Friday Favorites: Local Discounts
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 11:55PM There has been some controversy lately regarding mommy bloggers who fail to disclose behind-the-scenes marketing payments. I am against this practice — if only because no one sends ME free stuff. However, I do believe uncompensated, unbiased user reviews make the Web a better place. I couldn’t live without Web reviews of all sorts. And this year I’ve vowed to give back by sharing more of my own.**
In other words, meet our new feature: Friday Favorites! Friday Favorites will cover my go-to products, websites, foods, shops … whatever I’m appreciating in any given week.
This week: my favorites Web sources for local deals and specials.
(piggy bank here)
The first three sites offer coupons for significant discounts off local restaurants and services (beauty salons, fitness classes, car detailing, etc.). The sites emphasize group action; a certain number of people must sign up before each deal is “activated.”
Groupon - The best known of the local-deal sites, Groupon offers daily deals for dozens of cities in the US and Canada. I find their deals the most tempting, but rarely make it to the (surprisingly funny!) website in time to purchase before midnight.
Living Social - Atlanta, Austin, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC.
What’s the Deal - DC only. Deals aren’t as frequent; on the other hand, they’re posted longer so it’s easier to sign on before they disappear.
While group coupons are the latest craze, some old-school sites are also worth a visit:
Goldstar Events - Boston, Chicago, DC, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle. Offers half-price tickets for music and theater performances, sporting events, seminars, and more. Great for trying something where you wouldn’t necessarily pay full price. (Our own Goldstar experiences include Wizards tickets, Native American Dance at the Smithsonian, and a thoroughly enjoyable cannibalism musical.)
For DC theatergoers, there’s also a half-price ticket site with week-of-performance deals.
Restaurant.com - $25 restaurant gift certificates for $10. Toward the end of the month, they often discount their certificates still further, to an amazing $2-4. The certificates are good for a year, but we recommend making plans within a few weeks; otherwise, it’s surprisingly easy to forget and let them expire. All major US cities.
** So … er … it’s a bit ironic that this is my first big strike for uncompensated reviews. When I visited each site for background information, I discovered that a few give some small credit to refer people who join the site and make a purchase. I used referral links where applicable, because why not? But referral fees are not the reason for my enthusiasm — I genuinely didn’t know about them until after I wrote this post!!
Goldstar, Groupon, Living Social, Restaurant.com, What's the Deal in Bargains, DC Life, Useful Stuff 
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Reader Comments (4)
I love restaurant.com. I usually wait until they are 70-80% off.
I love restaurant.com. One of the great things (probably one of the few things) about being in California is that coupons that you pay for never expire (like gift cards), so the one year rule does not apply to California you can have restaurant.com coupons for years and still use them, as long as the restaurant is in business, even then if you don't use a coupon and that business goes out of business, restaurant.com has sent me e-mails offering me a free coupon to my choice of restaurants. It's a really good deal for Californians. ^_^
Sara, I'm with you on the massive Restaurant.com discounts! That's how we always go as well. But those discounts come up at the end of the month, when most of the popular places have sold out. The first time I visited before the big sale, I discovered so many more restaurants that we actually frequent!
Melody, that's really cool that CA has instituted special protections. (Don't even get me started on gift card expirations and fees!) Although we have the expirations here, I had one situation where the restaurant stopped accepting coupons, and like you I found Restaurant.com was good about emailing me right away and offering a refund.
Thanks for your comments, ladies -- good to hear from you!
I've grappled with the same thing (referrals and affiliate links), but then I realized, if you recommend something to me, I WANT you to get a referral, because I wouldn't be acting on it if I didn't trust you.
I think readers are smart enough to know who's just trying to make money off of them. If they don't trust you, they won't follow the link. We need to give readers (ourselves!) more credit for being smart.
So I use affiliate links if they exist, but I don't go looking for them. Really, I'm too busy to just go hunting for links to push because I think I can make money. It's not gonna happen, not on the scale that would make it worthwhile for me to pursue, and I think most of us who blog are that way. I say, use 'em!
But yea, if you get it for free, just say you got it for free and then liked/ didn't like it. Simple enough.