Last week I wrote about Seated, which is an app that gives you $15-20 in gift cards (with your choice of Amazon, Starbucks, or Uber) every time you dine out at a participating restaurant. You might say “what’s the catch?” and the truth is that there aren’t many catches:
- Obviously only a limited number of restaurants are participating (as of now 2,000+), and most of them are fairly high end
- At least two people need to dine to be eligible
- Not all participating restaurants accept reservations through Seated at all times, so sometimes they’ll only let you book during off-peak times, when they value the business most
Unlike some dining programs, there are a lot of really popular, great restaurants on the list, so getting a $15 gift card for dining at them is awesome. Well, I had the chance to test out Seated over the weekend while I was in Los Angeles, and wanted to report back on my experience, and how I double dipped (or maybe even triple dipped, depending on how you look at it).
My experience using Seated
There are tons of restaurants in Los Angeles participating in Seated, though for a Sunday lunner (lunch/dinner combo, since I go to bed early), Ford and I went to Momed, which is a modern Mediterranean restaurant. We booked a table for 2:30PM for two people, and making the booking was super easy. It’s even easier than OpenTable, since all your info is saved through the app and there’s no need to log-in.
You don’t need to give a credit card or anything, though do note that you can be banned from Seated if you miss your reservation and/or don’t cancel at least 10 minutes in advance (I doubt they’d do that if you just do it once, but rather I suspect it’s for repeat offenders).
Momed was awesome, and we had a great meal.
Yum, yum.
The check came out to ~$55 including drinks, food, etc., so with tip it was ~$70.
We paid at the restaurant just as we usually would, and just under 24 hours later I received both an email and my app was updated to reflect that I had received a $15 Amazon code. On top of that, I got an additional $5 for being referred by an existing member, so I got a total of $20 in credits. It seems to me like you get the credit as long as the restaurant doesn’t mark you as a no-show, rather than them actually having to mark you as having been there. I say that because when we checked in I got the sense that the host didn’t even look to confirm our reservation, since it wasn’t very full.
But wait, there’s more…!
Previously I did everything I could to use airline and hotel dining programs, where you can earn bonus points for dining at select restaurants. While Seated restaurants actually seem to largely be hotspots, a lot of the restaurants belonging to Rewards Network dining programs are ones that especially need extra business, to put it mildly. There are some good restaurants on Seated, though in general the selection isn’t as good with Rewards Network, in my opinion.
My goal with this meal was to go somewhere that belonged to both Rewards Network and Seated. That’s how I arrived at Momed, which was one of several restaurants belonging to both.
We used the AAdvantage dining portal, and actually signed Ford up for it, so he’d earn 1,000 bonus AAdvantage miles after his first dine.
The cool thing is that you can double dip both of these programs — AAdvantage dining is linked to your credit card, while Seated is linked to making your booking through them. So a day later he had 210 miles post, and in the next few weeks he should have an additional 1,000 miles post.
On top of that, he paid with the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, meaning we earned 3x points there as well.
Adding it all up
So for our very nice $70 meal we earned:
- $20 in Amazon gift cards
- 1,210 American AAdvantage miles
- 210 Chase Ultimate Rewards points
When you add it all up, that’s a return of about $40 on our $70 meal. That’s pretty darn good, if you ask me!
Get an additional $5 on your first Seated meal
As mentioned above, Seated has a referral program, where both the person referring and person being referred can receive an extra $5 in rewards after their first dine. If you haven’t yet signed up, you can do so using code BEN242, and you’ll receive an extra $5 after your first dine, and I’ll get the same.
To enter this code, first sign-up for the app, and then click on the “wheel” at the top left of your account, and click on the “Redeem Promo Code” button. There you can enter the code, and it’ll automatically be applied to your first dine.
Bottom line
I really like Seated. While the major dining portals are worth keeping an eye on, many of the restaurants are places that aren’t worth eating at for the miles, since there are better restaurants out there. However, Seated has some truly great restaurants, so getting a $15-20 gift card for those meals is a heck of a deal.
If you can find a restaurant that participates in both a dining program and Seated, you can do even better.
The Seated App is a SCAM! I have accumulated almost $600 in rewards point and they took it away because my account was inactive for 3 months. I never knew of this policy change. I was never notified and when I reach out to customer service, they said they emailed it once and extended the deadline for me. I never received the email from them nor a text message, which I usually do for promotions....
The Seated App is a SCAM! I have accumulated almost $600 in rewards point and they took it away because my account was inactive for 3 months. I never knew of this policy change. I was never notified and when I reach out to customer service, they said they emailed it once and extended the deadline for me. I never received the email from them nor a text message, which I usually do for promotions. In the past they had lots of restaurant listed on the app but not so much anymore. It was easy to get points for walk-in reservation in the past, but now there are blackout time where you can not make a walk in reservation during busy hours. You are basically selling your information when you submit your receipts. The receipts shows what you order, time and date of when you dine/ take out, restaurants address, and payment method/credit card information. If you don’t have the receipts you need to provide your credit card statement to verify. Other people have reported this issue where Seated failed to notify about the points expiration dates. The customer service keeps apologizing and saying they value our feedbacks but nothing is done about it.
Hi Sagwa - I'm thinking of starting a class action lawsuit against them for this as it's happened to many people at this point (including myself). Would you be interested in joining it?
I think at this point this is necessary. Provide a contact so we can reach out.
Hey Everyone - this is a first - “Kitchen Appreciation Charge”, who is the smart ass that came
up with this! What’s next “busboy appreciation charge”? Everybody has got there hand out, and you pay! The oldest trick f course is where the Restaurant already adds the tip on, and you unknowingly add a tip to the bill.
All these promotions are petty, and are a waste of time.
Groupon is the...
Hey Everyone - this is a first - “Kitchen Appreciation Charge”, who is the smart ass that came
up with this! What’s next “busboy appreciation charge”? Everybody has got there hand out, and you pay! The oldest trick f course is where the Restaurant already adds the tip on, and you unknowingly add a tip to the bill.
All these promotions are petty, and are a waste of time.
Groupon is the worst - if you a business owner, it can put you out of business. My girlfriend opened a $1M high end Wellness Spa, the first year she did very sell. Then all the businesses around her started taking Groupon, so she had to as well. Between the split with Groupon, and credit card fees, and customers who insisted on the the Groupon break for every visit, she eventually went out of business. She lost $1Million, her life savings, and her business partner lost the same.
Most restaurant owners cannot afford giving these breaks, and the ones that can, don’t need or carry these give back programs.
It’s really petty stuff, one step above from cutting out coupons, but has serious consequences. There may be a few rare instances, where it keeps all parties happy.
If care to comment, go right ahead, no charge!
Looks like this is an older post why not do an update? I am currently quad + dipping on this in NYC, and the awards and rewards are so much better than in 2017. Ate dinner tonight at a 41% return on seated, plus $5 for a date night promo code, 5% back on Dosh, my Rewards Network points of around 320pts. Plus my CSR points 120 or so
Oh, and I used a 30% off Groupon+.
So all in-
$23 back from Seated
$1.92 in RN
$2. From Dosh
$12 back from Groupon
$1.80 from CSR
I had an odd experience with Seated that led me to believe that the rewards they are handing out are both not sustainable and likely not being paid for by the restaurants. I made a reservation through the Seated app, then 25 minutes before I was to be seated, I received a text from Seated claiming that the restaurant has become unexpectedly busy and therefore my reservation was being cancelled - yet I know that...
I had an odd experience with Seated that led me to believe that the rewards they are handing out are both not sustainable and likely not being paid for by the restaurants. I made a reservation through the Seated app, then 25 minutes before I was to be seated, I received a text from Seated claiming that the restaurant has become unexpectedly busy and therefore my reservation was being cancelled - yet I know that was not the case, because I was already at the restaurant enjoying a cocktail. I then check the restaurants website and was able to make a reservation on their Yelp supported reservation portal. Then I asked the hostess about Seated, she stated that she had no idea what I was talking about.
Had I not already been at the restaurant, Seated would have cost them my business. I suspect Seated has not integrated with the various restaurant reservation systems, yet is proporting to be, which could very well be costing restaurant owner's business.
WTF "Kitchen Appreciation Charge" isn't that called a "wage"?
I would love it if someone uses my code jana16 :)
@John Levine - there is an Edit button for permissions. When I signed up, I unchecked permission to access my Facebook contacts, and unchecked letting them know my birthday (that's for friends only, and not friends of friends, and I'm even uncomfortable with that).
I like their Chicago offerings. I try to double or triple dip - Groupon, Yelp, Dining Rewards, cc promos (like the current one with my Barclay Aaviator card with 3x AA...
@John Levine - there is an Edit button for permissions. When I signed up, I unchecked permission to access my Facebook contacts, and unchecked letting them know my birthday (that's for friends only, and not friends of friends, and I'm even uncomfortable with that).
I like their Chicago offerings. I try to double or triple dip - Groupon, Yelp, Dining Rewards, cc promos (like the current one with my Barclay Aaviator card with 3x AA on dining - second time this year they did that). If MileagePlus X added more restaurants (they have a few chains, like IHOP) it could be even be more intriguing! The holy grail is the quadruple dip!
I installed the app, learned that the only way to use the app is to give them my facebook password. I uninstalled the app.
Best security practice: Never use your account from one site to set up your account on another. One gets compromised, everything linked gets compromised. It doesn't matter how well they promise to behave... just say no. And now you know what's making their business model work - your facebook data.
Seated's terms of service and "privacy" policy are really creepy. You must give them access to your Facebook account, and they say they will scrape out your list of friends and do, uh, something unspecified with them.
Some people may be willing to sell their friend list for a $15 coupon but no thanks.
There's also Yelp! Rewards, Uber Local Offers, and Thanks Again. I'm lucky in that I have 2 restaurants that I love within walking distance that participate in the Rewards Network, Yelp!, and Thanks Again. I kinda felt bad because one of them was also offering a Groupon which I bought via AAdvantage Shopping for bonus miles. For some reason though the transactions don't always capture automatically. They've always credited me if I send in the...
There's also Yelp! Rewards, Uber Local Offers, and Thanks Again. I'm lucky in that I have 2 restaurants that I love within walking distance that participate in the Rewards Network, Yelp!, and Thanks Again. I kinda felt bad because one of them was also offering a Groupon which I bought via AAdvantage Shopping for bonus miles. For some reason though the transactions don't always capture automatically. They've always credited me if I send in the receipt or credit card transaction.
I double dipped this with the $20 Amex offer for fig & olive in NYC, ended up being $40 off $190 which is pretty decent. I’ve not looked to see if any of the other Amex offers places are on Seated and/or DiningRewards. If I’d really been on the ball I could have taken two cards with the fig & olive offer on, spent $10 more, then split the bill to get $20 off $100...
I double dipped this with the $20 Amex offer for fig & olive in NYC, ended up being $40 off $190 which is pretty decent. I’ve not looked to see if any of the other Amex offers places are on Seated and/or DiningRewards. If I’d really been on the ball I could have taken two cards with the fig & olive offer on, spent $10 more, then split the bill to get $20 off $100 spend twice and the $20 Seated gift card so $60 back on $200 along with a few MR points along the way. I also got this offer on my Hilton Surpass Amex which gives extra Honors points for dining so it could be even more lucrative! So much so that like others I fear it could be too good to last!
Ford? You signed your car up for the AAvantage Dining?
Can we sign up pretty much any kitchen appliance for it?
@ CS - who cares what he tips?!
I tried Seated the other day as well, and similarly had a great experience! Went to a place in Philadelphia which was similarly quite empty, so I don't think the hostess marked us down when I said I had a reservation, but I got the credit nonetheless. The app also works with restaurant.com gift certificates - I had a $10 certificate from them and went with a friend, so basically my half of the meal...
I tried Seated the other day as well, and similarly had a great experience! Went to a place in Philadelphia which was similarly quite empty, so I don't think the hostess marked us down when I said I had a reservation, but I got the credit nonetheless. The app also works with restaurant.com gift certificates - I had a $10 certificate from them and went with a friend, so basically my half of the meal was "free" and I still got the amazon gift card! I love the opportunity it gives to double/triple dip, and will definitely be picking restaurants that also participate in rewards network/mogl/uber offers/dosh.
I'm also pretty sure this isn't sustainable, as above commenters have said, but hey, I'll take it while I can get it! I sure ain't complaining.
I love that someone wants Lucky to explain why he tipped so much. Because he's not a terrible human being, isn't that a good enough excuse?
If you had used Chase Freedom, you would’ve earned 5x UR points!
also, to capital B Brian's point above, I think some of the nicer places are only offering tables at off-peak times. Like when I was booking last week, a really nice, popular place I wanted to go only had tables at 9:30pm on a Sunday on Seated (they close at 11 pm). I couldn't book at 7:30pm like I wanted, so I just used OpenTable. It's probably worth it for the restaurant to take a 10% hit on a table if it can keep the place full until close...
"The check came out to ~$55 including drinks, food, etc., so with tip it was ~$70"
You tip ~27%? Why?
@ CS -- I was approximating. If you'd like to know the exact amounts, the total came out to $53.50, plus $5.10 in taxes, plus a 3% "kitchen appreciation surcharge" (which doesn't go to the servers), plus the tip of $10, which is an ~18.7% tip.
Thanks for the detailed review.
This looked great and I wanted to use your signup code but I am just not willing to use Facebook as my login and have them post to my account. Its a tough sell but I understand why they do it...
I'm told it also stacks with Uber's Visa Local offers, so you could actually triple-dip if you went to a place that's offering that AND Rewards Network dining. Maybe even quadruple if it's also in Yelp's cashback?
This is all well and good, but clearly isn't sustainable. The restaurant is paying the Seated a referral / reservation fee (or is paying some sort of ongoing fixed fee for participating in the program). The app is turning a significant portion of that fee into a rebate to customers via gift cards. So the restaurant is likely losing revenue off the top of every tab that comes to it from the app and the...
This is all well and good, but clearly isn't sustainable. The restaurant is paying the Seated a referral / reservation fee (or is paying some sort of ongoing fixed fee for participating in the program). The app is turning a significant portion of that fee into a rebate to customers via gift cards. So the restaurant is likely losing revenue off the top of every tab that comes to it from the app and the app is taking a significant portion of that revenue and turning it back to the customer. Everyone's margins are squeezed to the point where the economics stop making sense. The bet here is obviously volume for the app and repeat usage (without the app rebate) by the restaurants. That business model has been tried and failed - its called Groupon. Best of luck!
"It seems to me like you get the credit as long as the restaurant doesn’t mark you as a no-show, rather than them actually having to mark you as having been there. I say that because when we checked in I got the sense that the host didn’t even look to confirm our reservation, since it wasn’t very full."
This is definitely important and I hope this is true.
If the restaurant also participates in Mogl, it's possible to get cash back on top of the rewards from Rewards Network and the Seated gift card (which doesn't reduce the earning from RN or from your credit card, as you can set the cash back to credit to a debit card and back into your bank account).