Restaurant.com is there a catch??

[SumWhrOvrThRanBo]

Are the certificates that you purchase & print out from restaurant.com legitimate? Is there a catch? Can I use more than one at a time?

One of my favorite local restaurants is offering $25 certificates for $10 through restaurant.com & I also have a promo code for 30% off. That means we will be eating a $50 meal for $14!! Wow! Really?

Has anyone used this service without any hassle?

Thanks!

 

[Candace]

Are the certificates that you purchase & print out from restaurant.com legitimate? Is there a catch? Can I use more than one at a time?

One of my favorite local restaurants is offering $25 certificates for $10 through restaurant.com & I also have a promo code for 30% off. That means we will be eating a $50 meal for $14!! Wow! Really?

Has anyone used this service without any hassle?

Thanks!

I am not sure you can combine the 30% off with your $25 GC. I have had good luck with the GC, but I have also had restaurants tell me they are no longer accepting them, and I would have to contact Restaurant.com to refund my money. Too much of a hassle for that, but most places will accept.

 

[crayon3448]

Many times if you buy a $25 GC, there will be a minimum $35 purchase you have to make at the restaurant. When we used to eat out, we had used them, but we didn't save that much money in the end, I think, because we just end up ordering more than we would have- but that was just for me and DH, no kids. If you usually spend over $35 when you go to a restaurant then they are worth it. But really you would just be saving $15 if your meal is $50, which is still a good deal.

If you sign up for them to send you e-mails, you can also get coupon codes that are 70-80% off, at least you used to be able to, I haven't done it in a few years.

The only time I think they are worth it FOR US is on vacation- we got some when we took a weekend trip to Washington DC and it worked out great.

 

[sachiiiii]

I recently purchased a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant for $4 on Restaurant.com. I haven't used it yet, but I have used gift certificates from this site at this same restaurant with no problem. I've never tried to combine it with another discount though.
If you're really worried you could either call the restaurant or ask them on their Facebook page if they will honor it.

 

[rdsx28]

I have also used them in the past without a problem. Read the fine print some have restrictions like they can only be used certain days and not on specials etc. You usually have to spend a certain amount for the certificate to be applied. You can only use 1 per party. Also just be sure to check that the restaurants are still accepting them. I have seen some places with notes on the door saying they no longer take them or some may even be out of business. All in all it's a good experience if there's a place you like to dine.

 

[SpartanMommy]

DH and I have used them many times and have never had any problems. They have saved us lots of money at some of our favorite restaurants! I agree with pp about reading the fine print. Some restaurants have limitations on which nights you can use the coupon and how much you need to spend.

 

[suprgrlx]

I haven't personally used them, but according to Mousesavers, they're definitely legit:

http://www.mousesavers.com/restaurant-com-discount-dining-certificates/

They also seem to be pretty heavy with the fine print - so I'd try to read as much as you can. I would be surprised if you could use 2 of the $25 certificates at once (in fact, the link above says 1 per restaurant per month).

So if you were to buy one of the gift certificates with this condition "Minimum purchase of $50. 18% gratuity added prior to discount when full table service provided.", then you'd have to spend $50+18% = $59 then deduct your gift certificate (savings of $25(gift certificate value) - $7(purchase price) = $18) which would mean that your out of pocket expenses would be $41. If you spent the minimum of $50. So if you regularly go to this restaurant and spend $50 and tip in that vicinity, you'll save $18 every time you do so with one of restaurant.com certificates.

At least, that's my understanding of it.

 

[dawnn12]

we use them all the time. the company is great to deal with(one rest. closed before i could use it and they gave me a credit on my acct so when a rest. i wanted came up i got that one) usually you can not combine the rest. com coupons with other coupons and some have restriction(you have to spend $35 without alcohol or one rest. had can only be used mon-thurs) you can see the restrictions before you buy it. if you sign up for the emails they will send out discount codes(i used one the other day and got a $25 for $2 or 3) hope this helps any questions let me know

 

[pixiewings71]

Use them without issue all the time, but make sure you read the details, as a PP said it's normally $25 off a $35 order so you still have to pay more. Alcohol doesn't usually count and most restaurants will add an 18% gratuity to your total.

 

[mjkacmom]

As pp mentioned, read the fine print. They usually come down in price by the end of the month - sign up for emails, and buy when a $25 is only $2.

 

[Sagginit]

yup i have used them on vacation in vegas and they worked well. read the terms and conditions, if you usually tip 15% and get a few drinks and that is excluded, you may just end up ordering more food to try to use it so its not a deal. in our case we bought $50 ones for the expensive places.

also if you see a code for one denomination it is always worth a try for another one. for ex. when i got the $50 ones the code out was for $25 ones, but it worked so i got them for $4 each.

 

[kgsmith]

I'm happy to see that so many DISers have had good experiences with restaurant.com. Me, not so much. Just make sure to call the restaurant before you try to use the certificates, to make sure they will honor them. I stopped buying them a while ago -- I got burned three times. The restaurants said they no longer wanted to be a part of restaurant.com, but restaurant.com continued selling certificates for their restaurants. It was a huge hassle to get my money back from restaurant.com.

The certificates were great when they worked!

 

[brownierose]

I used for $25 off at shulas and it was accepted.

 

[MrsPete]

We've bought these a couple times, and we've received them as gifts rather frequently.

I'll second what others have said: Read the fine print. Sometimes these coupons are good only Sunday-Thursday, sometimes they're no good on holidays, alcohol is usually excluded from the total, and usually you have a total bill of X amount. We've never found these restrictions to be unacceptable, but you should pay attention.

And I'll add: We've "lost" a couple times with these gift certificates. We often buy these for travel, and once we were unable to find the restaurant -- found the address, but nothing was there. Once (same trip) we discovered that the restaurant was a seedy-looking bar, and we choose to go elsewhere. A couple times the restaurant has gone out of business or has stopped accepting the certificates.

I'd estimate we have a 20% failure rate with the certificates, a percentage I think is entirely too high. Admittedly, when we've received these as gifts, we haven't always rushed right out to use them; clearly, we're at some fault ourselves when we let them sit for months.

The bottom line is that you can save with these, but you won't be eating a $50 meal for $14. It's more likely you'll buy the gift certificate for $14, then you'll be required to spend $100 . . . so you'll probably get a $100 meal for $64. Or you'll decide to go with a $25 certificate for $7, and you'll end up with a $50 meal for $32.

 

[mel&me]

Have used them a bunch of times.
Like others have said, get there emails with discount
bought several times over the last few years and get $25 GC for
$2 or $4. Never had one refused anywhere I used.
Did have a couple times a restaurant stop accepting before we printed to use,
restaurants.com gave a credit to my account for those. They did that automatically
I never contacted them. I logged on they listed as no longer valid and gave credit.

 

[mgpan]

I am not sure you can combine the 30% off with your $25 GC. I have had good luck with the GC, but I have also had restaurants tell me they are no longer accepting them, and I would have to contact Restaurant.com to refund my money. Too much of a hassle for that, but most places will accept.

Bought certificate on a Tuesday, went to Restaurant on a Friday. Restaurant says they no longer accept and have tried repeatedly to get rest.xxx to stop selling them to no avail. I had to argue quite loudly to get the restaurant to accept. From now on i'll call restaurant before buying to make sure they will still accept.

 

[danygirl]

It is best if you think of them as coupons, not gift certificates, I have encountered a lot of rules for them. My DD and I used one at a place near us, turns out that they put an automatic 18% gratuity on the meal if you use the restaurants.com gift certificate. This is great if the service is awesome, but that night the service was BAD, there was only one other table of customers, and the waiter gave my the wrong bill and basically ignored me the rest of the night. We couldn't get drink refills, etc. I only noticed because the other bill was much higher because they all had drinks.

I have used them other places with no problems.

A side note, every place i have used the restaurant.com certificate also participates in the upromise dining program. I think I would have made out better at the one place if I had just put the whole thing on the credit card linked to upromise, my savings would have been about the same and maybe the staff would have treated me better.

 

[MrsPete]

I can see why they add an 18% tip onto the bill: Say the waitress serves you $100 of food, but since you have a $50 gift certificate, you only pay $50. You should tip her on the total cost of the meal ($100) because she delivered it all, but a whole lot of people will tip her only on what they actually paid ($50).

Yeah, it stinks on the off-chance that you encounter bad service, but I do understand why they do it.

 

[Princess Disney Mom]

I stopped using them. One place said they no longer accepted them. Another treated us so bad. My daughter has autism and was about to have a full blown tantrum. We were almost finished eating and just wanted a box to pack up what we had not finished and get her out ASAP. They said No since we used a restaurant.com coupon. We wrapped the leftover pizza in napkins and never went there again nor purchase the gift certificates anymore.

By the way look for a coupon code as you can often get the gift cards for much less than $10 b

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[pixiewings71]

I'm happy to see that so many DISers have had good experiences with restaurant.com. Me, not so much. Just make sure to call the restaurant before you try to use the certificates, to make sure they will honor them. I stopped buying them a while ago -- I got burned three times. The restaurants said they no longer wanted to be a part of restaurant.com, but restaurant.com continued selling certificates for their restaurants. It was a huge hassle to get my money back from restaurant.com.

The certificates were great when they worked!

I've never had a problem, we had 1 place that was going to stop accepting them but we were regulars there and they told us before hand and they said they would honor them until we didn't have any more. (because we go there so regularly I had purchased about 10 certificates) I've logged on to my account and had a message from rest.com that XXXX didn't accept the certificates anymore so I had a credit on my account, I currently have 3 credits available for future certificates.
I didn't ask for my money back though, perhaps that's the difference.