<p>Hi,</p>
<p>What is the discount (if any) of using dining dollars over cash? Trying to figure out if I should buy S2 a small meal plan for lunches. He has really long days M-Th and no time to get back to his apt for lunch.</p>
<p>Is there a monetary incentive for buying a "plan"? Or is ChicFilA exactly the same either way?</p>
<p>As I understand, there is no benefit to using dining dollars. The restaurant prices are the same for cash as it is for dining dollars. You do pay the sales tax up front on the dining dollars. I did notice that the price for each $100 in dining dollars on meal plans only increases cost by $95. So I guess you get $5.</p>
<p>Not all eating places on campus take dining dollars (at least they haven’t in the past) nor are all the nearby eating places on campus (Northgate is directly across the street from many buildings). Best bet is cash or we give our kids credit cards to use. Benefit to credit cards: cash back bonus, you can track where they spend their money, and you know where your kids are by where the purchases are made & when…accountability is sometimes a good thing. Great lesson to teach : how to use a credit card responsibly. </p>
<p>oops sorry allthisisnewtome, you probably knew all that since you are on Aggie #2…</p>
<p>AGmomx2, I had not considered Northgate - that is a great point! The upside would be that it’s super-easy to take the price of the meal plan out of the 529s. Now I’m waffling again, darn it! :-). </p>