Thread: American Express $100 Restaurant Certificate: Reward or Scam?

The $100 American Express restaurant certificate mailing for subscribing to Food and Wine Magazine? I got that in the mail a few days ago myself, we probably were both targeted with the same mailing.

I can't remember if I threw the offer in the shredder or left it out to read for curiosity's sake. I saw this on a blog about the promotion.

“Redemption… requires additional consideration paid to the restaurant.” A conversation with a couple of attorney friends (alright, attorney acquaintances – attorneys don’t have friends) revealed that that phrase means the restaurant can require you to spend a certain amount at its discretion – say $75 – before your $100 “free” certificate kicks in.

If that's true it might be a dubious offer, wouldn't you say so?

I was going to check up on this was it turns out I threw away the offer.

Did you ever look into it further alsteig?

Sorry for opening up an old thread, but i signed up for this a month or so ago to get the $100 in dining dough.

The problem with these is you get a $25, $50, or $100 certificate to use at a specific restaurant (there aren't many to choose from) but they require you to purchase a certain amount of FOOD, these are only for food purchases, alcohol and such do not count.

Looking through the options it seems to usually be 25 off $35 worth of purchases and 50 off $100 worth of purchases. But when you look at the restaurants listed i think it would (at least for just me and my wife) be difficult to hit those minimums without just ordering random extra food, and therefore kind of ruining the point of it all.

This would only work for a restaurant that you know you would normally spend that much on a meal at. I think this would work better for a group of people. I've printed off my certificates but haven't actually tried to use them yet.

I just looked into all this yesterday because i got a mailed offer from Amex for $200 worth of this dining dough for joining some kind of air travel based club. I'd still consider doing it because in the end if you plan on eating at some of these places anyway you are getting something out of it, but i'd wonder if signing up for these things and then making sure to cancel before they charge you the fees for them would have Amex looking at you in a bad light? It's kind of sad that Amex is offering such bogus promotions to it's members though.