LivingSocial has offered a rewards dining program called Restaurants, but they have sent emails to users saying that the program is shutting down on July 12th.
The cool thing about RestaurantsPlus has been that it works like the Rewards Network dining programs (primarily airline miles for dining — I subscribe to the Alaska MileagePlan version) where you simply link your credit cards and get rewarded automatically when dining at any participating restaurants. Even better, the two programs stack, so you can get rewards from both! I don’t seek out restaurants that are in this program, but it’s always fun to get emails telling me that I’ve earned rewards.
Mogl to the rescue?
Here’s a friend link to Mogl (I don’t think it gets either of us anything, but who knows).
Before RestaurantsPlus, there was Mogl. It works the exact same way: you get cash back for dining and paying with linked credit cards. Like RestaurantsPlus, Mogl can work in conjunction with airline mile Rewards Network programs.
The main issue is that Living Social’s RestaurantPlus and Mogl use the same back-end system. So you may need to unlink cards from your RestaurantsPlus account before linking them to Mogl. But, this requires calling. I found this notice in a prior RestaurantsPlus email:
After June 12th, if you want to deactivate any payment card that you have registered with Restaurants Plus, you will need to call our Customer Care team at 202-400-2100.
So, now I have to get around to making that call…
Or SwagBucks?
SwagBucks is a portal and deal site that includes the ability to link credit cards exactly in the same way and with the same back-end as Mogl. I spot checked rebates and found that they offer the same cash back rates as Mogl.
One advantage of SwagBucks over Mogl is that you’ll start with $1.50 worth of SwagBucks if you join with a friend referral link. Here’s mine.
Since I already use SwagBucks for occasional good deals through that site, I’ll probably go with SwagBucks.
Or Yelp?
I haven’t looked into this one at all, but they too offer rewards on dining in the exact same way as Mogl and SwagBucks.
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[…] RestaurantsPlus ending. Switch to Mogl or SwagBucks?: This one is scheduled to end July 12th, but we are putting it here to give readers one more heads up. […]
For the past several months Swagbucks has been operating on an UNSECURE SITE. No (s)
do you know if you can stack yelp + airline? Or only choose yelp, mogl, or swagbucks, and stack with an airline?
I like yelp since you get instant cash back, which is very convenient and you won’t need to hit a minimum to redeem rewards. I never explored the other options, thanks for pointing them out.
Yes you can stack yelp and airline. Yelp and Mogl use the same “Empyr” network so you can’t add the same card to both. I don’t think yelp pays instantly though, they pay once a month?
Even better – you can stack Yelp, Rewards Network (airline) and Groupon. Groupon has percentage back in addition to their “pay $10, get $20” type deals. However, the registered card has to be a Visa. I find that if a restaurant is offering a cash back deal on Groupon, they’re often also on Yelp and Rewards Network. I have a list of restaurants that offer all 3, with the best deal I’ve found being 30% Groupon, 10% Yelp, 5x Rewards Network dining, and 2x credit card. Fortunately, it’s an Irish pub right across the street from my home.
Great tip. I didn’t know that Groupon had a card linked program. For me it shows 0 deals though. Is this a regional thing?