to visit participates in the iDine Prime program by visiting www.idine.com and using their search function. To make things even easier, iDine is developing a site (www.dav.idine.com) exclusively for DAV members to use. It should be up and running by the time you receive this magazine or shortly thereafter.

Two groups of restaurants participate in iDine Prime. At some you save on your first visit to each restaurant each month; the other restaurants offer savings every time you visit. With more than 7,000 restaurants in 70 major cities and vacation destinations nationwide the savings are deliciously abundant.

All you have to do to start saving on your dining is sign up now. There's an iDine Prime enrollment form located on page 40 for your convenience. Just complete the information on the form and mail it in. You can also enroll and obtain more information about the program by calling toll-free, 1-866-530-8784. Be sure to tell the operator your code is DAV1 to ensure your iDine Prime DAV membership benefit. After that, all you'll need is a good appetite and extra napkins. Bon appetit.