Once upon a time, you had to call restaurants for dinner reservations. If you’re like me and despise making phone calls, luckily that time has passed! OpenTable makes it easy to make free dining reservations at your favorite places, but that’s not the only reason you should use it.
OpenTable has its own rewards system. For most reservations you make, you will earn 100 points upon dining. Some reservations you can even earn 1,000 points depending on the restaurant and the time. When you reach a certain number of points, you can cash them in for gift cards for different restaurants, or even Amazon gift cards. This is how I paid for Catal at Downtown Disney last year, when we were in California. I cashed in 20,000 points for a $200 gift card. It doesn’t cover tax or gratuity, (those you have to pay out of pocket), but it still goes a long way towards a nice dinner.
One of the best things about OpenTable is you don’t need a credit card to hold a reservation, unlike Disney. So, while it’s still more polite to cancel it if something comes up, you don’t have to worry about being charged if it’s close to the time of your reservation. We had a Big Fin reservation during MegaCon that I had to call about, because we had an emergency with the dog, but it was no problem. We rescheduled for the next night, and there was no harm done.
OpenTable is even doing Disney World dining reservations now! It’s not every Disney restaurant, but there are a handful of them on there. You can only book it a month out, as opposed to the traditional 180 days through Disney’s dining system, but you won’t need a credit card, and you can earn points. You can even redeem your points towards the Disney dining options that are on OpenTable.
With Magical Dining starting this week, it’s the perfect time to rack up some OpenTable points!
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