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FYI, these deals flying around right now are nothing like what was flying around even earlier this year. They were literally giving 50 off 50, 50 off 100 all sorts of heavy discounts. That doesn't even count the restaurant specific pieces.
PROTIP: Go to the website of a restaurant you want to go to that is on the platform. Often on the home page it'll pop up with an offer. YOu punch in your ph/email and you'll get a resto specific coupon. from 15/45, 25/50, 25/75, 30/90 all the way up to 50/150.
Some personal experience with inKind that may help other people.
I purchased more than $17,000 of InKind credit as part of levering an AMEX deal that offered ~13X Membership rewards points on "restaurant spend." InKind coded as a "restaurant" so it was a great way to stash money for later use while still earning enough points to fly to Hong Kong round trip more than six times.
In addition to the points, InKind gave me 45%+ bonus credit on the money I plunked down.
Verdict? It has been completely awesome. The cost of eating out has been cut almost in half. We've tried all sorts of places we never would have thought to go. If you go to NYC, there are a bazillion places you can eat. We've enjoyed three vacations there without a care in the world about food costs.
InKind often offers additional bonuses on particular restaurants, say, $50 off of a $150 bill. Spend the requisite amount, and you get the additional discount. They often have these random $25/off coupons.
Pro tip: InKind credit can often be used for catering. My son has a Bar Mitzvah this weekend. We're having about $2000 in food delivered, all purchased with InKind.
Pro tip #2: read the terms of the credit carefully if you're going to play the same game as me with a huge buy. You get bonus credit that expires in 3 years. You get base credit (for the dollars spent) that will last the life of inKind -- no expiration. The fine print you gotta pay attention to: your base dollars will get used up BEFORE your bonus credit. So you should really have a clear plan to burn through whatever you buy and are bonused in a three year timeframe. That's why I didn't end up with $21,000 of inKind credit, LOL.
InKind restaurants will come and go. Each restaurant makes a time-limited contract with InKind, and will tend to drop off once they've gotten the money or free advertising they wanted from the service. This is normal and should be expected. New restaurants will take their place.
People who are worried about the durability of inKind itself should look through Crunchbase or a similar database of VC funding. You can see how many hundreds of millions they've gleaned from venture capital, and make a guesstimate about how long they can afford to do this.
We love inKind. What they're basically doing is introducing a "tiered pricing model" to restaurants. People like me who are too cheap to feel good about dropping $150+ on dinner may be willing to pay half that. InKind offers restauranteurs a way to do that. Secondarily, it enables them to keep paying staff: your tip isn't payable with InKind credit. So everyone sort of wins, here. The incremental cost to the restaurant of providing you a dish of food doesn't approach its sales price. You end up with a dinner that seems affordable. And the restaurant gets free financing and free advertising that it may or may not need.
The entire concept is pretty interesting. A restaurant in need of cash gets a $20k infusion (just using this as an example) into its business. In exchange, they agree to $40k (appears to be a minimum of 2x the original loan amount) in store credit to be used to repay the loan. InKind uses the $40k in store credit to offer 20% cashback, $25 off $50 coupons, discounted GCs, selling giftcards through Costco promotions, etc, to repay the loan they made to the business. Any overages on a check inKind pockets when you pay through their app.
In reviewing the restaurant marketing materials online, 2x the loan amount in store credit appears to be the minimum starting point for the loan from what I gather, but depending on, I'm assuming, how desperate the business is for cash, etc, there may be worse multipliers a business could consent to, to secure their loan.
The restaurant benefits from an immediate cash flow improvement that smooths out rough spots, especially when a traditional loan approval is probably unlikely (since they are struggling). Additionally, it serves as a form of marketing for their business. New customers are enticed to come try places they otherwise wouldn't have. Once the debt is repaid and the restaurant is no longer on inKind, the business may gain a new customer, provided the experience was positive and you're inclined to return.
Not sure if every restaurant's margins can support this sort of arrangement, but overall, it will probably keep some struggling businesses afloat when a cash flow crunch might have otherwise caused them to close their doors.
I wouldn't be too worried about inKind running deals, etc. These sorts of incentives appear to be baked into the business model. Plus, they seem to be backed by some extremely deep pockets, given that they are making these large initial loans to hundreds of restaurants/bars throughout the country to begin with.
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For those of you that already used the $25 off $50 a week or two ago, this is a new offer. I used the previous discount on Saturday and was able to claim this new offer today.
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from TheJerkStoreCalled
:
really nervous to be sitting on all those discounted gift cards from Costco given the flurry of deals lately
I bought 500 this last go around.
I've cycled through a few thousand already.
FYI, these deals flying around right now are nothing like what was flying around even earlier this year. They were literally giving 50 off 50, 50 off 100 all sorts of heavy discounts. That doesn't even count the restaurant specific pieces.
PROTIP: Go to the website of a restaurant you want to go to that is on the platform. Often on the home page it'll pop up with an offer. YOu punch in your ph/email and you'll get a resto specific coupon. from 15/45, 25/50, 25/75, 30/90 all the way up to 50/150.
The entire concept is pretty interesting. A restaurant in need of cash gets a $20k infusion (just using this as an example) into its business. In exchange, they agree to $40k (appears to be a minimum of 2x the original loan amount) in store credit to be used to repay the loan. InKind uses the $40k in store credit to offer 20% cashback, $25 off $50 coupons, discounted GCs, selling giftcards through Costco promotions, etc, to repay the loan they made to the business. Any overages on a check inKind pockets when you pay through their app.
In reviewing the restaurant marketing materials online, 2x the loan amount in store credit appears to be the minimum starting point for the loan from what I gather, but depending on, I'm assuming, how desperate the business is for cash, etc, there may be worse multipliers a business could consent to, to secure their loan.
The restaurant benefits from an immediate cash flow improvement that smooths out rough spots, especially when a traditional loan approval is probably unlikely (since they are struggling). Additionally, it serves as a form of marketing for their business. New customers are enticed to come try places they otherwise wouldn't have. Once the debt is repaid and the restaurant is no longer on inKind, the business may gain a new customer, provided the experience was positive and you're inclined to return.
Not sure if every restaurant's margins can support this sort of arrangement, but overall, it will probably keep some struggling businesses afloat when a cash flow crunch might have otherwise caused them to close their doors.
I wouldn't be too worried about inKind running deals, etc. These sorts of incentives appear to be baked into the business model. Plus, they seem to be backed by some extremely deep pockets, given that they are making these large initial loans to hundreds of restaurants/bars throughout the country to begin with.
FYI, these deals flying around right now are nothing like what was flying around even earlier this year. They were literally giving 50 off 50, 50 off 100 all sorts of heavy discounts. That doesn't even count the restaurant specific pieces.
PROTIP: Go to the website of a restaurant you want to go to that is on the platform. Often on the home page it'll pop up with an offer. YOu punch in your ph/email and you'll get a resto specific coupon. from 15/45, 25/50, 25/75, 30/90 all the way up to 50/150.
I thought those restaurant specific coupons were only for new users/sign up bonuses? Have you been able to add them to an existing account ? Or do you just keep making new accounts 😆
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The entire concept is pretty interesting. A restaurant in need of cash gets a $20k infusion (just using this as an example) into its business. In exchange, they agree to $40k (appears to be a minimum of 2x the original loan amount) in store credit to be used to repay the loan. InKind uses the $40k in store credit to offer 20% cashback, $25 off $50 coupons, discounted GCs, selling giftcards through Costco promotions, etc, to repay the loan they made to the business. Any overages on a check inKind pockets when you pay through their app.
In reviewing the restaurant marketing materials online, 2x the loan amount in store credit appears to be the minimum starting point for the loan from what I gather, but depending on, I'm assuming, how desperate the business is for cash, etc, there may be worse multipliers a business could consent to, to secure their loan.
The restaurant benefits from an immediate cash flow improvement that smooths out rough spots, especially when a traditional loan approval is probably unlikely (since they are struggling). Additionally, it serves as a form of marketing for their business. New customers are enticed to come try places they otherwise wouldn't have. Once the debt is repaid and the restaurant is no longer on inKind, the business may gain a new customer, provided the experience was positive and you're inclined to return.
Not sure if every restaurant's margins can support this sort of arrangement, but overall, it will probably keep some struggling businesses afloat when a cash flow crunch might have otherwise caused them to close their doors.
I wouldn't be too worried about inKind running deals, etc. These sorts of incentives appear to be baked into the business model. Plus, they seem to be backed by some extremely deep pockets, given that they are making these large initial loans to hundreds of restaurants/bars throughout the country to begin with.
Hey thanks for the details. I've been wondering how this works on the business side. Do you think most restaurants that use InKind are struggling significantly? Should we be worried they may close?
The entire concept is pretty interesting. A restaurant in need of cash gets a $20k infusion (just using this as an example) into its business. In exchange, they agree to $40k (appears to be a minimum of 2x the original loan amount) in store credit to be used to repay the loan. InKind uses the $40k in store credit to offer 20% cashback, $25 off $50 coupons, discounted GCs, selling giftcards through Costco promotions, etc, to repay the loan they made to the business. Any overages on a check inKind pockets when you pay through their app.
In reviewing the restaurant marketing materials online, 2x the loan amount in store credit appears to be the minimum starting point for the loan from what I gather, but depending on, I'm assuming, how desperate the business is for cash, etc, there may be worse multipliers a business could consent to, to secure their loan.
The restaurant benefits from an immediate cash flow improvement that smooths out rough spots, especially when a traditional loan approval is probably unlikely (since they are struggling). Additionally, it serves as a form of marketing for their business. New customers are enticed to come try places they otherwise wouldn't have. Once the debt is repaid and the restaurant is no longer on inKind, the business may gain a new customer, provided the experience was positive and you're inclined to return.
Not sure if every restaurant's margins can support this sort of arrangement, but overall, it will probably keep some struggling businesses afloat when a cash flow crunch might have otherwise caused them to close their doors.
I wouldn't be too worried about inKind running deals, etc. These sorts of incentives appear to be baked into the business model. Plus, they seem to be backed by some extremely deep pockets, given that they are making these large initial loans to hundreds of restaurants/bars throughout the country to begin with.
What if the restaurant can't repay the loan? Seems risky for inKind.
Would imagine it's different for every business and really depends on their margins, etc. A brewery (with alcohol margins) on inKind might be different from, say, a quick casual restaurant (tighter food margins). So I don't think all the restaurants on there are struggling, but some definitely are. I had a restaurant show up in Explore on inKind, and when I went to Google them, I saw that they had permanently closed recently.
I thought those restaurant specific coupons were only for new users/sign up bonuses? Have you been able to add them to an existing account ? Or do you just keep making new accounts 😆
No need to make new accounts. Just keep adding them to your rewards. I seem to always have at least 1 or 2 of these offers in my account.
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I've cycled through a few thousand already.
FYI, these deals flying around right now are nothing like what was flying around even earlier this year. They were literally giving 50 off 50, 50 off 100 all sorts of heavy discounts. That doesn't even count the restaurant specific pieces.
PROTIP: Go to the website of a restaurant you want to go to that is on the platform. Often on the home page it'll pop up with an offer. YOu punch in your ph/email and you'll get a resto specific coupon. from 15/45, 25/50, 25/75, 30/90 all the way up to 50/150.
I purchased more than $17,000 of InKind credit as part of levering an AMEX deal that offered ~13X Membership rewards points on "restaurant spend." InKind coded as a "restaurant" so it was a great way to stash money for later use while still earning enough points to fly to Hong Kong round trip more than six times.
In addition to the points, InKind gave me 45%+ bonus credit on the money I plunked down.
Verdict? It has been completely awesome. The cost of eating out has been cut almost in half. We've tried all sorts of places we never would have thought to go. If you go to NYC, there are a bazillion places you can eat. We've enjoyed three vacations there without a care in the world about food costs.
InKind often offers additional bonuses on particular restaurants, say, $50 off of a $150 bill. Spend the requisite amount, and you get the additional discount. They often have these random $25/off coupons.
Pro tip: InKind credit can often be used for catering. My son has a Bar Mitzvah this weekend. We're having about $2000 in food delivered, all purchased with InKind.
Pro tip #2: read the terms of the credit carefully if you're going to play the same game as me with a huge buy. You get bonus credit that expires in 3 years. You get base credit (for the dollars spent) that will last the life of inKind -- no expiration. The fine print you gotta pay attention to: your base dollars will get used up BEFORE your bonus credit. So you should really have a clear plan to burn through whatever you buy and are bonused in a three year timeframe. That's why I didn't end up with $21,000 of inKind credit, LOL.
InKind restaurants will come and go. Each restaurant makes a time-limited contract with InKind, and will tend to drop off once they've gotten the money or free advertising they wanted from the service. This is normal and should be expected. New restaurants will take their place.
People who are worried about the durability of inKind itself should look through Crunchbase or a similar database of VC funding. You can see how many hundreds of millions they've gleaned from venture capital, and make a guesstimate about how long they can afford to do this.
We love inKind. What they're basically doing is introducing a "tiered pricing model" to restaurants. People like me who are too cheap to feel good about dropping $150+ on dinner may be willing to pay half that. InKind offers restauranteurs a way to do that. Secondarily, it enables them to keep paying staff: your tip isn't payable with InKind credit. So everyone sort of wins, here. The incremental cost to the restaurant of providing you a dish of food doesn't approach its sales price. You end up with a dinner that seems affordable. And the restaurant gets free financing and free advertising that it may or may not need.
In reviewing the restaurant marketing materials online, 2x the loan amount in store credit appears to be the minimum starting point for the loan from what I gather, but depending on, I'm assuming, how desperate the business is for cash, etc, there may be worse multipliers a business could consent to, to secure their loan.
The restaurant benefits from an immediate cash flow improvement that smooths out rough spots, especially when a traditional loan approval is probably unlikely (since they are struggling). Additionally, it serves as a form of marketing for their business. New customers are enticed to come try places they otherwise wouldn't have. Once the debt is repaid and the restaurant is no longer on inKind, the business may gain a new customer, provided the experience was positive and you're inclined to return.
Not sure if every restaurant's margins can support this sort of arrangement, but overall, it will probably keep some struggling businesses afloat when a cash flow crunch might have otherwise caused them to close their doors.
I wouldn't be too worried about inKind running deals, etc. These sorts of incentives appear to be baked into the business model. Plus, they seem to be backed by some extremely deep pockets, given that they are making these large initial loans to hundreds of restaurants/bars throughout the country to begin with.
90 Comments
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank p00hdiddy
I bought 500 this last go around.
I've cycled through a few thousand already.
FYI, these deals flying around right now are nothing like what was flying around even earlier this year. They were literally giving 50 off 50, 50 off 100 all sorts of heavy discounts. That doesn't even count the restaurant specific pieces.
PROTIP: Go to the website of a restaurant you want to go to that is on the platform. Often on the home page it'll pop up with an offer. YOu punch in your ph/email and you'll get a resto specific coupon. from 15/45, 25/50, 25/75, 30/90 all the way up to 50/150.
In reviewing the restaurant marketing materials online, 2x the loan amount in store credit appears to be the minimum starting point for the loan from what I gather, but depending on, I'm assuming, how desperate the business is for cash, etc, there may be worse multipliers a business could consent to, to secure their loan.
The restaurant benefits from an immediate cash flow improvement that smooths out rough spots, especially when a traditional loan approval is probably unlikely (since they are struggling). Additionally, it serves as a form of marketing for their business. New customers are enticed to come try places they otherwise wouldn't have. Once the debt is repaid and the restaurant is no longer on inKind, the business may gain a new customer, provided the experience was positive and you're inclined to return.
Not sure if every restaurant's margins can support this sort of arrangement, but overall, it will probably keep some struggling businesses afloat when a cash flow crunch might have otherwise caused them to close their doors.
I wouldn't be too worried about inKind running deals, etc. These sorts of incentives appear to be baked into the business model. Plus, they seem to be backed by some extremely deep pockets, given that they are making these large initial loans to hundreds of restaurants/bars throughout the country to begin with.
I bought 500 this last go around.
I've cycled through a few thousand already.
FYI, these deals flying around right now are nothing like what was flying around even earlier this year. They were literally giving 50 off 50, 50 off 100 all sorts of heavy discounts. That doesn't even count the restaurant specific pieces.
PROTIP: Go to the website of a restaurant you want to go to that is on the platform. Often on the home page it'll pop up with an offer. YOu punch in your ph/email and you'll get a resto specific coupon. from 15/45, 25/50, 25/75, 30/90 all the way up to 50/150.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
In reviewing the restaurant marketing materials online, 2x the loan amount in store credit appears to be the minimum starting point for the loan from what I gather, but depending on, I'm assuming, how desperate the business is for cash, etc, there may be worse multipliers a business could consent to, to secure their loan.
The restaurant benefits from an immediate cash flow improvement that smooths out rough spots, especially when a traditional loan approval is probably unlikely (since they are struggling). Additionally, it serves as a form of marketing for their business. New customers are enticed to come try places they otherwise wouldn't have. Once the debt is repaid and the restaurant is no longer on inKind, the business may gain a new customer, provided the experience was positive and you're inclined to return.
Not sure if every restaurant's margins can support this sort of arrangement, but overall, it will probably keep some struggling businesses afloat when a cash flow crunch might have otherwise caused them to close their doors.
I wouldn't be too worried about inKind running deals, etc. These sorts of incentives appear to be baked into the business model. Plus, they seem to be backed by some extremely deep pockets, given that they are making these large initial loans to hundreds of restaurants/bars throughout the country to begin with.
In reviewing the restaurant marketing materials online, 2x the loan amount in store credit appears to be the minimum starting point for the loan from what I gather, but depending on, I'm assuming, how desperate the business is for cash, etc, there may be worse multipliers a business could consent to, to secure their loan.
The restaurant benefits from an immediate cash flow improvement that smooths out rough spots, especially when a traditional loan approval is probably unlikely (since they are struggling). Additionally, it serves as a form of marketing for their business. New customers are enticed to come try places they otherwise wouldn't have. Once the debt is repaid and the restaurant is no longer on inKind, the business may gain a new customer, provided the experience was positive and you're inclined to return.
Not sure if every restaurant's margins can support this sort of arrangement, but overall, it will probably keep some struggling businesses afloat when a cash flow crunch might have otherwise caused them to close their doors.
I wouldn't be too worried about inKind running deals, etc. These sorts of incentives appear to be baked into the business model. Plus, they seem to be backed by some extremely deep pockets, given that they are making these large initial loans to hundreds of restaurants/bars throughout the country to begin with.
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