You might remember that my buddy Christy from Haphazardly Hobbying agreed to do a few posts talking about her experiences with Restaurant.com – well here’s the most recent installment! This time Christy and her husband were traveling had to get a little creative in order to make sure they saved money no matter where they ate!
My husband and I went to St. Augustine, Florida, for a quick weekend getaway last month. We love to travel but like many of you we just don’t have a lot of money to spend when we do get away. As many of you know, I’m a recent convert to Restaurant.com, and I immediately thought of their great dining gift certificates as a way to save money while we were traveling.
There were a couple problems, though: First, my husband and I like to be a little spontaneous when we travel, so we don’t necessarily plan where we’re going to eat dinner each night we’re away. Second, we didn’t know if we’d have printer access at the hotel we were staying at, so we couldn’t decide there and purchase before we went. Lastly, we weren’t very familiar with the area we were traveling to, so there was always the possibility that we’d get to the restaurant we’d chosen and decide we didn’t like the looks of it or it was too crowded or something like that (sometimes we’re pretty picky that way 😉 ).
As it happened, the day before we left was the day that Restaurant.com offered a coupon code that made all their $25 certificates just $1. At that point, I figured, “why not spend a few dollars to save $25?” and so my husband and I picked out three restaurants that we liked in the area and I bought three certificates – that way we’d have a number of options available to us and we’d save money no matter what we decided.
In the end, we settled on The Cracker Cafe right in the heart of the downtown area of St. Augustine. We liked the casual, homey atmosphere and the food was fantastic. We were able to order appetizers, dinner, a few drinks, and dessert – and after our gift certificate we only spent around $45 including a 20% tip. Not bad for a huge meal out, and the money we saved paid for lunch the next day! I have to tell you, I’m really sold on this as a way to balance spontaneity and savings – I think I’ll be traveling with Restaurant.com certificates from now on!
It’s a great time to give Restaurant.com a try – check out the deal I posted earlier today to get a $25 certificate and a FREE $20 Mrs. Fields Online Gift for only $2!!
Restaurant.com provided the gift certificate for Christy’s review. All comments and opinions are Christy’s!
I’ve had luck with just giving the restaurant the code from the certificate instead of printing it out. It could be worth calling a place to see if they’ll do that.
I have used these close to home, when traveling, and as gifts. I LOVE them! If I know I’m travelng and don’t know a specific restaurant I want to use, I’ll buy some gift certificates. Once we decide where we’ll eat, I’ll go online and print the certificates off. It makes dining so easy!
I just purchased my first gift certificate this week. I wouldn’t have thought to use this service for traveling. Thanks for posting!
My family uses Restaurant.com to try new restaurants in the Tampa area. However, Next month I am traveling to a conference for business out in Denver. I located several restaurants with listings on Restaurant.com within easy reach of the conference hotel. Not only will I be able to extend my per diem, I can actually afford to take colleagues out to dinner and (impressively) pick up the check.
I used ours while traveling in New Orleans. Great food ! Great price.
I noticed a few of the restaurants in the Atlanta area say–no more than one certificate per order/table. My question–if the restaurant does not specify, can you use two certificates ($25 each) to pay for a $50 meal????
most likely no, put you could call ahead to see
I really don’t think they will let you use more than one gift certificate for one meal.
I bought 5 $10 coupon tickets last year and was able to use 2. The business said that Rest.com ‘oversold’ their tickets. Go figure. Rest.com gave me ‘credits’ for them, but now there are NO restaurants in this area and I dont plan on traveling anytime soon. Figures.
i bought my parents one for a restaurant they go to when they travel to Las Vegas. They loved it, there were 5 people in their party, so everyone was able to order something and not feel guilty about the cost.
They pretty much were able to use coupons or free gift cards to eat on the trip most of the time and saved so much money!!
this is my new trend, seeing what gift cards i have or ordering them from mypoints (if i am able too), when on trips and it saves so much money.
Does it matter if you print it out in black/white or color?
No, you can print in either.
Thank you for letting me know~ I may just have to try this out!
No – they call in the certificate number so that’s all you need. Sometimes they dont need the certificate.
It’s so funny that you posted this because we were in St. Augustine last month, too! We used a Restaurants.com gift certificate for a place we had never been to. We used our $25 gift certificate at The Tasting Room for the one night my mother watched our little boy so we could have a “date night”. It was WONDERFUL. The food, the music, the wine, the atmosphere. It was a welcome break for the both of us. And it saved us a nice chunk of money off the final bill. We have used it in Destin, too.
I live in St. Augustine, FL and Fl Cracker Cafe is the only one we have tried. I HIGHLY recommend it! I bought extras during the 90% off sale and gave them to my kid’s teachers as gifts. We have enjoyed using Restaurants.com especially since we dine downtown St. Aug very affordable now.
It is still an awesome deal but I just tried to use the Mrs. Fields certificate and I did not get past the shipping…it is OUTRAGEOUS to say the least. I dont know if the code will go for shipping too…but I just clicked it off for now. STILL A GREAT DEAL OF COURSE.
You can swap any certificates you don’t use or change your mind about for 90 days after purchase. I had a number of certificates for one restaurant where the cigarette smoke was intolerable for my asthma and they swapped those 6 months after purchase. They are very helpful if you have a situation where you won’t be able to use the certificate.