Good Morning out there! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We had some really great family time, including a fantastic afternoon in New Hope, PA yesterday.
While we were in New Hope, we used up one of our gift certificates that I purchased during the last round of 80% off restaurant.com promos! It was so deliciously easy to use, and the food was SO GOOD! Here’s how it played out:
I bought a $25 gift cert for $2. I paid with Paypal and printed out my certificate. It expires 1 year after the purchase date.
We went to the restaurant. The specifications on this certificate were: not valid on alcohol, must spend minimum of $35, 18% gratuity added to bill.
We ordered about $37 worth of food: 1 soda, huge chicken nacho platter, huge calamari, and we each got a big pub burger with fries.
Bill came: $37 food, plus 18% gratuity ($6.91)= total of $45.xx, minus $25 gift cert.
Total: $20.92 for EVERYTHING. Keep in mind, I paid $2 for the gift cert.
SO, $22.92 for: HUGE meal AND TIP! (we had so much food we ended up taking the entire nacho platter home!!) I was so happy and satisfied with the gift certificate to restaurant.com- It’s basically like getting a meal for 50% off (or better).
I just bought a certificate, and thought, heck, if I am getting 70% off, why not buy a $50 certificate? I didn’t realize that you have to have a bill of $100 to qualify to use it! So, I spent $6 on the certificate, then I will have to shell out another $50! That is $56, which I hadn’t planned on having to spend. Plus an 18% tip on top of the $100, which would be another $18. That means I would have spent at least $74 to save a measly $26. Read the fine print, folks, make sure you don’t have a high $ requirement. I will be better off writing off the $6 and cooking at home!
Yes – you must read the fine print on every certificate b/c restaurants vary. That’s why I state in my post that the cert that I bought required a $35 minimum purchase plus tax. When I buy a $25 cert for $2, that usually comes to about $16-$18 out of pocket total for an entire meal and tip. I only ever get the $50/buy $100 certs for really nice restaurants/special dinner dates.
If you spent $100+ $18 for tip, you’d actually save $44. $118 bill … you’d spend $74 ($50 food + $18 tip + $6 for cert).. and save $44 ($118 bill – $74). For a nice dinner out, that’s actually a really great discount, in my opinion. That’s 37% off including tip.
Also, remember that restaurants CHOOSE to participate in restaurant.com. They get absolutely nothing out of it, except your patronage. They do not see a single dime from restaurant.com – not even that $6 that you paid for your cert. So they are giving away, in your case, $50 of free food.. just to get you in the door. In other words, it’s understandable that they would have a minimum purchase requirement – or else they’d go out of business.
I highly recommend getting a $25 cert for a restaurant that requires a $35 minimum purchase. That’s way less out of pocket for a nice casual dinner out.
I bought several Restaurant.com certificates once when they were $2 and then tried to use our first one and when we sat down at the restaurant the waitress noticed that we had a certificate on our table and immediately said “we stopped taking Restaurant.com certificates last month.” I didn’t think they could just decide to stop taking those certificates once people bought them. Makes me afraid to try any of the others I got or to buy more again. It’s a great deal if the restaurants you buy them for will honor them.
Whoa – that is not right at ALL. I can understand that a restaurant might decide to stop participating – but I don’t see why they wouldn’t continue to accept previously purchased certificates. I’m really sorry that you went through this experience.
If I were you, I would try to contact restaurant.com. Explain the situation and ask if they can at least credit you for some new certs to a new restaurant(s).