Franchessa M.

I used restaurants.com to redeem points from another site, so I didn't actually put any money into them. If it wasn't for the fact that my points were stuck I probably wouldn't have used them at all. They do have most of their fine print listed before you purchase the certificates, but it's a little confusing. You can't use for than one certificate at a time, you have to spend a certain amount of money at the restaurant to use the certificate, and they aren't always available for the listed places. I bough two $10 certificates for pizza, but wanted saw I could exchange them if I wanted and I found a place I'd never been and wanted to try. That process was reasonable, but still a bit confusing and the customer service person was helpful enough. Apparently you have to enter new codes from the exchange to get the money back into your account. Anyways, I now had two $10 certificates to two different pizza places. I tried to use one this past weekend and it was mess. First, you can't use the online ordering method, which means asking a million questions over the phone about pizza prices and most of the online specials aren't available. But apparently that isn't a big deal because you can't use them on the specials at all. The certificate itself is a discount so it can't be applied to any other discounts. It does in fact say that in small print on the bottom of the certificate, though I'm not sure where it was listed before I purchased the certificate. But I was determined to use it and eventually, with the help of a couple dedicated employees I got something that I probably could have gotten for about the same price with their current specials. The boron line is these certificates aren't the same as gift cards. They're coupons. Restaurant.com is selling over priced coupons worn all of the restrictions of coupons and none of the ease of gift cards. Don't do it!