Meituan + US Credit Cards: Full Guide to Reliable Dining Multipliers With No Fees

About Meituan

Meituan is not just a food-delivery platform. It also merged with Dianping and now supports a wide range of services—probably both the ones you would expect and the ones you would not. On the high end, you can book flights, hotels, and high-speed rail tickets. On the everyday end, you can buy restaurant vouchers, book foot massage and spa services, order flowers, or purchase dining discount vouchers. It covers almost every part of daily life. Meituan now also offers Meituan Instashopping, so you can buy just about anything there—even a phone.

You can directly add a US credit card in Meituan for payment, and Meituan purchases can trigger dining bonus categories on credit cards. For example, Citi Strata Elite earns 6x on dining, and Chase Sapphire Reserve earns 3x on dining. Best of all, there is no extra payment fee, even for transactions over ￥200. That is far better than WeChat Pay and Alipay, which directly charge 3% on amounts above ￥200. Meituan has both the Meituan app and the Meituan Waimai app, and here we focus on how to use a US credit card inside the Meituan app.

Of course, you can also use Meituan inside a WeChat mini program or jump from the Meituan app to WeChat Pay, then use a US credit card through WeChat Pay (supporting VISA/Master/Amex/Discover/JCB). However, that will not trigger the credit card’s own bonus category multipliers.

• Complete Guide to WeChat Pay + US Credit Cards + Risk Control System Overview

Linking a US Credit Card to Meituan

Both Meituan (the all-in-one app) and Meituan Waimai (delivery-focused) support adding foreign-issued Visa, Master, and Discover credit cards. In either app, go to “Wallet” and then add a bank card:

Where You Can Use It

Currently supported payment scenarios include all food delivery, some non-delivery services such as foot massage and bodywork, and some offline QR-code payment scenarios. Charges usually post as MEITUAN, with the category coded as Food & Drink—simple and straightforward. That makes cards with dining multipliers worth considering, such as CSP/CSR/Citi Premier/Citi Strata Elite.

• Food delivery: basically all of it. In some areas, the WeChat mini program still cannot use foreign credit cards, but the Meituan app itself does not have that problem. The only limitation is that it only accepts Visa/Master/Discover.
• General services: for example, the foot massage and bodywork services shown in the image, plus flower delivery and similar services.
• Offline QR payments: Meituan currently does not support many offline QR payment scenarios, but some restaurant voucher purchases do work. There is also one use case you might not expect: Meituan Bike. It really does support using a VISA/Master credit card inside the Meituan app, so do not miss it if you need it.

Here are a few larger-ticket purchases worth highlighting:

• Flights: you can search directly inside Meituan. The price difference versus other platforms is usually only a few yuan or a few dozen yuan, which is trivial compared with 6x dining rewards (nearly 9% back). Recently, however, I found that if the charge posts as Meituan Travel, the category is travel, but CSR only earned 1x.

• High-speed rail: the app can directly link to 12306, and then you can buy high-speed rail tickets normally. The charge posts as a Meituan purchase and counts as dining.

Merchant Category

I have used Chase Sapphire Reserve for a long time, and it has consistently earned 3x. Whether buying vouchers or ordering delivery, it reliably earns 3x.

Click in to see more detail:

One thing to note is that Meituan charges can post in several different ways:

• Meituan (Beijing): dining category. Most purchases post this way and can trigger US credit card dining multipliers.
• Meituan Dianping Beijing: services category. So far I have only seen this for Meituan ride-hailing purchases, and it does not trigger dining multipliers.
• Meituan Travel: can appear for flight bookings and may trigger travel multipliers, such as on CSP.

Which Cards to Use on Meituan

Citi Strata Premier/Elite

Both of these cards offer solid rewards on dining, especially Citi Strata Elite, which earns 6x points during certain time windows on Friday and Saturday nights. Valuing ThankYou Points at 1.5 cents per point, that is equivalent to 9% back. It also has no foreign transaction fee, so you can use it with confidence. One useful trick is to buy vouchers, flights, and hotels during that time window (remember to calculate based on US Eastern Time: Friday and Saturday from 6 PM to 6 AM), so you can lock in 6x on the card. At other times it is only 3x. Meituan Instashopping also works, so you can buy almost anything there.

Here are the card details:

Chase Sapphire Preferred/Reserve

Chase Sapphire Reserve also earns 3x on dining. At a value of 1.5 cents per point, that is effectively 4.5% back. It also has no foreign transaction fee, so it is safe to use.

Discover Cards

Meituan now supports Discover and Diners Club credit cards as well. HT: Daye. Meituan charges should still mostly code as dining, and all Discover credit cards have no foreign transaction fee and no annual fee, which is excellent:

• Discover it (5% on dining in quarterly bonus categories, first-year cashback match for 10%, plus $100 welcome bonus)
• Discover Miles (1.5% on all purchases, first-year cashback match for 3%, plus $100 welcome bonus)

If you have trouble maxing out Discover’s quarterly 5x/5% dining category, Meituan is a great way to use it. And since Discover cards naturally have no foreign transaction fee and decent exchange rates, they are a great fit for Meituan.

Other Cards

AMEX cards cannot be added directly to Meituan. And if you route AMEX through WeChat Pay or Alipay, you will not inherit Meituan’s dining category coding.

HSBC Elite seems like it may work, but this card is fairly niche and I have not personally tested it.

Risk Control and Fraud on Meituan

So far, I have had no issues using Meituan with US credit cards. I have seen reports online of risk-control reviews. If that happens, you can contact customer service and upload a photo of yourself holding the card.

Fraud used to be a fairly serious issue on Meituan. Supposedly there was a data leak at one point and many cards were used fraudulently. As a result, Meituan changed how it stores cards: now every purchase requires you to enter the card’s expiration date and CVV before it can be used. My guess is that they are worried about data leaks and therefore simply no longer store those two pieces of information.

Summary

Using a US credit card on Meituan is extremely convenient and rewarding. Especially when you return to China, you should link a US credit card that is well suited for Meituan purchases. It can cover most of your dining, entertainment, and daily spending in China, so you rarely need cash, WeChat Pay, or Alipay. Best of all, with Citi Strata Elite, flights, hotels, dining, activities, and Instashopping purchases can all earn 6x points, which makes it an amazing card for trips back to China. Even if you cannot use it yourself, family in China can still use it to buy vouchers and more, and getting around 9% back is excellent.