I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that dining out makes up a significant amount of my travel expenses. I fund a lot of my travels through credit card sign-up bonuses, so I am always on the hunt for more ways to gamify cash back rewards. When I saw that the Seated app was paying out 20%+ cash back (on top of the credit card points I was already earning), I had to check it out for myself.
Let’s dig into a quick review of the Seated app to explain what it is, how it works, and if it is worth using.
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What is Seated?
Seated is an app that promises a simple premise: an app that pays you to dine out or order takeout.
The company does this by offering patrons rewards for dining at partner bars/restaurants. In my experience, you can expect to receive 12-35% of your pre-tax bill as a reward. These rewards can then be redeemed for gift cards for dozens of brands (including Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, Starbucks, REI, and Ulta) through the Seated app.
How do I earn rewards on the Seated app?
There are three ways to earn rewards using Seated (note that not all partner restaurants will offer each option):
- Make a reservation: Seated shows you available times & leverages a concierge service to confirm your booking with the restaurant, and I’m happy to see that some restaurants allow you to earn for walking in during a large window instead of a traditional sit-down reservation
- Place a delivery order: Seated will redirect you to the restaurant’s preferred delivery portal to complete your order
- Place a pick-up order: Seated will provide you with a window of time (generally 2 hours) for which the promotional reward will be valid
Previously, Seated required you to upload a picture of your receipt against every booking you made in the app. There is now an option to link a credit card directly to the Seated app so you can skip the receipt submission process if you pay with the linked card.
Once the transaction is confirmed, your reward cash will become available in the app to be used to redeem any credits.
Do Seated rewards expire?
As a frustrated reader pointed out to me: yes, it is possible for your Seated rewards to expire after 90 days of account inactivity.
To avoid losing your rewards , make sure to redeem your earned dollars whenever possible.
Below is an excerpt from Seated’s Terms & Conditions:
Forfeiture of Rewards. Provided you do not breach these Terms, any Rewards that have been credited to your account will remain in your account for so long as you are actively using the App. Your Rewards may automatically expire and be removed from your account if you fail to do either of the following during any ninety (90) day period: (i) make a booking through the App and have your purchase receipt verified by Seated; or (ii) redeem any of your Rewards for gift cards, service rewards or unique experiences. If Rewards are removed from your account, expired Rewards will not be replaced.
Source: Seated Terms & Conditions
Where can I use the Seated app?
Seated is currently only available in a handful of major markets in the United States, so its footprint is limited to the following cities:
- New York City, NY
- Dallas, TX
- Boston, MA
- Atlanta, GA
- Chicago, IL
- Philadelphia, PA
- Washington D.C.
That’s a disappointingly small number of cities, but there is a silver lining here: every city listed above is a hub/focus city for the major US airlines. I know not everyone that browses this site works for an airline, but anyone who transits through these cities could still take advantage of the Seated app’s current network.
My Experience with Seated (so far)
I have been very satisfied with my first few Seated transactions. On top of the $10 welcome credit (which you can get by signing up for Seated using my referral link), Seated has thrown a couple extra promos my way.
My first two dining experiences yielded a grand total of $52 reward dollars, and my third reservation earned an additional 29% of my bill.
Since I first wrote this article at the end of 2021, I have successfully earned rewards via the Seated app at countless bars & restaurants in the DFW area.
Though I recognize many of the restaurants offering rewards in the app, Seated has also introduced me to new restaurants in the area. That is to be expected (after all, the promise of new patrons is what drives restaurants to become Seated partners in the first place), and I’m glad to be getting extra cashback for trying something new.
The redemption options are diverse, so I will have no issues at all finding relevant gift cards to procure.
How does Seated compare to other rewards & reservation apps?
I’ve been a closeted Yelp Elite member for years, so I was sad to see the Yelp Rewards program be retired. Since then, I have been searching for other dining rewards programs. Here is how Seated compares with other apps/programs I have used.
Seated vs OpenTable
OpenTable, the original online reservation app, still reigns supreme when it comes to footprint. While Seated is limited to just a handful of cities, OpenTable has partners across the country.
While OpenTable is still the best option for securing an actual reservation in most parts of the country, the rewards program leaves a lot to be desired. Users generally earn 100 points per reservation, and those points can be redeemed for gift certificates for partners like Kayak & Amazon.
You must earn 1,000 points before being able to redeem for the lowest reward. Here’s a screenshot to show you some of the low-end options available to OpenTable users.
Seated vs Rakuten
I have used Rakuten as a cashback shopping portal in the past (first-time users receive a $30 welcome bonus with our referral link), and I was pleasantly surprised with their dining rewards program. Instead of doling out rewards for reservations, users can link their credit card(s) directly to the program. Users will earn cash back whenever their linked card is swiped at a partner restaurant.
While Rakuten’s earnings rates aren’t as high as what Seated offers, the significantly larger footprint & ease of use make Rakuten a solid option. Since you don’t need to proactively activate any offers to earn cash back, I sometimes will earn rewards for accidentally dining at a place that is a Rakuten partner.
Verdict
I am thoroughly impressed with Seated. I do hope they grow to more cities, but the footprint they have in the cities I visited was fairly extensive.
While the requirement to upload a receipt to earn points adds friction to the transaction, I was happy to see that Seated has a solution if you forget to ask for a receipt (which happened to me during my second reservation). Seated accepted a screenshot of my credit card statement as proof that I had completed a transaction at the proper restaurant; my cash back was immediately credited to my account.
I have been using most of my Seated rewards to buy Airbnb gift cards to fund trips that aren’t covered by the hotel points collected thanks to credit card sign-ups.
If you live in any of the in-market cities (or find yourself flying through them), I highly recommend signing up for Seated before your next meal. For that reason, I have added Seated to my list of essential apps for non-rev travelers.
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Does signing up for Seated cause one to get any spam emails or texts? Thanks!
The only emails/texts I get are directly from Seated about upcoming bonuses (and you can choose to opt of them).
Should I wait to sign up until I know I’m eating out soon? I.e are there any bonuses for eating out a bunch right after signing up?
Seated is a great app – I use it all the time. Use code austin310 for $15!
The Seated App is a SCAM! I have accumulated almost $600 in rewards point and they took it away because my account was inactive for 3 months. I never knew of this policy change. I was never notified and when I reach out to customer service, they said they emailed it once and extended the deadline for me. I never received the email from them nor a text message, which I usually do for promotions. In the past they had lots of restaurant listed on the app but not so much anymore. It was easy to get points for walk-in reservation in the past, but now there are blackout time where you can not make a walk in reservation during busy hours. You are basically selling your information when you submit your receipts. The receipts shows what you order, time and date of when you dine/ take out, restaurants address, and payment method/credit card information. If you don’t have the receipts you need to provide your credit card statement to verify. Other people have reported this issue where Seated failed to notify about the points expiration dates. The customer service keeps apologizing and saying they value our feedbacks but nothing is done about it.
That’s horrible! I had no idea that Seated rewards expired.
I just pored over their Terms & Conditions to find the following language: “Forfeiture of Rewards. Provided you do not breach these Terms, any Rewards that have been credited to your account will remain in your account for so long as you are actively using the App. Your Rewards may automatically expire and be removed from your account if you fail to do either of the following during any ninety (90) day period: (i) make a booking through the App and have your purchase receipt verified by Seated; or (ii) redeem any of your Rewards for gift cards, service rewards or unique experiences. If Rewards are removed from your account, expired Rewards will not be replaced.”
Thank you very much for sharing. I’ll update this post ASAP with this information to help others avoid this situation.
Same thing happened to me. Lost $317 of rewards because of it, even though I actually did dine within the 90 days (that I had no idea about). But because they rejected my receipt, I later lost my rewards. Totally corrupt and deliberately deceptive emails that hide that your rewards are expiring behind a “Term of Service” email subject line. Every other email they send is super clear on their promotion but when it comes to their rewards instead of saying something like “Hurry, your rewards are running out” they hide it behind that line. And they sent the original email telling me about the change in rewards, to my old email address that they hadn’t sent anything to for 3 years. Absolute crooks and I intend to go to BBB to complain about it.
Agree with the 90 days policy. I’ve been using this app since before the pandemic when no one knew it existed. Never had a problem then accumulating the points to get a larger reward. The problem this time was I hadn’t been able to cash anything out because in recent years they’ve raised the threshold for redemption. You used to have options that were $20 or so. Now everything is $50. Ive only had $45 for a while and couldn’t redeem. So this is pretty scammy. They gave me a 3-day notice email which was solely titled “Terms of Service” and seemed like your usual required annual update for credit cards and things. Lo and behold, open it up and in small print it says I’ll be losing my points in 3 days- but I read it 2 days after being sent. What am I supposed to do- run out and get dinner right this minute just to keep my rewards? In addition, I reviewed the rest of the “changes to the terms” now that my attention was piqued and there’s something in there now that says as agreement for using the app , you waive your right to class action. So they KNOW people feel this is predatory or scammy, but… you can’t do anything. So I asked them to remove my account.