Booking a dinner reservation used to be a chore with no upside. Now three big platforms — OpenTable, DoorDash and Seated — will pay you for the privilege, and the gap between them is bigger than you'd think.
OpenTable's Regulars program is the familiar one: 100 points per completed reservation booked directly through the app, with some tables offering bonuses of up to 1,000 points. Points redeem at 0.8 cents each toward dining or experience credits, so a standard booking is worth a rather underwhelming 80 cents. You'd need 20 regular dinners to fund a $16 credit. Stick with it, though, and six reservations in 12 months unlock Gold status — priority alerts when tables open, six months of free Uber One and access to hard-to-book "Gold Tables" at more than 500 restaurants across 50-plus US cities. Watch your attendance: four no-shows in a year closes your account and wipes your points.
DoorDash Reservations takes a simpler approach. Book a table through the app in one of 16 US cities — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Austin, Las Vegas, Seattle and others — and you get $10 in DoorDash credits ($12 with DashPass) once you've dined. Credits work on future delivery or pickup orders, can't cover tax, fees or tips, and expire after six months. Because the reward is fixed, it's proportionally best on modest bills: 12% back on a $100 dinner, but only 4% on a $300 tasting menu.
Seated flips the model entirely. You don't book anything — just link a card, activate participating restaurants (up to 25 per month) and pay as normal. Rewards of up to 30% back post automatically, calculated on food and drink before tax and tip, and splitting the bill is fine since everyone earns on their own share. The app also advertises 5% back without activation at participating spots, as long as you open it every 30 days. Rewards convert to gift cards — Airbnb, Amazon, Starbucks, Target, Uber and more — at face value. The catch: balances can expire after just 30 days of inactivity, and Seated can't be stacked with other restaurant promotions or deals like Groupon.
On a $100 meal, the maths looks like this: OpenTable's standard reservation returns 0.8%, DoorDash 10–12%, and Seated anywhere from 5% to a standout 30% depending on the restaurant. Spend more and Seated pulls further ahead, since its rewards scale with the bill while the others stay flat.
For travellers, Seated is the one to know about — it rewards you for simply eating where you were going to eat anyway, and rewards that convert to Uber or Airbnb gift cards are genuinely useful on the road. Frequent diners in DoorDash's 16 cities should use it for cheaper meals, and OpenTable remains worth booking through for the perks and bonus-point tables even if its base earn rate is weak. Best of all, you can still earn credit card dining points on top of whichever app you choose.
Story via The Points Guy.
