Chase Dining: Premium

Goal

Create a new competitive capability in the premium card ecosystem: a dining product that turns a compliance obligation into a retention lever and lifestyle differentiator. Now: integrate new stakeholders into a standard of operational excellence while executing strategic wins on the current platform and defining the next iteration.

Problem

Every major card issuer was investing in lifestyle benefits to justify premium annual fees. Dining — the most frequent lifestyle spend category — was being treated as a compliance line item, not a product. No dedicated team, no creative vision, no engagement loop. Benefits without discovery equal low utilization, and low utilization weakens the retention case.

The opportunity: define what premium dining means inside a card relationship. Not another white-label platform — an editorial point of view paired with genuine utility that competitors can't replicate.

Customer Promise

"Your card gets you to the table — and the table is worth getting to."

Constraints

• Tech: Multiple partner APIs with different data models and integration patterns.
• Partner: Editorial partner independence must be preserved — they're taste, not a vendor.
• Compliance: Card benefit terms must be accurate and auditable.
• Time: Greenfield — rare opportunity, but small dedicated team built from scratch.

Options Considered

1. Option A: License a white-label dining platform. Fast but undifferentiated.
2. Option B: Build a bespoke product at the editorial × reservation intersection. Slower, defensible.
3. Option C: Expand the existing travel team's scope to include dining. Free, but dining would never be prioritized.

Decision

Option B. Build dedicated. The intersection of editorial taste and reservation utility creates something competitors can't replicate — because neither partner is available to them.

This required building a team from zero, but the strategic moat justified the investment. Dining becomes a product, not a compliance checkbox.

Metrics

• Primary: Benefit discovery and repeat engagement — the signal that dining was becoming a retention lever, not a dormant perk.
• Guardrails: Partner satisfaction, reservation completion, editorial integrity — protecting the quality of the moat.
• Strategic: Category ownership through exclusive integration — a capability competitors cannot assemble.

Risks & Mitigations

• Small team limits velocity → Mitigation: ruthless scope control. V1 = reservation + editorial content only.
• Partner misalignment on priorities → Mitigation: embedded product liaison in both partner orgs.

What Changed

• A compliance obligation became a strategic value pillar — dining shifted from operational line item to competitive differentiator in the premium card portfolio.
• Exclusive partnerships created a capability moat that competitors cannot replicate because neither partner is available to them.
• A dedicated team was built from zero with the mandate, culture, and operating model to own the category long-term.
• Now leading stakeholder integration and operational maturity — executing well-identified strategic wins on the current platform while crafting the specification for its next iteration.