I'd chalk this up in the "too good to be true" category, except that our family has had a lot of experience using gift certificates from Restaurant.com, and have given them as gifts. Basically they're a voucher for a given amount of money - $25, $50, what have you - to be spent at a restaurant (excluding alcohol) with the stipulation that you spend an extra $10 or so on your meal. There might be number-crunching involved in parsing out whether this deal makes sense for you or not, except that they frequently offer discounts of 50% or more on these certificates - the program is basically designed to encourage you to try good restaurants in your area that you might not otherwise go to.

But there's a deal up today (good only through tomorrow) for $25 gift certificates for, um, $2.

Again, sounds too good to be true, I know. But if you go ahead and buy some, you will thank me. They make easy holiday gifts and they state the face value, not the price you paid for them, on the gift certificate. And that's what they're good for, at participating restaurants in your area. You can drill down and find out what restaurants those are in your city on the website.

To take advantage of this deal, click here and when you check out, use the code "SURPRISE" to get the discount.


If you miss this promotion, or go for it and later wish you'd bought more, know that Restaurant.com gift certificates' regular prices are less than half of the stated value. They're a pretty good deal.