Update: I just got this email from Restaurant.com, “Due to an overwhelming response, Restaurant.com has decided to extend the 90% offer one more day! This offer is now valid thru [sic] October 1st.” That means those of you that have had issues with their website running slowly, have a little more time to get your orders placed.
***
One time annually Restaurant.com releases a promotional code that takes 90% off most of their products with the code WOW at checkout.
Before I explain what is included in the sale (almost everything) and what’s not (just one item), let me tell you that this is the best discount I have ever seen at Restaurant.com. They offered something similar last September, but not since. You can use this code to buy dining coupons (they call them dining certificates), Dinner of the Month memberships, and gift cards to the Restaurant.com website that you print yourself (the physical plastic Restaurant.com gift cards that are mailed out are the only item sitewide that is excluded from this deal).
If you’ve never used Restaurant.com before, then today is the day to try it out. You can buy a coupon that will save you $25 on a meal out for $1. Yes, the $25 coupon likely requires your pre-coupon food and beverage (alcohol excluded) total to be $35 or more, but still. You save $25 off a $35 bill and ultimately end up paying $11 for a $35 meal.
Best Bets for Using 90% Off Code
Really, I love all the products at Restaurant.com. You can buy multiple coupons (they call them gift certificates) today for your favorite restaurant using the code WOW and eat out on the cheap for months to come. The coupons never expire and if you ever have a problem with an establishment accepting one,Restaurant.com will take care of you; email info@restaurant.com, including your Restaurant Gift Certificate [aka dining coupon] number or code, and they’ll exchange the coupon for another of equal value.
You may find that coupons for your favorite restaurant are out of stock, but you’ve still got two great options.
1) Buy a Restaurant.com gift card (or cards) that you print yourself from home or email to someone. You can buy this at 90% off and then use the value of the gift card on future purchases when coupons for your favorite restaurant are back in stock. Personally, this is what I am going to buy today. Then whenever we want to eat out we can buy a dining coupon for the restaurant of our choice.
Note, the plastic gift cards that are mailed to a recipient are NOT included in this 90% off promotion.
2) You can sign up for a Dinner of the Month membership. You pay up front for 3, 6 or 12 dining coupons and can redeem one each month for the duration of your membership. This is a great gift idea for a frugal friend or family member that loves eating out and trying new places. You can give them twelve $25 dining coupons (a $300 value) for a whopping $12. That’s a steal.
If you are thinking about giving a Dinner of the Month membership to someone for Christmas, maybe today you buy yourself a Restaurant.com gift card at 90% off and then when the holidays approach you can use the money on your gift card to purchase the Dinner of the Month membership. That way it starts in January and not in October.
How Restaurant.com Works
To get started at Restaurant.com, you can search for restaurants by zip code, state, or popular city nationwide. If you’d like, you can further refine your results to include only restaurants with a particular cuisine, average entrée price, or other features.
Once you’ve found a restaurant you like, you can choose to purchase a $10, $25, or higher value dining coupon, depending on the restaurant. The regular price of $10 gift certificates is $4 and $25 is $10. Keep in mind that these “gift certificates” are really coupons that have a minimum purchase requirement and other stipulations. For example, the $25 gift certificate requires you to make a $35 minimum purchase, and 18% gratuity is added before the discount.
Still, this is a great way to make your regular restaurant outing less expensive or try a new one. The restaurants that offer these certificates are usually local, although there are a few chain restaurants available. If the certificate you want is out of stock, know that they are restocked on the first of each month and new restaurants are always being added.
They offer the Dinner of the Month membership and gift cards to the Restaurant.com website as well.
Earn Cash Back for Today’s Purchase
If you make your Restaurant.com purchase using the shopping portal at one of the cash back websites, then you can earn a percentage back on top of the 90% off discount. If you are new to any of these cash back sites you’ll get a $5 bonus deposited into your account for signing up.
Shop at Home is paying 25% cash back, Ebates is paying 15% and Cashbaq is paying 20% cash back.
Your turn: How are you maximizing this 90% off sale?
**Disclosure: This post contains affiliate advertising links. Read Pocket Your Dollars’ disclosure statement for more information.
About Carrie Rocha
just a quick question can I use more than 1 gift certificate at a time at the restaurant to pay for my meal I’m looking for vegas deals and am going in 1 month and thought what a great idea.
Angie – Nope, one certificate per meal.
Looks like the website crashed :(
It is very hard to place an order, but be patient, keep reloading and it will work eventually. Just placed a third order today using the gift card idea. Got Christmas covered for my parents! yea!
WOW is right! I got 1 twelve month Restaurant of the Month Club package (to try it out) and 5 – $100 dollar gift certificates. The total originally would have cost $650 and I paid $32.00! And, I got a free $50 coupon for ordering the Restaurant of the Month item. That’s $700 worth of food for $32.00! I went Christmas shopping early and will use the 5 – $100 dollar gift certificates to purchase Restaurant of the Month Club packages as Christmas gifts. That was a brilliant idea! Thanks! It did take quite a while to actually get my shopping cart all the way through check-out, but I just kept reloading and it finally went through. They must be very busy today. Thanks, again!
Is it a better deal to buy a gift certificate than to do the Dinner of the Month deal?
I bought the gift certificates today to get the good price and then will purchase the Dinner of the Month using these gift certificates in December so that the Dinner of the Month will start in January. I’m giving these as Christmas gifts and if I bought the Dinner of the Month today, it would start in October.
Zoma,
I think it’s the month you activate the dinner of the month code that starts the process, not when you purchase it.
I am in the process of trying to buy some $25 gift certificates. The ad on the home page says you can buy a $25 gift certificate for $10, but when I click the pull-down in the gift certificates section to see my options, it says “$25 gift certificate for $15.” Hoping it was a mistake, I chose 10 $25 gift certificates. Now I’m at my shopping cart and it says the total is $150.00. I assume if I enter the promo code, it will tell me that I owe $15. What happened to the $1 price for $25 gift certificates?
Enter the code and watch what happens. You’ll have a chance to cancel, if you choose.
OK, thanks! Putt putt, just waiting for the site to take the promo code.
So do you print out the coupon right after you compleate the order or can you print it later. I am at work and don’t want to print here.
An hour and 15 minutes later (s-l-o-w site and lots of timeouts), the WOW code made each $25 gift certificate $1.50. I won’t pay $1.50 each if the rest of the world is getting them for $1 each! What’s up with that?
I was wondering about the $1 price too. I put in the code and it took my $150 order down to $15… yes, that’s 90% off, but it’s not $1 per $25 gift card. Same as Lisa, I got the 10 $25 gifts cards. So, Lisa, what happened after you put in the code?
Guess I forgot to refresh to find Lisa C’s answer. I’m getting the same thing… $1.50 per gift card. Has anyone gotten the $1 per gift card price? And if so, what package did you buy to get that price?
Megan and all, I am on hold with restaurant.com customer service to see if I can buy them for $1 each over the phone. So far I have been on hold for 20 minutes (and have heard “Your call is important to us. We will be with you shortly.” about 200 times). I figure I have about 10 minutes left before my babes wake up from their naps. If I don’t get through this afternoon, I may try again tonight.
lol! I called on a regular day a few weeks ago to report a closed restaurant and have my certificate reassigned. I waited on hold for about 15 -20 min before getting a live person. I’m figuring those employees either had a really great day (no calls could get through) or a really bad day (people calling to complain about the site crashing.)
Bummer. The hold message changed to “Due to circumstances beyond our control, we cannot take your call at this time,” and I’ve been disconnected. I’m sure they are wildly busy. Hmm. Guess I will try calling tonight. This deal may not be in the cards for me. Oh well, not the end of the world!
I’m getting $1 without any problem…
To clarify, when I am looking at the restaurants to choose from, I am getting $25 for $10 which then equals $1 after the WOW code. Or what I actually did was order the $100 gift card for $40- 90%= $4.00= 4 $25 g/c, or $1 each.
At this point when searching by a Minneapolis zip code, I just get error pages. Perhaps they bit off more than they could offer with this deal!
Just heard a rumor they are extending the sale thru tommorow 10/01/10
I wanted to warn your readers about Restaurant.com. I purchased a few gift certificates from them last year and unknowingly signed up for a discount shopping membership program who was charging my credit card $19.95 a month. Apparently Restaurant.com shared my credit card information. I am now in the process of disputing the charges, but the shopping discount company, Shopping Essentials, is only offering to refund me half of what they charged my debit card. I would warn other consumers NOT to patronize Restaurant.com.
Boston bash – Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with Restaurant.com. I have personally used them for well over a year without any problem. I do know that they sometimes co-brand offers with other companies and those other companies occasionally offer membership-type programs. I wonder if this is what happened in your situation. I wish you the best of luck with your resolution, but will continue to talk about Restaurant.com because I have had nothing but positive experiences.
Good point NOT to click on the exit offers. I’ve used this site for 3 years with no problems.
now tomorrow being 10/01 do the resturants get restocked if they are currently sold out?
Cynthia, I am pretty sure they do get restocked on the first of each month.
I am wondering if I have to use an entire restaurant.com gift certificate when I purchase something with it. Per Lisa M., I see now that I could buy a $100 gift certificate for $4, which is great … as long as I can use the gift certificate bit by bit. I’m just thinking that I might not see 4 restaurant deals that I want to buy at one time.
In the past, that is how I used my certificates – as you want, depending on how much you have banked.
OK, thanks, MK.
RIght now, a line from a Frankie Valli song is going through my mind … so close, so close and yet so far. :) I have a couple of $100 gift certificates in my shopping cart, but the site won’t let me check out. Glad they extended the offer to tomorrow!
There normally aren’t any restaurants from our area on the site. But my husband and I were going to get away for the weekend in a few months and I managed to get $35 in certificates to 2 restaurants for about $1.70 for that city!
Go thru Cashbaq.com and get 12% back on restaurant.com purchases