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Club1 Hotels, who we recently featured, are offering a $100 USD Restaurant.com gift card per booking.

Club1 Hotels is a membership site offering ‘wholesale’ prices for hotel stays directly to their members. If you haven’t done so already, you can still sign up for a year’s free membership (standard price $675) here.

To take advantage of the offer, you need to book by the end of the month (31st October 2016).

Are Restaurant.com gift cards worth anything?

Yes, but nowhere near face value as there are some important caveats.

Firstly, you can only use them in the USA – which obviously limits their appeal, but because they don’t have an expiry date many readers will still find a use for them eventually.

Secondly, and most importantly, they are essentially just half price vouchers. For example, if you use a $25.00 gift card you must spend $50.00 or more.

Thirdly, there are often restaurant-specific terms that mean you can’t use the gift cards at the same time as benefiting from other promotions, so the real discount is likely to be less than 50% a lot of the time.

Top Tip: You can request your gift cards as 4 x $25, 2 x $50, or 1 x $100. Getting 4 x $25.00 gift cards will make most sense for most people and offers the greatest flexibility – unless you’re likely to spend $200 or more on dinner!

Club 1 are also offering a free basic Priority Pass membership (standard cost $99)  if you book 6 or more nights, but this isn’t really worth anything. It’s the US version of the pass, which means you still need to pay $27.00 per lounge visit. Given the weakness of the Pound against the Dollar at the moment that’s about £22.00, and there aren’t many lounges in the world where that will work out a very good deal. You can normally purchase lounge access directly for less, or simply go and buy a drink and a nice snack somewhere else.

Conclusion

Club1 Hotels sometimes (but certainly not always) have the cheapest prices, so are well worth taking a look at. If they do have the lowest price and you’d book with them anyway, then these gift cards are a nice little bonus.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to book with Club 1 because of this offer, but it definitely has the potential to make good deals even sweeter.

Terms:

“Book any hotel from Club1Hotels on or before 10/31/16 and receive a $100 of Restaurant.com electronic gift cards, Gift cards can be used at any of the 18,000 participating restaurants across the US Restaurant.com will issue in $25.00, $50.00 or $100.00 denominations, if you use a $25.00 card you must spend $50.00, if you use a $50.00 card you must spend $100.00, and if you use a $100.00 gift card you must spend $200.00. (Most will want (4) $25.00 gift cards!) Club1Hotels issue them to our members via email the day of arrival (as reservations can be cancelled).”