With more credit cards now offering up to 5X rewards on dining purchases (Chase Sapphire Reserve, American Express Hilton Honors, Capital One Savor), does restaurant spending get a big boost? The answer is yes -- for several leading rewards cards.

Kantar’s behavioral payments data provides detailed insights into consumers’ spending patterns based on actual credit card purchases. Our new analysis explores restaurant spending on credit cards that rewards customers for dining spend, and results indicate that the highest rewards don’t always deliver the most restaurant spend.

For example, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card offers three points per dollar spent on dining, the Barclays Uber and Capital One Savor cards offers four points per dollar spent on dining, and the American Express Hilton Honors card offers five points per dollar spent at restaurants.

However, fewer than 60% of Hilton Honors cards (5X rewards) and the American Express Gold Card (4X rewards) have restaurant purchases in a typical month. Cards like Chase Sapphire Reserve (3X) and Capital One Savor (4X) are more likely to have any restaurant purchases -- and have higher monthly restaurant spend.

Fully 90% of both of these cards have at least one dining purchase in a typical month. The average monthly restaurant spend on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card was $409 in 2018, while the average monthly restaurant spend on the Savor card was $316.

Interested in more data from this study? See the full report below!