Are they as good as cash at every restaurant listed at that site?
… or is there often fine-print that you either need to research in advance or be prepared to have piss you off if you just show up?
You’ve answered your own question. Read the fine print.
Coupons often have limitations and exclusions, and in the case of chains, the individual franchisee stores may not participate in every promotion. But if the coupons are being legitimately offered by the company redeeming them (that is, it’s not some third party discount system they may not be affiliated with), the coupon should be good for whatever, and at wherever, the face of it says. But some of that “good” may be limited by the fine print… which you should read to find out.
The ones we sell in our store have no strings. You buy a dinner totaling $30 and present the coupon and get a $10 discount.
Yes, like every other coupon in the world they have fine print.
You may be asked to order a certain dollar amount before you can apply the coupon. It might apply only to entrees. It may not apply to liquor. It may be good only certain days of the week. Like this:
But you know what? If you go to restaurant.com and search for restaurants, those restrictions will be right there completely visible and apparent directly under the Add To Cart button, not hidden in any way. If you can’t do that much reading, then they deserve to be pissed off at you.
They don’t work that way at all. go on the website and take a quick one-minute cursory look. You find a listed restaraunt you like, you click on the link, you purchase a coupon for that specific restaurant, you go out to eat, and abide by the fine print.
Huh. I wasn’t aware that the site *sold *the coupons. What a strange, strange concept.
It’s more of a voucher than a coupon…
Sounds like a string does exist, it’s just a not very onerous one. I mean, can you buy $11 and only pay $1?
Some have mandatory gratuity included, usually 18%. That means you are not expected to tip, although extra is always nice.
And if nothing is included, and you want to tip 15%,* make sure that your tip for a $50 dollar meal that you paid $30 for is $10, not $6!!! The coupon does stress this if you read it. The mandatory on some of them is because they’ve been stiffed in the past. I did it once unintentionally, and realized my mistake while halfway home. :headsmack:
*Figure for ease of calculation. I neither condone nor discourage any specific amount. We don’t need that debate, Mr. Pink.
Still. If you think it through, it’s pretty strange. Going to a third party to buy a discount ticket for a merchant… I can’t think of any predecessor. Or, really, why you’d want to pay money for a coupon that’s got restrictions on what you do with it.
Well, Groupon’s made a billion-dollar business of it. And it’s not in the least different from the discount coupon books that local organizations have sold for decades, with the same type of coupons with the same set of restrictions. All Restaurant.com did was nationalize it.
All coupons (should) have terms. Or else you’ll be like Marge Simpson, and have to fork out hundreds of pretzels because some (slack-jawed) yokel clipped a bunch of coupons and you forgot to put “One per customer” on it.
The restaurant gets new business from people who may not have even considered the place. The website gets money, not sure of the kickback. And both are sort of hoping you will put the voucher away and forget about it, like that rebate for the new hard drive that you forgot.
In my experience, the terms are not very predictable, e.g. a specific ethnic-type restaurant can many stipulations, while another may be relatively free. That’s why you read before you buy.
Okay, I’m really out of touch here. Groupon sells their coupons? I thought it was some weird deal where X number of people have to grab a Groupon before it’s good for anyone… clearly, I am living in a trend-free zone.
The difference between Restaurant.com and those “Entertainment Books,” though, is that the latter were straight-out discounts offered by the various businesses so that the collected books could be sold for profit by charities. The publisher got its cut, the charities got their nickels, and the businesses got publicity and business.
Does Restaurant.com just pocket the proceeds, or split them with the restaurants? Either way, that’s an unusual model.
Wouldn’t this come under the new(ish) gift card laws? Or is it under that radar for some loophole reason?
I mean forget about it permanently. Restaurant.com vouchers do not expire, I don’t know if that was always so. So if you stuck it in a drawer for a decade, or accidentally tossed it out, they have your money. So not exactly like rebates, which do expire last I checked.
And I just looked it up, if a restaurant folds, they will refund you (in the form of website credit).
They split them.
Think of it this way, plenty of restaurants offer buy one get one free coupons to bring in new customers. restaurant.com basically just sells you the BOGO coupon with some fine print. The nice thing for the merchant (applies with groupon too) is they know exactly how much sold, how much they made, and how much it may cost. If I print a coupon for my biz I might get no response, I might get 1000 responses. With these sites you know how many you will get.
Looks like my question wasn’t that simple after all …
Here’s the situation: I have a certain number of credits at another website that would allow me to “buy” a $50 certificate from restaurants.com. It appears to be a good deal relative to the other options and the expiration date of those credits.
I have taken a cursory one-minute look at the restaurants.com site to see that there are participating restaurants in the area that I would be interested in. However I won’t be using it any time soon so I haven’t made any effort to see what kind of fine-print exists at any of those establishments at this writing. I would down the road… but for now I thought I could get some general ideas here.
All my restaurant.com coupons have an expiration date of one year.
What will happen is that you will get $50 worth of credit to apply to restaurant.com coupons. So you can get 5 $10 coupons for five specific restaurants or 2 $25 coupons for two specific restaurants or whatever combination you want. But those coupons will be good at only those specific restaurants and subject to all restrictions that the specific restaurants put on.
Just like any other giftcard for any other store. If I have a $50 coupon for Macy’s it’ll be covered with fine print telling me what it doesn’t apply to. This is as universal as it gets.
Not exactly … if I use that Macy’s coupon to buy a sweater and a frying pan I don’t have to do any further research to determine whether I’m allowed to wear the sweater on Thursdays or whether I’m only allowed to fry more than two pieces of bacon at a time.
Thank-you for the helpful part of your response though.
Just make sure that the sweater isn’t an Everyday Value, designer sportswear, or from Impulse, Eileen Fisher, Emporio Armani, Tommy Bahama, Lacoste, Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors or The North Face, and that the frying pan isn’t All-Clad, because those are all exclusions that you need to be aware of with a Macy’s coupon.
A bit of a tangent, here, but lurkinghorror raised it: I wouldn’t classify coupons, vouchers and… whatever these things restaurant.com is selling the same as rebates. Rebates (besides being the spawn of Beelzebub aka the marketing department) are a purchase reward that require the consumer to process and claim, whereas a coupon or voucher is a cash substitute for payment.
Hairsplitting, maybe, and poorly expressed, maybe - it’s Xmas fraggin’ eve, guys - but I can’t help but feel there’s a fundamental difference between the two.