A New York City foodie's secret to saving on restaurants? Blackbird's dining loyalty program

New York City has some of the best independent restaurants and coffee shops in the world. It's one of the reasons why I love living here, but it also means dining is easily my largest expense outside of rent each month — and most dining loyalty programs that help you save money at the places you eat at regularly are centered around national chains.

Enter Blackbird.

Blackbird is a loyalty program and payment app designed for independent restaurants and cafes. A friend introduced me to it earlier this year, and I've since fallen in love with it. You can earn and redeem rewards, access special perks, split and pay your bill and more via the app. The program even has elite status tiers that offer more value.

For anyone unfamiliar, I'm breaking down all the program's pros and cons to help you decide if it's worth investing your time and energy.

Why Blackbird is a game changer for big-city dining

Blackbird allows you to earn Fly rewards points at member restaurants when you check in via the app. The more you check in and spend, the more valuable each visit becomes thanks to the program's loyalty tiers. Those just joining will earn 3 Fly points per dollar spent, but you can earn up to 7 Fly points per dollar spent at the highest Blackbird Club loyalty tier.

Right now, Blackbird is available in nine destinations:

• New York City (including all boroughs, plus Jersey City and Hoboken, New Jersey)
• The Hamptons, New York
• Charleston, South Carolina
• Los Angeles
• San Francisco
• Denver
• Aspen, Colorado
• Vail, Colorado
• Breckenridge, Colorado

The list of participating restaurants is still growing, but there's a solid number of available spots in New York City currently — from easy weeknight dinner spots like Barn Joo to chains like Tacombi to cocktail bars like The Tusk Bar. I also took a look at available options in Blackbird's other locations. Understandably, New York City has the largest concentration of participating restaurants, but the other major cities on the list have a decent selection of restaurants, too.

Checking in is as easy as tapping your phone to the small black Blackbird puck at the host stand, and it's easy to pay your bill (or split it among friends) directly in the app.

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The best part? You can even stack rewards with your credit card to double up on earning. For example, if you use your American Express® Gold Card to pay your bill through Blackbird, you'll earn Fly points and 4 American Express Membership Rewards points per dollar spent (on up to $50,000 per calendar year, then 1 point per dollar).

Related: Best credit cards for dining

Blackbird Club tiers

If you spend enough with Blackbird throughout the year, you'll get access to higher earning rates and additional benefits via the tiered loyalty program. You get access to higher tiers of the program by spending with Blackbird Pay or preloading money into your Blackbird account to use at checkout (similar to how you can preload money into your Starbucks Rewards account).

Here's a quick breakdown of each tier:

I wouldn't recommend preloading money into Blackbird to hit any of the elite tiers, as that would limit your ability to double-dip with credit card rewards when paying the bill at the restaurant, but if you do spend enough at Blackbird restaurants throughout the year to gain access to elevated earning rates, priority reservations and concierge help, those are all potentially valuable benefits.

The value breakdown

Earning and redeeming with Blackbird is surprisingly straightforward. Depending on your status level, you'll earn between 3 and 7 Fly points per dollar spent, and 100 Fly points equals $1 in spending power toward future Blackbird purchases. That means that even at the free level, you're getting a 3% return on spending, which is on par with a lot of credit card earning rates (and remember, you can also earn credit card points or miles on top of your Blackbird earnings). At the highest member tier, you'll get an impressive 7% return on spending.

Blackbird also offers opt-in challenges that let you earn additional Fly points (including a first-time user challenge) and a referral bonus, making it really easy to get immediate value from the program even after just one purchase.

A concrete example: I spent $45.30 at a Mexican-focused Tacombi location for my first-ever check-in and got 4,095 points total (3 points per dollar spent on the bill, plus a referral bonus and a first-time bonus). Given that points are worth 1 cent each, I had nearly $41 to spend on a future Blackbird Pay bill.

The downsides of Blackbird

I have laid out many of the pros in this article already, but there are also some downsides to consider.

Only nine destinations are currently participating, and within each, only select restaurants are available. In New York City and the other major participating metropolitan areas, like San Francisco and Los Angeles, you'll have plenty of options where you can earn rewards, but even in the Big Apple, the reality is that the majority of restaurants in the city aren't currently on Blackbird. In the Colorado mountain towns where Blackbird operates (Vail, Breckenridge and Aspen), your options for Blackbird are fairly limited.

Another con is that the bill split feature doesn't allow you to itemize. If your friend group tends to share food or split things evenly regardless of itemization, that's not an issue. But if you want to itemize, you'll have to do it the old-fashion way: Pick one person to get the full tab, calculate each person's share separately and then settle via Venmo or Cash App.

Who will find Blackbird most valuable?

Blackbird has the potential to be a really valuable program — but only for the right user. Consider joining if you're:

• A foodie who lives where Blackbird operates. Until Blackbird adds more cities, this program is only valuable to those who eat out often in the nine destinations where Blackbird is currently available.
• Someone who often eats family-style meals and splits the bill with friends. The ability to split the bill directly in the app is a great benefit for friend groups like mine, where everyone wants to earn credit card points and miles on the meal. We tend to split things evenly instead of itemizing, so it works perfectly for us.
• Regularly spending at least $500 on dining a year. Spending $500 per year will get you Member status and an elevated 4 points per dollar spent earning rate. If you also happen to have the Amex Gold, which offers 4 points per dollar spent on dining worldwide (on up to $50,000 per calendar year, then 1 point per dollar), you'll earn a total of 8 points per dollar spent on every qualifying meal.
• An adventurous eater who likes trying a variety of restaurants. With Blackbird, you don't have to commit to being loyal to a single restaurant or chain to earn or redeem rewards.

Bottom line

I love a good travel redemption as much as the next girl, but there's something to be said about an easy way to earn rewards and benefits on an everyday expense like dining. Blackbird is straightforward to use, earns valuable rewards at an array of restaurants and allows me to stack rewards with my credit cards of choice. That's a no-brainer for someone like me who lives in an expensive city like New York and dines out at least once a week with friends.

Know, though, that we've seen this movie before with loyalty programs that offer huge sign-up incentives and high earnings without fees. In some ways, this program feels a little too good to be true to me, and, usually, that means it is too good to be true in the long term. (Looking at you, MoviePass.)

Still, the current earnings are simply too impressive to ignore, so I'm going to make the most of this program while its points are valuable and its earning rates are high, no matter which status I hold. If you sign up for the program, I'd recommend you do the same.