inKind Offers $50 Per Referral Through August — Here’s How The Dining App Can Cut Restaurant Bills By 35%

Through August 31, inKind is offering existing members $50 in dining credit for each new member they refer who signs up and pays a restaurant bill of at least $50. The person being referred gets $25 off that first $50+ bill. The normal referrer bonus is $25, so that reward has doubled. The offer works like this: Sign up through an existing member’s referral link. Pay a food-and-beverage bill of at least $50 before tax and tip through inKind by August 31. The new member gets $25 taken off that bill. The existing member receives $50 in inKind Cash Back. There’s no stated limit on the number of qualifying referrals. That makes referring a spouse or partner especially attractive. One person gets $25 off a $50 meal and the other gets $50 toward a future meal ($75 in household value). The new member can then begin referring other actual new users. Self-referrals and maintaining multiple accounts for the same person violate the terms. Feel free to leave your referral links in the comments. What inKind Actually Is I’ve written a detailed walkthrough of inKind and covered some of its especially aggressive Costco gift-card offers. You dine at a participating restaurant, open the app, select the restaurant and enter or scan the check number. You can then pay using a linked credit card, prepaid inKind credit or earned rewards. Tips are charged to the card on file. There’s no requirement that you make the reservation through inKind. The app is the payment and rewards tool. inKind’s public map now advertises more than 8,400 participating locations. Last December, my app showed 5,632. Even allowing for potentially different ways of counting locations, the network has expanded rapidly. Rewards Network (airline and hotel dining programs) have a lot of restaurants where I don’t want to eat. inKind has managed to sign restaurants I’ve actually been eating at. In Austin, I use it at places including The Well, Waterloo Ice House (the food’s not good, but they have playgrounds for the kids), Peached Tortilla, Wu Chow, Lao’d Bar and Old Thousand. Don’t Assume You’re Getting 20% Back Everywhere inKind used to provide a flat 20% return. It moved to variable earning rates based on the restaurant and sometimes the day. The company advertises up to 20% back, while some app rates and promotions can reach 25%. Cash back is earned only on the food-and-beverage amount charged to a credit card. You don’t earn it on: Tips, service charges or fees Amounts covered by an offer or discount Previously earned inKind Cash Back Prepaid inKind balances The credit card charge codes as dining, so you can still use a card earning bonus points at restaurants. Some inKind payments at restaurants participating in Resy have also triggered the American Express Gold and Platinum Resy credits. Even when paying a bill largely with inKind credit, the tip still goes to the card on file. How Can inKind Give Away This Much? inKind is both a dining program and a restaurant-financing business. It gives restaurants money upfront in exchange for future food and beverage credit, then sells or awards that credit to diners. inKind generally receives $2 in restaurant credit for each $1 it provides in funding. The $25 new member discount plus the $50 referrer reward has a face value of $75. On a simplified two-for-one acquisition model, that credit may have cost inKind about $37.50. The new member still pays $25 toward the first $50 check, plus tax and tip, and may spend beyond the minimum. Some promotional credit will never be redeemed. The apparent $75 giveaway can therefore represent a net customer acquisition cost in the low double digits. The restaurant’s calculation is more complicated. Giving up $2 of future menu-priced food for $1 today is very expensive financing if every dollar is redeemed. But food cost is only a fraction of the menu price; rent and much of labor are already committed. inKind diners frequently spend more than their balances. The restaurant is buying capital, customer acquisition and incremental visits in one transaction. If it fills marginal seats that’s great. It can just be getting a restaurant further into a hole, though. I’ve written about how this resembles the original Transmedia and Rewards Network model. Why The Aggressive Referral Offer Makes Sense Now Earlier this year inKind announced that it had closed $450 million in capital, after already providing more than $600 million to over 6,000 restaurants. This is a two-sided marketplace. Acquiring thousands of restaurants and purchasing a mountain of future dining credit only works if inKind also brings in enough diners to use it. The company has expanded the supply side aggressively. The doubled referral reward helps the demand side. The Expiration Isn’t Quite As Bad As It First Appears Earned inKind Cash Back expires at the end of the second calendar month following the month in which it was earned. Credit earned in August therefore expires October 31. However, inKind’s current terms say the expiration date resets when you: Redeem credit at a participating restaurant Purchase inKind Cash Add an external inKind gift card Receive additional Cash Back from a qualifying referral That still creates breakage among occasional users, but an active user can keep extending the balance. The amount you actually pay when purchasing prepaid inKind Cash never expires; only the promotional portion expires after three years. How Good Is This Opportunity? For a new user, the $25-off-$50 referral offer is an easy win. There’s no prepayment and little reason not to use it if there’s a suitable restaurant nearby. For an existing user, $50 per successful referral is excellent if you can refer people who will actually complete a $50 transaction by August 31. It’s especially useful within a household because the benefits remain available for meals you’re collectively paying for anyway. The broader inKind opportunity is much larger than this referral promotion, but only in markets where the restaurant list works for you. Check the map for restaurants you would choose without any discount. Join through a referral and use the $25-off-$50 offer first, paying the remainder with a strong dining-rewards card. Refer actual new users while the $50 offer is available. Check the Promotions section before each meal. Use earned Cash Back before tying up more money. Buy prepaid credit only when you have identifiable future use, especially during one of the 30%–35% third-party sales. (HT: Danny Deal Guru) Topics on this page