Seated – Restaurant Rewards App Review

If Seated is not on your phone already then you need to download it immediately. There are too many rewards and cash back businesses these days that make you jump through a thousand hoops for not much reward, and Seated is not one of them. With Seated, all you need to do is book a reservation at one of the restaurants featured in the app, and once you pay (with the same card entered in the app) you will receive $15 to $40+ in free money that you can use towards Uber, Starbucks, or Amazon. Between those three options you should be able to choose something that you like because with Amazon alone you can buy just about anything you want. Our biggest concern with Seated was the lack of options available, but it turns out they have LOTS of restaurants to choose from. Most restaurant rewards sites offer goo incentives and promos, but usually they have bottom of the barrel restaurants that nobody wants to eat at. Even if you are a big foodie that is looking for all the hip places you will be able to find a place you want to eat. Seated is doing a great job with their restaurant outreach and as long as they continue to stay away from the big chains they are going to remain one of the top restaurant rewards apps in existence. You might be wondering how Seated makes money and that this all sounds too good to be true, so let us put your concerns to bed right now. Seated makes money the same way that OpenTable makes money, they get a small fee for each diner that completes the reservation booked through the app, meaning they actually go to the restaurant, eat, and pay their bill. When that happens Seated makes an amount somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.00 to $4.00 per diner. What's really cool is that Seated is actually run by some very good humans, we know this because right now they have a #ShareTheMeal promotion going on where they have pledged to donate one meal per reservation booked to children in need. To accomplish this they are working with the United Nations World Food Programme, and their goal is to send out 1,000,000 meals.  

When you first open the app it takes you into the main page where you can scroll through the feed of restaurants. It shows a nice sized image of the interior of the restaurant and includes information such as price point (by $$$ like Yelp), cuisine type, reward amount, number of people who recently booked, and rating (star system 1-5). The information is all cleanly formatted and there is nothing on the page that is confusing, annoying, and/or makes you wonder what the heck it is. It's important to mention that we think the images that show up in the feed are a good representation of the restaurant and the overall atmosphere as well. This is important because when most people are making reservations to dine out they usually have a good idea about the type of cuisine and atmosphere that they are going for. Having a good image that shows the overall feel and vibe of the restaurant right there in the feed saves time since you don't have to go clicking around to get that info. At the top right corner of each image there is a heart icon that you click to add the restaurant to your Hit List, that way you can start building up a nice list of places you want to go. Once you click on a restaurant it takes you directly to the booking page, and the process from there is very intuitive:

• Choose what company you want your reward money for by clicking on one of the three icons - Starbucks, Uber, or Amazon
• Choose your party size
• Choose the date
• Pick a time

It doesn't get much easier than that! You just need to make sure that you enter in the credit card you plan on paying with at the restaurant. They make this very clear in the next step after you have your reservation time/day set. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! As mentioned above, in order to receive the reward they need to confirm that you actually completed the reservation and payed, and they verify this by matching up the credit card that you use to pay at the restaurant with the one uploaded in your account. Just in case you were not ready to make the reservation yet, it also includes some good information on the restaurant page. Not only can you click to the restaurants Instagram account, but you can also check out additional photos, the location on the map, and read reviews from other diners. One of the Seated features that we really appreciate is the sort functionality. Not only is it easy to find due to the obvious nature of the icon, but it is formatted in a very easy to use way and includes a cool category referred to as "Cuisine & Vibes." Cuisine is an obvious option for a food app, but we think that the Vibe addition is really cool because sometimes you are open to eating a lot of different types of cuisines and just really looking for a specific type of atmosphere. The Vibe options included are new additions, drinks, quick bites, groups, chill & casual, date night, and upscale. If you want you can even combine the categories to search for the ultimate experience. Lastly, the sort function works quickly and does not take a long time to load, and that is always nice.

Eating out can be very expensive, so to have the chance to recover some of those funds back is crucial when it comes to saving money. When you think about using the Seated restaurant rewards app don't just think of it as a way to save money, but rather another avenue to discover new restaurants that you would've normally never had thought about going to. Next time you're going out on a date or out with some friends go ahead and give it a try; Since it doesn't require any type of coupon that you need to show the server your date or friends will not think you are being cheap ;) When you tell them about the app it show them you are a savvy foodie that stays hips to all of the latest trends.