Let’s say you’ve got reservations at a restaurant where it is VERY difficult to score a table. Let’s further say that you want to make a buck or two off the deal. Can you legally sell your reservation, like on ebay or something?
***The reason I ask is this: the toughest reservations to score at Walt Disney World are reservations for breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table, a restaurant inside Cinderella’s Castle at the Magic Kingdom. You have to call at exactly 7:00 AM Orlando time 90 days ahead of the day you want to eat there, and if you’re even a few seconds late, you’re SOL. I tried to score some reservations yesterday for October 8th and waited on hold for half an hour before my phone shut off :smack: .
The legal question here, I think, is whether reserving a table constitutes an implied contract between you and the restaurant which entitles you to demand usage of the table at the designated time. If so, it might be possible for you to convey this right to another person by contracting with them. But I guess there’s simply no contract obliging the restaurant to anything in a legal sense; you can’t force the restaurant to let the table to you at the specified time, although, for obvious reasons, they usually do.
I think there are at least two questions involved when you ask “Is this contract legal?”
Firstly, is it a criminal offense to enter into such a contract? For example, it is doubtless criminal in most jurisdictions, on several grounds, to enter into a contract to pay an under-age partnmer to have sex with you. If the police catch you doing that, then you are likely to do time in jail. However, a contract to sell a restaurant reservation is probably not illegal.
Secondly, will the courts enforce the contract? That is, will a court order performance of the contract, or give damages for breach of contract? I don’t see any problem in principlec with acourt enforcing such a contract, except if it intrinsically involves fraud on a third party (i.e., turning up at the restaurant and giving someone else’s namee to secure their reservation). However, fraud does not seem to me inherent – you might say, “My name is Smith, and my friend Jones made a reservation here which he can’t come for, so I want to use his reservation,” and if the restaurant accepted that, there would be no problem.
One thing that I failed to mention is that the WDW restaurant in question gives you a six-digit confirmation number to use when checking in. So a seller could sell the rights to his table AND the confirmation number.
Agreed that it’s a risky option for both the seller and the buyer to make a transaction for what is esentially information. Now if the restaurant gave diners printed vouchers…
Also - I don’t think this concept is as ridiculous as it seems. Mammahomie told me about a restaurant in New Orleans (Gallatoire’s, I believe) that has a Christmas brunch that is in such high demand that diners have been to known to pay homeless people to wait in line as much as 24 hours to secure reservations for them.
An enterprising person could wait in line without a sponsor, secure the reservations, and then sell them to the highest bidder. I guess kinda like ticket scalping.
With scalping, the first person buys tickets, then sells them for a higher price, thereby making a profit that should rightly go to the venue.
In this case, the first person makes reservations (for $0), then sells them at a higher price (>$0), thereby making a profit they don’t really deserve.
This is already being done here in NYC. There was an article about the guy who started a business hording and selling prime resaurant reservations in the NY Times several months back, I believe. I don’t recall there being an legal issues with the practice.
If the venue had wanted that profit, they would have sold the tickets at a higher price in the first place. By purposefully trying to price tickets below actual market value, the venue gives that extra profit margin away and creates circumstances that allow for scalpers to thrive. Scalpers annoy me, but popular acts that sell out in 3 minutes to the lucky few with fast net connections and lucky timing on phone calls because the tickets were offered for far too cheap annoy me even more.
I don’t think there is any requirement that the person making the reservation give their own name or actually show up to eat. If that were so, how would secretaries and concierges make dinner reservations for their bosses and patrons? Nor do I think the name given must be that of an actual diner. If that were so, how would resturaunt critics give anonymous reviews?
Dopefests are commonly held at resturaunts and the reservation is traditionally made under the name of Cecil Adams. AFAIK, Cecil has never actually shown up at a Dopefest, but no one has ever suggested we committed some sort of fraud.
I doubt very much that a reservation creates any legal obligation whatsoever. It appears to be simply an informal, non-binding agreement between the resturaunt and the client. The resturaunt is therefore free to honor or refuse to honor any reservation for any non-discriminatory reason whatsoever. Some resturaunts may take measures to discourage selling of reservations, if it becomes problematic, in a situation like the one stuyguy mentioned (though from what he wrote, it doesn’t look like the resturaunts mind). In most situations, however, I imagine the resturaunts will serve whoever shows up to claim the reservation, rather than offend guests and have an empty table.
The only reason I could imagine selling resrvations would be illegal is if the seller implies that he can deliver something he can’t, such as an obligation on the part of the resturaunt to honor the reservation.
Or to sell you a reservation he doesn’t actually have? “Aaaaaand here’s your six-digit confirmation number.” - “123456?” - “I know, what are the odds? Enjoy your dinner.”
If I recall correctly, WDW now requires a credit card guarantee to make reservations at Cinderella’s Royal Table. The name on the reservation and the name on the credit card must match, and no changes are allowed once the reservation is made. This is, I believe, in response to a scheme similar to the OP’s idea hatched a few years back.
Len
Director - Data Collection and Field Research
“The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World” by Bob Sehlinger
Have you met Mr. Sehlinger? Sometimes the prose in that book comes off a little, err, like that of a theater critic (for lack of a better choice of words). What’s Mr. Sehlinger like in person?
