Learn How to Earn Money While Dining Out

This article is based around a restaurant reservation service I use regularly called Open Table that allows you to earn dining points for each reservation you make, which converts to $20 bucks cash for every 2,000 points you earn.  As many of you may already know, my husband and I are regular foodies and frequent restaurants regularly on the weekends. Sometimes our foodie destinations are dominated by media events as my husband does a lot of food reviews and we end up going out during the week too.:) However, when I am the one making reservations for a restaurant, I always first check to make sure of if the restaurant is registered with Open Table.  Open Table is an awesome service that I wanted to share with everyone to save some extra cash when dining out.

I have been using Open Table for several years and they are awesome because you can use them to make reservations throughout the world.  The Open Table database encompasses over 25,000 restaurants that are located throughout the United States, Austria, Canada, Caribbean, Dubai, El Salvador, France, Germany, Hong Kong/Macau, Ireland, Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom & Switzerland.

The way the program works through Open Table is simple. You sign up with their website and have a free account.  Then you simply log in to make restaurant reservations. A lot of individual restaurants that allow you to book reservations online are interlinked with Open Table.  I always look at the point values I can accrue before booking my restaurant reservations because certain time slots accrue no points and some accrue 1,000 points per reservation, but the majority of time slots accrue 100 points per reservation.

The points system is simple, you make a restaurant reservation and receive points in your account based upon how many points each reservation is worth. Once you hit 2,000 points, you get a $20 dollar gift card. You also have the option to receive a $50 gift card if you want to opt out and wait until you receive 5,000 points. I have found that this is an awesome program to save some money.

When dining out, it is always good to make a reservation to assure you will have a table, but this Open Table program makes it even more awesome because you can accrue points and get free cash to dine at any restaurants that are within the Open Table database.   The points accrued and gift checks received can be used in combination with any other deals you may have, such as Groupons, no corkage fees, etc because they are treated as cash.

The only thing to make sure of when you are an Open Table subscriber is to fulfill your reservations or call the restaurant if you will not be able to honor your reservation.  If you do not show up to four reservations within a twelve month period, your account is revoked.  The only other downfall is when restaurants do not put in the computer that you arrived under an Open Table reservation and then you have to correspond through email with Open Table.  In my experience Open Table has always credited my points to my account when the restaurants have made a mistake.

I hope many of you will love Open Table just as much as I do because it is a great resource to make easy lunch and dinner reservations, as well as to receive free cash to dine at fabulous restaurants.  Sometimes the free $20 can come after just making two 1,000 point reservations.  That is an awesome feeling!!! Enjoy and let me know how you like Open Table if you decide to sign up.