Last week, Groupon announced Groupon+, a new addition to its offering of deals that can help you save on dining after linking your eligible Mastercard or Visa card. The new venture is a relaunch of its card-linked deals, and is interesting in that it strays away from Groupon's traditional dining deals, where you'd have to buy a voucher that you would then bring to the restaurant. Not only that, you may have been restricted to certain meal options or there would be a spending requirement to activate the voucher, i.e. spend $50 to get $20 off. With Groupon+, the company has removed much of the red tape from redeeming some of its deals and is making it easier to get cash back when dining out.
Here's the way it works: first you'll need to be a Groupon member (sign-up is free) to be eligible for the deals. Second, you'll have to visit the Groupon+ page and browse what restaurants are eligible for savings, then you'll have to "claim" a deal, which only requires you to hit the "Claim This Deal Button." Add your credit card information (only Visa and Mastercard products are eligible) so that once you make a purchase at the restaurant, you'll be able to get your cash back. Similarly to Uber's new rewards program, it tracks your purchases and knows when a purchase is part of a deal, automatically applying a statement credit afterwards.
Groupon+ is available in 23 major cities and metro areas across the US, and more than 1,500 restaurants have signed up to participate in the program. From our search of New York City, there seemed to be a solid amount of dining options that ranged from fine dining to fast casual, with discounts up to 30%. They aren't one-time deals and they work on any type of purchase with no minimums. Even better, you can continually earn cash back — although after you've used the deal once, the cash back amount usually falls.
The cash back is received in the form of a statement credit, so you don't have to worry about any messy forms to fill out. Don't forget that many credit cards get bonus spend on dining out. The Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Sapphire Reserve get 2x and 3x points on dining, while the newly announced Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card can get up to a whopping 3.5% back on dining if you can maximize its Preferred Rewards program.
Additionally, you can link your card to an airline's dining program and earn bonus miles that way — although it's unclear whether or not Groupon+ cash back would stack with a dining program. Groupon says it plans on expending the rewards program to more cities and other purchases outside of dining.
