My wife and I travel to the United States at least 3 times per year. Living on an island is expensive. We pay nearly $80 each trip to leave with the ferries.
Eating out is a major cost for families. We enjoy nice meals when we are on holidays and even though we both love to cook, to us a holiday means sitting down to enjoy a nice meal (breakfast we prefer to make ourselves).
Having travelled frequently in the United States, we have found ways to save money when eating out. We use Restaurant.com in combination with Ebates to get cash back.
Here is the process on how to get a $25 gift card for amazing restaurants across the United States for under $3.
1. Register with Ebates – a very good cash-back rebate website for Canadians. We have already received over $60 in cash back with a cheque from using them to shop online. It is simple, just go to their website first, find the store you want to shop at and then they redirect to the website (often with coupon codes already filled out!
2. From Ebates – look up Restaurant.com.
They have $25 gift cards available for only $10. At the moment, Restaurant.com has a 80% off coupon code, DEAL. This gets you a $25 gift card for only However, to sweeten the deal, if you use Ebates when visiting Restaurant.com to make your purchase you receive a tidy 15% cash back. You get a $25 gift card for $2.55. UPDATE: Coupon code is FLAG (until June 16, 2011).
Here is a sample offer on the website. $25 gift card at the Space Needle in Seattle for $17.50 US (still haven’t gone there unfortunately – shame living so close in Victoria).
Watch the fine print here. Minimum 2 entrees. 18% Gratuity added prior to discount. Valid for Dinner, Dine In ONLY. Excludes: Holidays/Special Events. As long as you are cognizant of the fine print you should be fine. We have never ran into problems with these. If you have any questions, call the restaurant first!
As soon as I add it to my cart and apply the special coupon code from Ebates, my total is only $3.50!
However, we still need to get out 15% cash back from Ebates, brings our total to only $2.97!
When making your purchase with Restaurant.com, make sure you have a Paypal account because their checkout does not support Canadian credit cards. This is easy though, register for a Paypal account or use your existing account.
3. Enjoy your savings and start travelling!
Any questions?
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9 Comments
We have been using these Restaurant.com certificates for a few years now when travelling in the USA and they do work very well. As stated in the article, READ THE FINE PRINT!! Some even restrict the days they can be used to exclude weekends which of course are the heavy travel days.
Normally when we pick a city for travel, I check out the available restaurants in that city participating in the program and buy 2-3 certificates. Even if I only use 1-2 certificates you still save a good chunk of cash! The best deals are when they have the 80% off sale and you get a $25 off certificate that can be applied to a $35 or more tab for only $2. Good luck and enjoy!
Great point about reading the fine print. May are only for lunch or dinner. Still amazing prices – forgot Groupon.
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we live in vancouver, and it appears that it will only mail to USA postal addresses. How do we get around this. Thanks for the info.
The certificates are all online. You shouldn’t need to get this mailed to you.
The certificates are all online. You shouldn’t need to get this mailed to you.
wow thanks!
@7ac9c4a3a4cd0a9095f33da542b5f286:disqus No worries!