WSJ Your Money Briefing - Save Money on Your Valentine’s Day Date With Restaurant Loyalty Apps

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Dining out has become more expensive. But a new generation of loyalty apps such as Blackbird, inKind and Dorsia offer perks to repeat diners, help score hard-to-get reservations and can take some of the sting out of the bill. Wall Street Journal contributor Kathleen Squires joins host Ariana Aspuru to discuss how to know which one is right for you. Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Here's your money briefing for Friday, February 14th. I'm Mariana Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. A dozen roses, a heart-shaped box of chocolates, along with the romantic Valentine's Day dinner can add up. But scoring that hard to get reservation could be cheaper and easier with the help of restaurant loyalty apps. If you dine out a lot, then you should go for the app that offers significant discounts because you are spending a lot of money at restaurants. And then if you're a person who enjoys having perks, like getting a free cocktail from time to time,

or that extra course, then I think that one of these apps might be for you as well. We'll talk with Wall Street Journal contributor Kathleen Squires about how diners can get the most out of these apps after the break. This is Carry the Fire. I'm your host, Lisa LaFlamme. Carry the Fire, a podcast by the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, featuring inspiring personal stories about what happens when world-leading doctors,

nurses, researchers, and their patients come together to ignite breakthroughs. Carry the Fire launches Monday, January 27th, wherever you get your podcasts. you get your podcasts. Users flock to restaurant loyalty apps hoping to improve their dining out experience and maybe save some money. But which one is right for you? Wall Street Journal contributor Kathleen Squires joins me.

Kathleen, what do loyalty apps specifically for restaurants offer? Restaurant loyalty apps can offer easy payment. You can pay your check right on the app and then just get up and go. You don't have to wait for the check. There's no back and forth with the server bringing you the check, running your credit card, bringing it back. Another thing that these loyalty apps offer are significant rewards and discounts. And some of these apps also offer access to hot tables.

At like sought after restaurants, I'm thinking like Carbone here in New York, anything else come to mind? Yes, Carbone, the corner store, think any place that Taylor Swift would dine. You can get a table. Listen, I like anything with Taylor Swift. But your story discusses the top three restaurant loyalty apps. What are the main criteria someone should consider when choosing one? Think about how often you dine out.

If you dine out a lot, then you should go for the app that offers significant discounts, because you are spending a lot of money at restaurants. Let's say that you have a client in town to impress, then I would go for an app that gives you access to a hard-to-get table. And then if you're a person who enjoys having perks like getting a free cocktail from time to time, or that extra course, then I think that one of these apps might be for you as well. And you run through three of these in your story. The first one you mentioned is Blackbird.

Who does this app appeal to? The Blackbird app appeals to people who tend to be regulars at neighborhood restaurants. You check in when you enter the restaurant and you amass their currency and then that can be used for perks such as a free cocktail. Could be used also to pay your bill. Blackbird also has special clubs. There's one called the Burger Club. They have a breakfast club. The breakfast club, for example, you pay $25 a month and you get a cup of coffee daily, discounts on breakfast, and some merch. So just think about the coffee alone.

At $25 a month, the average cup of coffee today is $3 to $5. So for $25, you're getting a value value of 90 to $150 worth of coffee. The next app you mentioned in your story is Inkind. What are some of the top features there? Inkind offers really significant discounts, especially if you prepay for credit. You can get 25 to 33% off your bill. And if you dine out a lot, that's really significant. The last one you mentioned is Dorcia. Tell me about how this one differs

from the two we just talked about. It focuses on access. Through Dorcia, you can score that really hot table at the types of restaurants, let's say, that celebrities go to. What's interesting about Dorsia is that you have to commit to a minimum spend. So, for example, I recently went to Teresee, a very popular restaurant in New York City, and it was $300 minimum spend per person. You can see your tab live as you're eating.

So if you've blown through that $600 and you're concerned about it, then maybe you can skip dessert. It's okay. How much can people save by downloading one of these apps? For example, you could save a third of your entire bill, even more, on some of these apps. Give me an example. Like let's say you're going out to dinner with three people in your family. What kind of features would these apps offer you to help you save? If you buy $1,000 worth of credit by prepaying for it, you could get $1,250 in credit. That's free money. You're getting $250 free to spend at the restaurant you're going to.

You know, for that, a couple of people can eat for free. What are some of the cons that users should be aware of when signing up for loyalty apps? Some of the cons are, for example, with Blackbird right now, you can't pay at every restaurant that's on the Blackbird network. Apparently, they are remedying that by the summer and you will be able to pay at every Blackbird restaurant. Also, the pool of restaurants at Blackbird is relatively small right now. For Inkind, there's very few restaurants that you can use the app to reserve. For Dororsia, it's membership-based, but membership

requires acceptance. So you might apply to Dorsia and not be accepted. The basic membership fee is $175 currently, but some of the other membership tiers are very expensive. With Inkind and Blackbird, membership is free and you can quit the app at any time. With Dorsia, if you're gonna spend the money on the higher tiers of membership, you should consider how often do I travel to a place that accepts this app if I'm gonna spend that kind of money and how often am I going to dine out and really what am I looking for from my dining experience? What are some of the cons that users should be aware of when signing up for loyalty apps? That's Wall Street Journal contributor Kathleen

Squires and that's it for your money briefing. Tomorrow we'll have our weekly markets wrap up what's news and markets. We're off on Monday for the President's Day holiday, but we'll be back on Tuesday. I'm your host, Arianna Aspuru. This episode was produced by me with supervising producer Melanie Roy. Jessica Fenton and Michael Laval wrote our theme music. Aisha El-Muslim is our development producer. Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is The Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. Thanks for listening.