"can you please do an extensive post explaining how restaurant.com works??"
Here is your Friday discussion!
Restaurant.com is a site that coordinates with restaurant owners to offer gift certificates at a discount for us as the customer. I like to think of them more like coupons though then actual gift certificates, because restaurant owners usually put stipulations on these restaurant.com certificates, while regular gift certificates can be used exactly like money.
Sometimes you have to buy at least 2 entrees to use the $25 gift certificate. Other times you just need to buy $20 worth of food if you use the $10 gift certificate. Or buy at least $35 worth of food to use the $25 certificate.
Now when you enter the restaurant.com site you need to enter your zipcode or state on the right hand side to find what restaurants near you are participating. It will automatically pull up the restaurants within a 15 mile range of your zipcode- it will say 14 restaurants within 15 miles. If you want more than that click on the 15 miles and it will drop down and you can search for restaurants up to 30 miles from your zipcode.
Search through and decide which certificate you want. There are usually more than one type offered- such as a $10 certificate or a $25 certificate. Usually I find the $25 certificates are the best deal overall, so that's what I get. Click on the certificate then the green add to cart button. This will then take you to your shopping cart. Enter in your promo code here and then proceed to check out where it will get your card information and register your email for the first time if you haven't registed there yet. They need a place to send your confirmation email with a link to be able to print your certificate. Check your email, click on the link they send you, print off your certificate and go to the restaurant. At the restaurant mention to your waiter that you have a restaurant.com certificate and they will call the number on your paper to validate it, and then will take the total off your bill.
Is that a good comprehensive look at restaurant.com?
Now here's the tricky part that I didn't understand until I actually did it. They have something called the Dinner of the Month Club. You purchase this from the restaurant.com home page. It gives you the choice of purchasing the 3 Month 6 Month or 12 Month Dinner Club options. When you do this you will receive one $25 gift certificate every month for that allotted time. You purchase the 3 month certificate- that means you'll get one $25 certicificate at the same time every month for 3 months, the 6 month one $25 certificate for 6 months, etc. The awesome part about this is they also offer incentives for you to buy this. Meaning that if you buy the 3 month dinner of the month club you'll get a free $10 certificate thrown in, the 6 month has a free $25 certificate thrown in and the 12 month has a free $50 certificate thrown in! This also means you don't have to be locked down to one restaurant to choose from right when you purchase the certificate- which allows you to take advantage of a 70% or 80% off code because you don't have to choose what restaurant to use it with until the next month.
When you purchase the Dinner of the Month Club- you redeem it like any other certificate by going into your account and clicking on dinner of the month club and then activate- and it will email you your first $25 certificate.
I love using this when we're out of town too. All we do is enter the new city's zipcode, find what kind of food we want to eat, print off our certificate and enjoy!
One last thing. The certificates expire one year from the date of purchase, so make sure to use them before then. The exception being the Dinner of the Month Club, that one just needs to be activated by one year from purchase. Remember to always go through Cashbaq for 20% back or Ebates for 15% back to get an even better deal! (And you get $5 right off the bat for signing up with each of them if you haven't yet!)
Good luck and remember the 70% off code is FEAST!
I live way far away from most of these restaurants included on the site so the few times I've gone to do it, either the restaurant had discontinued the deal with restaurant.com, the restaurant actually wasn't there any more, or the restaurant had a better deal or promo going on, for a large group and my mom was paying, so I didn't use the coupon in the end. I'm rarely in SLC where most of these restaurants in Utah are, so I never use them! I don't want to waste them! What do you think I should do?
ReplyDeleteIt looks like restaurant.com isn't fitting your needs for right now. I've never heard of a store discontinuing the deal with restaurant.com- that would be the restaurants fault for not honoring their agreement, and a better deal or promo than $25 off of $35? I'm not usually aware of those promos! However they are constantly adding new restaurants and even a few months ago there was only 1 restaurant in Utah county and now there are 4. I would just periodically check back and once there are restaurants closer to you try again. It really is a very reputable company with great savings and I absolutely love it, so maybe it will be something that works for you in the future rather than right now. Have you seen the Smokehouse Pizza and BBQ grill, and Gloria's Little Italy in Provo though? Those were more recently added, and might help to be a little closer to your house. And if you go on vacation to any big city, it really helps your eating out budget.
ReplyDeleteBut of course it's always better to not spend $2 or $3 on a really cheap gift certificate that you're never going to use. :)
ReplyDelete