Paying for dinner usually means handing over your card and accepting the damage. InKind flips that around: it's a free app where you settle the bill from your phone at participating restaurants and automatically earn at least 20% back in dining credit. With over 8,000 restaurants, bars and cafes on the list — concentrated in big cities like New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco — it's worth a look for anyone who eats out often or travels domestically.

What sets it apart from typical airline or hotel dining programs is the quality of the restaurants. The Miami-based writer behind the guide notes that spots he'd visit anyway — Chug's Diner, Ghee Indian Kitchen, KYU, Michael's Genuine — are all in the network. The reason lies in the business model: rather than skimming a cut off each transaction, InKind provides financing to restaurants in exchange for dining credits, which explains both the closer partnerships and the smaller network.

The savings stack up in several ways. New users get $25 off a first bill of $50 or more through a referral. Every meal paid through the app earns 20% back as credit (no cap), valid through the end of the second calendar month after you earn it — so use it promptly. If you're a regular, you can buy InKind Cash upfront at a discount; examples include $312 of credit for $250 or a huge $8,700 package for $6,000, working out to 25-45% in extra value. The base credit never expires, though bonus credit runs out after three years. Citi / AAdvantage Executive cardholders can also stack a $200 annual InKind credit ($100 per half-year), and Costco has sold $100 of credit for around $69.99.

In practice, it's refreshingly frictionless. All participating restaurants use the Toast payment platform, so you just open the app, enter your check number, choose a tip and pay — no need to book differently, tell your server, or dine at restricted times. On a recent $123.58 bill at Ghee, the writer saved about $43 thanks to credits bought at a 35% discount. Better still, purchases code as dining on credit cards, so you keep earning your card's normal dining rewards — and Citi Strata Elite holders can even time credit purchases to Citi Nights weekends for 6x points.

For travellers, this is a genuinely useful tool: if you're visiting a major US city, chances are good that well-regarded restaurants near you participate, effectively giving you a standing 20%-plus discount with zero fine print about when or what you can order. If you live in a smaller market, the network is thin enough that it's mainly useful when you travel.