Quetzal C.

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.