Restaurant gift card holiday deals

[disneysteve]

We all know that dining out can be pricey. One easy way to save pops up this time of year and that is to buy restaurant gift cards with bonus deals. Some places give an extra card when you buy a card like buy $50 and get an extra $10. Other places just discount the cards like 15% off.

Be sure to review the terms before buying. Sometimes the bonus cards are only good for a specific time.

So far today we bought a $200 card at 20% off to a place near us that we go to regularly and saved $40. We also bought a $50 card to a Mexican place we like and got a $15 bonus card that’s good during January. So that’s $55 saved on future meals.

[QuarterMillionMan]

To me it's not worth the extra 10% or 20% where I'm forced to have to go to a certain restaurant in order to use their gift card. I still have gift cards with balances from Panda Express and Krispy Kreme to use. The only reason I got it was from my Citi Rewards card which offered redemptions of either gift cards or cash back at 50% that of gift cards so I opted for gift cards. And I don't eat sweets but opted for Krispy Kreme gift cards due to years ago having a trip to Hawaii where family and friends love Krispy Kreme which they don't have except for on Maui which has a Krispy Kreme so I brought them sweets all of whom live on Oahu. Needless to say years later I still have a balance to use on those gift cards but don't have any plans to return to Hawaii in 2024. Gift cards are lame unless you know you'll be going back to use it.

[disneysteve]

Gift cards are lame unless you know you'll be going back to use it.

Definitely. We only buy them for restaurants or stores that we go to regularly. The card we got $200 worth for 20% off is where my wife met friends today for lunch because they all have December birthdays so we've already used some of it.

[Fishindude77]

Retailers love gift cards because a whole lot of the money spent on them never gets used.
Anytime we get a card, I make it a point to use it rather quickly and use all of it, otherwise there's a chance the balance will never get used.

[disneysteve]

Retailers love gift cards because a whole lot of the money spent on them never gets used.
Anytime we get a card, I make it a point to use it rather quickly and use all of it, otherwise there's a chance the balance will never get used.

That's true. According to this Bankrate survey, 43% of Americans have at least one unused gift card and the outstanding amount is $244 per person on average.

https://www.bankrate.com/credit-cards/news/gift-cards-survey/

We always have a few floating around the house. Right now, we have two restaurant cards that we won in a charity raffle a few months ago. The prize was 5 cards, I think. Three were for places that we go occasionally and we've used all 3 of those. The other 2 were for places we haven't been. They're still hanging on the fridge.