A friend of mine passed along this email below inviting him to take a survey from OpenTable about their Rewards programs and possible new redemption options, including exchanging OpenTable points for miles or hotel points. Based on the language in the email, this survey was only sent to highly select members. He is a VIP OpenTable Member while I am not so that might explain why I did not get selected for the survey.

The survey asked a lot of questions regarding the structure of the existing Dining Rewards program. Currently, members can only redeem points for dining checks to use as money off a meal at a restaurant that uses OpenTable. For example, you can redeem 2,000 OpenTable points for a $20 OpenTable Dining Check that doesn’t expire if it was issued after 7/1/14. Other than redeeming a different amount of points for a different check amount, there are no other possible ways to use OpenTable Points at the moment.

The survey wanted to gauge how interested members would be in redeeming OpenTable points for other things. Nothing really caught my friend’s eye until the survey asked how interested he would be in converting his OpenTable points to miles or hotel points. He doesn’t recall the exact ratios and which programs but he remember the exchange ratio wasn’t too great. I might hazard a guess that maybe OpenTable could allow 2,000 OpenTable points to be exchanged for say 1,000 Delta SkyMiles, which is effectively buying the miles at 2 cents each (since that same 2,000 OpenTable points is worth $20 off your next meal). Of course this ratio and example is pure speculation.

The survey also indicated he wasn’t suppose to share this information so maybe this is nothing more than simple market research and OpenTable was simply gauging the interest level of members to use their points in other ways. Or this might be a new feature they roll out in the next few months – who knows?

I’ll mark this as developing and hopefully, something to lookout for in the next few months.