gDine, Savored, and others

Has anyone used either of these services? Some of the deals on gDine seem good, especially given that the tax & tip is included in the advertised price.

http://www.gdine.com/
http://savored.com/chicago/

I'm registered with a ridiculous amount of these:
KGB Deals, Groupon, FlyCoupon, YouSwoop, BuyWithMe, Two Buck Duck, YP something, ScoutMob, and WeDeal, and Yelp. I may have missed one or two. Now I'm registered with Savored, but not gDine, because they want a phone number and I don't give that out.

My name is Pie, and I have a problem.

Pie Lady wrote:I'm registered with a ridiculous amount of these:
KGB Deals, Groupon, FlyCoupon, YouSwoop, BuyWithMe, Two Buck Duck, YP something, ScoutMob, and WeDeal, and Yelp. I may have missed one or two. Now I'm registered with Savored, but not gDine, because they want a phone number and I don't give that out.

My name is Pie, and I have a problem.

I too have a problem. I receive about 60 e-mails a day. Some that were missed:
LivingSocial, Bloomspot, BlackboardEats, Brown Hub, Popsugar, invino, Gilt City (always has good offerings), Daily Gourmet, and Travelzoo.

...It's gotten ridiculous.

Though I have yet to use Either gDine or Savored, friends have had some great experiences.

incite wrote:Though I have yet to use Either gDine or Savored, friends have had some great experiences.

Good to hear. I've seen, and used, several of the daily coupon sites; but the two I mentioned are set up a little differently. gDine does price fix menus for a specific group size (and it looks like lunch and dinner are reasonably different), and the price includes tax and gratuity up front. Savored charges a booking fee ($10) and then you get a flat 30% discount on all food and drinks (alcohol included).

Oh, right, LivingSocial. I get that too. And now to sign up for the rest of those you mentioned...

There is a site, http://yipit.com/chicago/, that aggregates and filters all of the daily coupon sites.

jblth wrote:There is a site, http://yipit.com/chicago/, that aggregates and filters all of the daily coupon sites.

as does - http://www.dealradar.com/

Groupon Inc. has bought Savored, a discount restaurant-reservation site, continuing the company's rapid expansion into more businesses beyond its core daily deals.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... te-savored

Homaro Cantu and ING is currently offering a 3-course special for $48 per person. We've somehow never made it there and it sounds like a great deal to us. The catch: you book through a website called gDine, which is sort of set up like Next—you prepay for a certain time day and all taxes, gratuity, drinks are included. The difference is you can cancel or get a refund up to 4 hours before your reservation.

The Lovely Dining Companion found a good date and time and tried to book a table. The website wouldn’t take the booking despite clearly showing that it was available. So LDC sent gDine an e-mail. They didn’t bother to respond to the e-mail (we're talking a couple days of waiting). So she sent a livechat note. They didn’t respond to that either (again, a few days). Finally, she tried one last time by posting on Facebook since that appeared the way others were getting a response from gDine. Guess what? No answer there either. (There’s no point in calling the restaurant since they’ve outsourced the whole reservation thing.) We understand Cantu/ING not wanting to be bothered with all the details, but since gDine can't be bothered to deal with customers, they've managed to screw both Cantu/ING and us simultaneously.

I've noticed a small handful of mentions of gDine on other threads. Just wondering: has anyone else had this kind of problem getting a reservation, much less the courtesy of a (timely) response?

Gypsy Boy wrote:I've noticed a small handful of mentions of gDine on other threads. Just wondering: has anyone else had this kind of problem getting a reservation, much less the courtesy of a (timely) response?

I have had the same problem with Google Offers in the past week.

The coupon (Starbucks) would not transfer to my Starbucks card and there was NO way possible to contact a human to get it resolved.

I am really beginning to question whether all of these deal sites are worth the PITA!?!

Gypsy Boy wrote:Homaro Cantu and ING is currently offering a 3-course special for $48 per person. We've somehow never made it there and it sounds like a great deal to us. The catch: you book through a website called gDine, which is sort of set up like Next—you prepay for a certain time day and all taxes, gratuity, drinks are included. The difference is you can cancel or get a refund up to 4 hours before your reservation.

The Lovely Dining Companion found a good date and time and tried to book a table. The website wouldn’t take the booking despite clearly showing that it was available. So LDC sent gDine an e-mail. They didn’t bother to respond to the e-mail (we're talking a couple days of waiting). So she sent a livechat note. They didn’t respond to that either (again, a few days). Finally, she tried one last time by posting on Facebook since that appeared the way others were getting a response from gDine. Guess what? No answer there either. (There’s no point in calling the restaurant since they’ve outsourced the whole reservation thing.) We understand Cantu/ING not wanting to be bothered with all the details, but since gDine can't be bothered to deal with customers, they've managed to screw both Cantu/ING and us simultaneously.

I've noticed a small handful of mentions of gDine on other threads. Just wondering: has anyone else had this kind of problem getting a reservation, much less the courtesy of a (timely) response?

Hello,

iNG just switched to a new menu a couple of days ago and I noticed gDine still lists the old menu. I wonder if this has something to do with the issue?

iNG is one of my favorite restaurants, so I definitely recommend checking it out; FYI the dinner at iNG always includes alcohol pairings (or non-alcoholic if you prefer) and the regular pricing is actually a better deal than what gDine is offering (though more courses, but less expensive on a per/course basis). The past couple of menus have featured a ten course with eight pairings (variety of beer, wine and cocktails) for $105 or a six course with six pairings for $85. Sometimes they run three or four course menus at a cheaper price for a limited time, but personally I'd recommend going with at least the six course. The new menu looks like a lot of fun; it is somewhat similar theme to the Childhood menu at Next (it is called Wonder Years). The meal always includes about two or three courses featuring the Miracle Berry. I am checking out the new menu myself later this week.