Restaurant.com

Most of the reviewers with negative comments below apparently have difficulty navigating a web page. Any certificate that ends up not being used (for objective or subjective reasons) can be exchanged for a different restaurant for a "gift card" that can be used at a later date. My experience has been mostly positive, in that restaurants have accepted the certificates and wait staff has been cordial (you might remind wait staff that they are still getting tipped on the non-discounted amount if they seem grumpy about the certificate). You'd tip 15% anyway, and that extra 3% some restaurants reportedly add as "mandatory" typically doesn't add up to much - certainly not enough to whine and moan about publicly to one's own embarrassment. We've had a couple of last-minute changes of plans, and simply exchanged the certificate for something else.
That said, after getting a few certificates on special from, e.g., groupon, we haven't found opportunity to use them due to all the restrictions and most nearby participating restaurant options being a bit sketchy. I haven't yet found a way to get a refund, however.
In all, "meh" would be my review. When I've used the certificates I've saved at least 25% on the tab.

I have no complaint about the certificates and their redemption, but the website is very poorly managed. My account lists some available certificates that I have long ago used, as well as restaurants that have gone out of business. It is disappointing to go to the location of the restaurant for which I have a certificate, only to find it no longer exists, and it's not just that it moved to another location. Some of those defunct restaurants continue to be in the list of restaurants for which I can select to redeem my certificates.

Check ahead to make sure restaurant still honors, website is persnickety, customer service meh. I use them when I travel, for an adventure out of my an a few local places in my neighborhood. Some of them ARE very nice quaint restaurants.

I've used them for years. I'll skip the obvious stuff and give the bits that may not be obvious.

The fact that their coupons never expire is great. That means that you have to keep track of them and exchange them, but if you persevere, once you have a pool of coupons you can stop buying any and just move around your credits.

Always check that the restaurant will accept the coupon in advance. I can't tell you how many times I have found a neat restaurant, bought and printed a coupon, and headed there during its stated business hours to find a vacant building (the restaurant failed a year ago), or been told by a sneering host that "they don't take those things any more". I'm not a restaurant, but I've heard they pressure the restaurants pretty hard, and it is a better deal for the consumer than for the restaurant past the early days where the restaurant is new and needs to promote.

Their web site is terrible. In theory it is well-thought out, but is often too slow to use, or just buggy. If it works, great, it can do almost anything to help you organize your coupons or find restaurants. Open one window there, another with Yelp, and go research your area for bargains.

Watch the fine print. Holidays, no way. If it says you have to spend $50 to use a $25 coupon, does that include what you spent on your drinks? Probably not. Watch if it only for dinner, or doesn't apply for specials. Read the restrictions very carefully, And watch your bill, in some cases they add the tip in, and if you aren't careful you can tip twice.

But overall, if you are careful and methodical, it's great.

There are some great deals on this site/app. I've used many restaurant.com deals successfully but a few months ago I went to try to use one and the owner for the restaurant said they don't accept them and didn't give restaurant.com permission to create them. I emailed restaurant.com about it 5 times and received no reply. Their app is incredibly glitchy and even their site doesn't work when I try to complete transactions sometimes. If you can get restaurant.com to work, it will usually produce good results but if you have a problem, you're on your own. Great deals, HORRIBLE customer service.

Never had a problem personally. Some of the "restaurants" on there, though, are dive bars, sleazy night clubs and bowling alleys. Ugh. Couldn't pay me to eat there, probably safer not to. Not the web site's fault, I guess, as far as who wants to participate, BUT when you're browsing for a date night place or decent dinner you may mistakenly think that some of the places on here are appropriate for that when they aren't. I wouldn't set foot in some of these places for fear of my safety, let alone order food. Just know or research the place you're buying a certificate for before purchasing. Also, disappointingly a lot of the decent places don't accept promo codes (the ones where u get them for $2) so the deals they email you all the time, and I mean ALL THE TIME (annoyingly often), are basically unusable since the places I'd actually go don't accept them. You can still buy them discounted, but not 98% off or whatever the promo code discount is. This is the experience in my area, at least.

Real good savings if you can actually redeem. The issue is that a lot of the coupons go expired quickly and sometimes the restaurants won't take them during peak hours. You need to ask them prior to arriving if they accept. If you can use the coupon, then use this all the time because the savings are amazing.

Went to 3 Sheets at Sorrento Quay on Friday night, they weren't taking any more bookings so we took a chance and walked in and they managed to seat us - four people. Sorry to say that it was a little disapointing and not up to their usual standard. The service at the bar was good, size of wine was generous. The food arrived pretty quick considering they were busy. The Thai beef noodle salad was mediocre with soggy mixed salad leaves and very little rice noodle - not worth the $25 price and would have been nicer if the beef was warmed not cold. The rump steak was a bit tough but was cooked as requested to medium rare, the Halumi burger, Arincini and pizza were good. While we were eating four different wait staff came to top up the cutlery and serviettes at the table and several others passed by our table on their way to the kitchen yet not one of them stopped to ask how our meals were nor did they ask when they cleared our plates from the table (I find that very unusual). Three of us had a Simmo's icecream form their icecream cart which we had takeaway and it tasted like it had been in the freezer for a while. We come here fairly often and up until now have always had a good experience, would probably try somewhere else next time.

First, and maybe repeating others some, a few tips on using their coupons. 1)Make sure you're getting the spammish-emails giving you the constant 70%-80% off codes. Perhaps you'll need to buy one coupon to get on the list. 2) Look into accessing rdotcom through "mrrebates dot com" (Mr. Rebates). Use them and at this point you get an additional 30% off what you get charged by r.com, though the refund process does take some time. 3) *Always* take the time to call the restaurants themselves to ask if they (still) honor the coupons. *Always* call again if you're making a return visit, too. 4)Look at the fine print carefully, and click through to the "terms and conditions," some of the restrictions are shown there rather than on the "buy a coupon" pages.

Second, if you do wind up with coupons to a place that's closed or stopped honoring the coupons, *do* call r.com and ask for a credit. They'll email you a link that makes it pretty painless to redeem the credit with a normal search process for a new place to eat at. I bought a *bunch* of coupons early on, not realizing that the discounts keep coming constantly, so have saved up a couple of batches of unusable coupons and found it very easy to re-set the system. There's been no problem, either, switching to even a $25 coupon listed as costing $15 or $20 after originally getting one for $10 (minus 80%, minus 30%= $1.40 actually).

My wife and I have had no problems to speak of with using the coupons when the places have still been honoring them. Ah, but there's the rub, eatery owners sometimes (often, actually, it seems) decide to stop honoring the coupons with zero notice and with zero recognition that *they* signed on to a promotion that gives the customers a printed coupon that states "this never expires." A couple of places have said, "We'll honor any coupons dated prior to ---- " and I find that approach honorable and have no problem with it. Others just tell you when you sit down (IF you haven't followed tip 1) and called in advance!) that they don't take the coupons, period. My wife and I have actually gotten up and left a couple of times when that's happened. We still have over 75 eateries listed within a 15-mile radius and carry certs already printed in the car, so it's easy to vote with our feet. We've also gone back to places that have stopped participating, too, depending on how they handled opting out, for full-price meals.

But also, as noted in other posts, r.com will continue carrying lapsed merchants for months past when they've quit. Staff at eateries have stated with obvious frustration that their owners have wanted out of the system for six months, even, and I've seen places continue being listed for many months after I've personally told the r.com phone reps that the coupons were no longer accepted and received my credits to apply elsewhere.

I will say that all of the rules are included with each purchase and I usually read everything before I sign up for things online. With that being said, the merchants that I know that have signed up don't like it very much and the deal isn't that great after they tack on the minimum order, the mandatory 18% gratuity, and tax. I bought a few certificates for a restaurant I frequent with my son and was told that they will accept the one I presented this time but I couldn't redeem others. When I got home I called the restaurant.com customer service and let them know that I had 3 certificates that would not be honored and they immediately credited me back for the unused certificates. The customer service was good... the deals are not so good. Just be sure to read the rules and decide from there what you want to do.

My family and I recently visited Orange County Choppers cafe in Ny... the food was just ok... people that were seated at least 15 min before us were waiting at least for 10 min longer than we did for our food and we waited about half hr and only got burgers ( there were 4 of us) the food that was done waiting for pick up by the servers was sitting 15 min before being brought out to the tables and no heat lamps to keep it warm. The best thing was the dead bugs in the big round light right above our table. Nothing to brag about.

Bought 4 tickets to see Wicked and promotion included a free CD. No CD. Waited for 6 months and have contacted customer service several times. Also difficult to find restaurants taking $50 e-certificates. Seats cost the same throughout Ticket Master and you get to pick your seats.

Really these shouldn't be considered gift certificates, more like super coupons for restaurants. I bought 7 of these on black friday and only spent $10. I called all the restaurants to confirm they accepted them before purchasing and haven't had a problem. It's a good deal as long as you know you need to spend money to get what you want. It clearly states there is a minimum purchase to use and you can't combine certificates. Everyone must be blind if they can't read the clear print.

I had a problem of Staropolska restaurant not accepting coupon purchased from restaurant.com.
After a few days I finally received support from restaurant.com.
I hope that Staropolska coupon won't be posted again.
I'm going to use restaurant.com again, hopefully Staropolska was simply a bad luck.

My first experience with this company was horrible however, the second experience wasn't bad at all. It's was okay

I have used many of the coupons and they were all accepted with no problems and I got exactly what I expected. They are a GREAT deal but you have to understand the restrictions for each coupon and decide if it works for you. I am not interested in going to the vast majority of their restaurants but there are a few we like and a very small number that we like a lot. For those we love the savings are big and it works great. I have never used the "specials", a lot of which are combo theater / dinner deals, because they don't work the same way as the regular coupons. They are much more restricted in where you go and what you get and other reviews confirm they apparently misleading and disappointing.

I first thought this was great. Used several gift certificates at different restaurants in St. Augustine, FL. Then a local place popped up on their site so i purchased two $25 cards. Tried to use one the next day and was told that the restaurant did not authorize restaurant.com to offer this card and that they were not honoring them. CALL THE RESTAURANT BEFORE PURCHASING THE CARD. For all of the one star reviews that i have read. READ THE ENTIRE PAGE PEOPLE. IT IS AS SIMPLE AS FOLLOWING THE DIRECTIONS.

I purchased 2 dinner and a movie certificates and they seem to be missing.